Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 232 April/May 2013

Cuban children guard the ballot boxes in Cuban elections

On 24 February 2013, a new government was formed in Cuba when the recently elected delegates to the National Assembly of People’s Power met to vote in the new Council of State. On 3 February, 90.8% of eligible voters had turned out to vote for candidates at provincial and national levels. Massive voter turnout is usual in socialist Cuba where the masses are politically engaged. VICTORIA SMITH reports.

Cubans over the age of 16 vote every two and a half years for representatives to the Municipal Assemblies of People’s Power and every five years for representatives to Provincial Assemblies. Half of 614 delegates voted into the National Assembly are voted up from Municipal and Provincial Assemblies, whilst the other half represent the various organisations of the masses.

Candidates cannot self-nominate, nor be nominated by any political party, not even the Cuban Communist Party (CCP), as there are no ‘party candidates’ in Cuban elections. Candidates represent their constituents, thus preventing conflicts between party and public interests. Candidates are nominated by their peers in open and public assemblies. Their nomination is based on merit, which in Cuba means their contribution to the community. Elected officials retain their existing employment and salaries, with travel expenses only received by delegates to Provincial Assemblies and to the National Assembly of People’s Power. There is no financial incentive to be a politician in Cuba, as there is in bourgeois democracies. Also, unlike in Britain, Cubans have the right to recall their elected representatives who must ‘render account’ at least twice a year to their constituents, to engage in criticism and self-criticism and ensure that they are working for the people.

Following this year’s elections, 49% of delegates in the National Assembly are women (compared to 25% of MPs in Britain) and 37% are black or mixed race, closely matching population statistics. The result reflects the determination within the socialist Revolution to combat gender and race discrimination, and encourage the traditionally oppressed sectors of society to take a leadership role.

The National Assembly then elected the 31-member Council of State (41.9% women and 38.6% black or mixed race), which has the authority to exercise legislative power between meetings of the Assembly. The Council of State then elected Raul Castro as its President. He is also the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CCP. In his speech to the National Assembly Raul Castro reiterated: ‘I was not elected President to restore capitalism in Cuba, not to surrender the Revolution. I was elected to defend, maintain and continue perfecting socialism, not to destroy it.’ He also restated two proposed changes to the Cuban Constitution which would limit ‘to a maximum of two consecutive five-year terms the principal positions of state and government, and to establish maximum ages for occupying these positions’. He confirmed that this would be his last mandate, ending in 2018.

That announcement excited the bourgeois media, but behind their hysteria the reality is that Cuba has a strong cadre policy, bringing new and young people into leadership at local, regional and national levels in numerous sectors and grass roots organisations. 61.3% of the National Assembly were born after the Revolution seized power in 1959. The Assembly went on to elect Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez as First Vice-President of the Council of State. Diaz-Canel is 52 years old and was born after the Revolution. Like most Cubans, Diaz-Canel has military training, he is an electronic engineer and has worked first in the Union of Young Communists and then in the CCP for 30 years. He served on an internationalist mission in Nicaragua and has been Minister for Higher Education, Vice President of the Council of Ministers and participates in the government’s Financial Economic Commission and the CCP’s Political Bureau’s Commission supervising the implementation of the guidelines for updating the Cuban economy approved by the 6th session of the CCP Congress in 2011.

Raul described Diaz-Canel’s election as ‘of particular historical significance because it represents a definitive step in the configuration of the country’s future leadership, via the gradual and orderly transfer of the principal positions to the new generations’.

Published in Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! April/May 2013

Protesters greet Yoani Sanchez in Brazil, first stop in her 80-day tour

International prize-winning Cuban opposition ‘blogger’, Yoani Sanchez, is touring 12 countries over three continents in 80 days. She plays the lead in a grotesque circus performance which sees a handful of counter-revolutionaries jet-set to high-profile platforms, mainly in the US and Europe, to call for ‘regime change’ in Cuba. Others include Berta Soler, from the Ladies in White, and fellow ‘blogger’ Eliecer Avila. This follows the relaxation of Cuban migration legislation earlier this year (see FRFI 230). The tours are exposing the hypocrisy of these so-called champions of human rights and their links to imperialist interests. Helen Yaffe reports.*

Sanchez’s blogging activity was evidently conceived as part of a renewed strategy by US imperialism and its allies to generate a viable opposition in Cuba. The socialist Revolution had survived the economic crisis of the Special Period and was forging new anti-imperialist alliances in Latin America. The existing opposition in Cuba had no relevance to ordinary Cubans. In March 2013, 75 so-called ‘dissidents’ had been arrested and were subsequently tried and imprisoned for breaking Cuban laws and assisting the US programme of ‘regime change’. Sanchez spearheaded the formation of a new group of mercenaries to be seen as politically less crude, technologically more modern and financially less overtly linked to US imperialism.

In 2002, despite already being married to a Cuban man, Yoani Sanchez married a German citizen and emigrated to wealthy Switzerland. Citing ‘economic difficulties’ in Switzerland as her motive, Sanchez returned to Cuba just two years later; a place she called ‘an immense ideological prison’, where ‘shadowy figures feed off our human joy, terrorising us with violence, threats and blackmail’. Her blog Generation Y began in 2007. The following year, Sanchez won numerous international journalism and ‘human rights’ awards, despite being unknown and with no track record, ‘from countries that have actively pursued polices of usurping Cuban sovereignty’ (Willis and Alfonso, ‘The Curious Case of Yoani Sanchez’, Counterpunch, 20 March 2013). These prizes earned her over $320,000, equivalent to 1,488 years of the minimum salary in Cuba. Sanchez also receives a monthly salary of $10,000, paid by SIP IAPA (a group of Latin American big media corporations) and the Spanish daily El Pais. In 2008 Time magazine listed Sanchez among its top 100 most influential people.

Sanchez cites denial of access to the internet as among the violations of human rights in Cuba. She blames the Cuban government, not the US government whose blockade prohibits Cuba connecting to 30 optic fibre cables which circle the island. Yet Sanchez blogs daily. Her blog accepts Paypal, displays a copyright notice and registers a domain through a US company – ‘freedoms’ prohibited to most Cubans by the US blockade. Sanchez frequently uses the US and other embassies to access the internet. Her blog is available in 18 languages: ‘No other website in the world – not even the sites of important international agencies, such as the UN, the World Bank, the IMF…offer this degree of linguistic support…Who finances the translations?’ asks Salim Lamrani, a lecturer in Paris and specialist on Cuba-US relations. Even more fantastic, Sanchez has 400,000 followers on Twitter (just 100 of them in Cuba) and follows 80,000 Twitter users. She claims to tweet via SMS connection without internet access. Her 400 messages a month in 2011, costing $1.25 each, cost Sanchez $7,000 in one year of tweeting alone. Followerwonk.com reveals that 50,000 of Sanchez’s followers are ‘ghost accounts’. ‘Who financed the creation of fictitious Twitter accounts?’, Lamrani asks.

Prolific she may be, but Sanchez does not blog about her regular meetings with US and European diplomats in Havana. Wikileaks revealed that Sanchez met secretly with US Assistant Secretary of State Bisa Williams in Havana in September 2010 and that former head of the US Interest Section in Havana, Michael Parmly, stated ‘I would be very distressed if the many conversations I have had with Yoani Sanchez were disclosed. She could suffer the consequences her entire life.’

On tour in 2013, Sanchez’s first stop was Brazil, where she was greeted at the airport and in the auditorium by protesters accusing her of being a CIA agent. Her visit was financed by the US embassy, sections of the Brazilian right and major media corporations. Next, in the Czech Republic, Sanchez met up with Eliecer Avila. This part of the tour was financed by People in Need, an organisation created and financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a front for the CIA, which is funded largely by the US Congress under the budget for USAID. Between 2006 and 2011, People in Need received over $675,000 from NED to disseminate material and organise events against Cuba. To avoid the protests that occurred in Brazil and threaten to undermine the circus, the university meeting in Prague was a closed event. Nonetheless, supporters of the Cuban Revolution were among the 50 participants and challenged Sanchez and Avila.

Protests followed Sanchez to Spain, where the meeting she addressed was almost empty and so many thousands of people tweeted critical questions that her links to the CIA became a ‘trending topic’. In Mexico, she was met by protesters on arrival at the meeting with SIP IAPA, who pay her $6,000 a month. Whilst appealing to the Mexican government to push Cuba on the question of human rights violations, she refused to meet the families of murdered Mexican journalists.

In New York in mid-March Sanchez was met by protests in the public meetings she addressed. In the New School, fed-up with the filtering of pre-written audience questions, protesters chanted, threw US dollar bills printed with Sanchez’s face on them and held up placards which were ripped up before protesters were physically removed. About her security on return to Cuba, Sanchez said ‘I'm sure the defamation, the firing squad, surveillance, control over my phone line, the oppression on my family will increase, but it was worth it.’ Ironically, the safest place for Sanchez is clearly in Cuba where she is paid little attention and attracts no protests.

In Mexico Sanchez had complained that: ‘Any opponent was dismissed as a US agent, a mercenary recruited by the CIA or the Pentagon’. In Washington, she demonstrated just how close she is to the imperialists. Sanchez visited the US Congress to a ‘rock star reception…worthy of a foreign dignity’ (Miami Herald, 19 March). She was received by TV cameras, and Cuban-Americans, Democrat Joe Garcia and Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, both arch-imperialists and supporters of terrorism who advocate tightening the illegal US blockade of Cuba. Earlier in her trip, Sanchez said the US blockade of Cuba should be ended; it served as an excuse by the Cuban government for its failings. Once in front of US lawmakers, however, she did not make this demand, but instead requested an increased US commitment to regime change: ‘we need you to rebuild our country’ she said. She said nothing about the one place in Cuba where human rights violations, including torture, are systematic – Guantanamo Naval Base, territory illegally occupied by the United States since 1903, where over 100 detainees are currently on hunger-strike. The Miami Herald reported that on 20 March Sanchez would meet with Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio and members of the US government State Department. Appropriately, on April Fool’s Day she will take her diatribe against Cuban socialism to Miami’s Freedom Tower, the place where the Cuban bourgeoisie who fled into exile from revolutionary Cuba in the 1960s were received. The Sanchez circus will continue until late May.

Between 1 October 1995 and 30 September 2011, the US Congress allocated $205 million for programmes to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. In recent years these have been focussed on ‘information technology, particularly on supporting independent bloggers and developing social networking platforms on the island’ (US Government Accountability Office report ‘Cuba Assistance Democracy’, 25 January 2013). Yoani Sanchez is a beneficiary of this policy and she must be exposed as such.

* Thanks to Salim Lamrani from whose ‘40 questions for Yoani Sanchez’ this borrows heavily. See www.ratb.org.uk/news/cuba/298-40-questions-yoani-sanchez

Este artículo fue originalmente escrito en ingles para el periodical Britanico Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! y será disponible pronto aquí.

Los partidarios de la Revolución cubana protesta contra Sánchez en una reunión en São Paulo

Ganadora de premios internacionales, la ‘blogera’ opositora cubana, Yoani Sánchez, está de gira por 12 países en tres continentes en 80 días. Ella interpreta el papel principal en un espectáculo de circo grotesco donde se ve un pequeño grupo de contrarrevolucionarios ‘jet-set’ a plataformas de alto perfil, principalmente en los EEUU y Europa, llamando a un ‘cambio de régimen’ en Cuba. Otros incluyen Berta Soler, de las llamadas Damas de Blanco y colega 'blogero' Eliécer Ávila. Esto ocurre después de la actualización de leyes migratorias cubanas a principios de este año (ver FRFI 230). Las giras están exponiendo la hipocresía de estos supuestos campeones de los derechos humanos y sus vínculos con los intereses imperialistas.*

Evidentemente la actividad de Sánchez como blogera fue concebida como parte de una estrategia renovada por el imperialismo de EEUU y sus aliados para generar una oposición viable en Cuba después del año 2000. En este momento la revolución socialista había sobrevivido a la crisis económica del período especial y fue forjando nuevas alianzas antiimperialistas en América Latina, además la oposición en Cuba no tenían ninguna relevancia para los cubanos. En marzo de 2003, 75 de los llamados ‘disidentes’ fueron detenidos y posteriormente fueron juzgados y encarcelados por violar las leyes cubanas - asistiendo al programa de EEUU de ‘cambio de régimen’. Sánchez encabezó la formación de un nuevo grupo de mercenarios para ser vistos como políticamente menos crudo, tecnológicamente más modernos y financialmente menos abiertamente ligados a EEUU.

En 2002, a pesar de ya estar casada con un cubano, Yoani Sánchez se casó con una ciudadano alemán y emigró a Suiza uno de los países mas ricos de Europa. Citando ‘dificultades económicas’ en Suiza como su motivo, Sánchez regresó a Cuba sólo dos años más tarde, al lugar que ella llama ‘una inmensa prisión ideológica’, donde ‘figuras sombrías se alimentan de nuestra alegría humana, nos aterroriza con violencia, las amenazas y el chantaje’. Su blog Generación Y comenzó en 2007. Al año siguiente, Sánchez ganó numerosos premios del periodismo internacional y 'derechos humanos', a pesar de ser desconocido y sin antecedentes, ‘muchos de estos premios provienen de países que han adoptado activamente políticas para usurpar la soberanía de Cuba’ (Willis y Alfonso, El curioso caso de Yoani Sánchez, Counterpunch, 20 de marzo de 2013). Estos premios suman más de $320.000, equivalente a 1.488 años del salario mínimo en Cuba. Sánchez también recibe un salario mensual de 10.000 dólares, pagados por la Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa (SIP), y el diario español El País. En 2008 la revista Time listó Sánchez entre sus 100 personas más influyentes.

Sánchez cita a la denegación del acceso a Internet como una de las violaciones de los derechos humanos en Cuba. Ella culpa al gobierno cubano, no el gobierno de los EEUU cuyo bloqueo prohíbe la conexión de Cuba a 30 cables de fibra óptica que rodean la isla. Sin embargo, Sánchez ‘bloguea’ diariamente. Su blog acepta PayPal, muestra un aviso de ‘copyright’ y su dominio esta registrado en una empresa de EEUU – ‘libertades’ prohibidos a los demás cubanos por el bloqueo de EEUU. Sánchez utiliza con frecuencia las embajadas de EEUU y otras para acceder al Internet. Su blog está disponible en 18 idiomas: ‘Ningún otro sitio del mundo, incluso los de las más importantes instituciones internacionales como por ejemplo las Naciones Unidas, el Banco Mundial, el Fondo Monetario Internacional…dispone de tantas versiones lingüísticas.... ¿Quién financia las traducciones?’, pregunta Salim Lamrani, profesor en París y especialista en las relaciones EEUU-Cuba. Aún más fantástico, Sánchez tiene 400.000 seguidores en Twitter (sólo 100 de ellos en Cuba) y sigue 80.000 usuarios de Twitter. Afirma ‘Twitteo vía SMS sin acceso a la web’. Dado sus 400 mensajes al mes en 2011, con un costo de $ 1.25 cada uno, Sánchez  gastó $7.000 en un año solamente con el uso de Twitter. Followerwonk.com revela que 50.000 de los seguidores de Sánchez son ‘cuentas fantasmas’. ‘¿Quién financió la creación de cuentas ficticias?’ pregunta Lamrani.

Por muy prolíficos que sean sus escritos, Sánchez no escribe en su blog sobre sus frecuentes reuniones con los diplomáticos de EEUU y Europa en La Habana. Wikileaks reveló que Sánchez se reunió en secreto con el Subsecretario de Estado de gobierno de EEUU, Bisa Williams, en La Habana en septiembre de 2010 y que el ex jefe de la Sección de Intereses de EEUU en La Habana, Michael Parmly, declaró, ‘Yo estaría muy disgustado si muchas de las conversaciones que he tenido con Yoani Sánchez fueran reveladas. Ella podría sufrir las consecuencias durante toda su vida’.

De gira en 2013, la primera parada de Sánchez fue Brasil, donde fue recibida en el aeropuerto y en la sala de reuniones por manifestantes quienes la acusaban de ser agente de la CIA. Su visita fue financiada por la embajada de EEUU, sectores de la derecha brasileña y algunas grandes corporaciones de comunicación. A continuación, en la República Checa, Sánchez se reunió con Eliécer Ávila. Esta parte del viaje fue financiado por People in Need, organización creada y financiada por la National Endowment for Democracy (NED), una fachada de la CIA, financiada en gran parte por el Congreso de los EEUU bajo el presupuesto de la USAID. Entre 2006 y 2011, People in Need recibió más de 675.000 dólares de la NED para difundir material y organizar eventos contra Cuba. Para evitar las protestas que tuvieron lugar en Brasil y amenazaron con socavar el circo, el encuentro universitario en Praga fue un evento cerrado. Sin embargo, partidarios de la revolución cubana se encontraban entre los 50 participantes y cuestionaron Sánchez y Ávila.

Las protestas siguieron a Sánchez hasta España, donde habló en una salón casi vacío y tantos miles de personas hicieron preguntas críticas en Twitter al punto que su vínculo con la CIA se convirtió en uno de los temas más populares de Twitter. En México, fue recibida por manifestantes a su llegada a la reunión con la SIP, quienes le pagan $6.000 por mes. Mientras apelando al gobierno mexicano a presionar Cuba sobre cuestión de violaciones de derechos humanos, Sánchez negó a reunirse con las familiares de periodistas mexicanos asesinados.

A mediados de marzo Sánchez  fue recibido en Nueva York con más protestas en las reuniones públicas donde participó. En la New School, miembros de la audiencia, harta de la selección de preguntas previamente escritas, comenzaron gritar, lanzar billetes de dólares impresos con la cara de Sánchez y levantar pancartas, cuales fueron arrebatadas antes de ser obligados a salir. Acerca de su seguridad en su regreso a Cuba, Sánchez dijo: ‘Estoy seguro de que la difamación, el pelotón de ejecución, la vigilancia, el control de la línea telefónica, la opresión de mi familia va a aumentar, pero valió la pena.’ Irónicamente, el lugar más seguro para Sánchez es Cuba, donde se le presta poca atención y no atrae protestas.

En México, Sánchez se había quejado de que: ‘Cualquier oponente fue rechazado como un agente de EEUU, un mercenario contratado por la CIA o el Pentágono.’ En Washington, ella demostró que cerca está de los imperialistas. Sánchez visitó el Congreso de los EEUU donde fue recibida como una ‘estrella de rock’, recepción ‘digna de una dignatario extranjero’ (Miami Herald, 19 de marzo). Fue recibida por las cámaras de televisión y los cubanoamericanos, demócrata Joe García y republicanos Ileana Ros-Lehtinen y Mario Diaz-Balart, ambos fuertes imperialistas y partidarios del terrorismo quienes abogan por el recrudecimiento del ilegal bloqueo de EEUU contra Cuba. Al principio de su viaje, Sánchez había dicho que el bloqueo de EEUU contra Cuba debe ser terminado; que sirve como excusa para el gobierno cubano de sus fracasos. Sin embargo una vez frente a los legisladores de Estados Unidos, ella no hizo esta demanda, sino que pidió una mayor compromiso de EEUU con el cambio de régimen: ‘Necesitamos de ustedes para reconstruir nuestro país’ dijo. Ella no dijo nada sobre el único lugar en Cuba donde violaciones de derechos humanos, incluyendo torturas, son sistemáticas – la Base Naval de Guantánamo, territorio ilegalmente ocupado por los Estados Unidos desde 1903, donde más de 100 detenidos se encuentran actualmente en huelga de hambre. El Miami Herald informó que el 20 de marzo Sánchez se reunirá con cubanoamericano senador Marco Rubio y los miembros del Departamento de Estado del gobierno de EEUU. Qué apropiado que el Día de las Bromas de Abril (April Fool’s Day) ella llevara su diatriba contra el socialismo cubano a la Torre de la Libertad de Miami, el lugar donde se recibió la burguesía cubana que huyó al exilio de Cuba revolucionaria en 1960. El circo de Sánchez continuará hasta finales de mayo.

Entre el 1 de octubre 1995 y 30 de septiembre de 2011, el Congreso de los EEUU asignó $205 millones para programas de derrocamiento de la Revolución cubana. En estos últimos años se han centrado en ‘tecnología de la información, sobre todo en el apoyo a los ‘blogeros independientes’ y el desarrollo de plataformas de redes sociales en la isla’ (Informe de la Oficina de Responsabilidad Gubernamental de EEUU, ‘Cuba  Asistencia Democracia’, 25 de enero de 2013). Yoani Sánchez es una beneficiaria de esta política y debe ser expuesta como tal.

* Gracias a Salim Lamrani y sus ‘40 preguntas para Yoani Sánchez’ fuente principal de este articulo.

Helen Yaffe es autor del libro Che Guevara: economía en revolución, publicado en Cuba, febrero de 2012. El libro fue publicado inicialmente en ingles como Che Guevara: economy in revolution, por Palgrave Macmillan in 2009.

 

The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on 5 March 2013, after a two year battle against cancer, has seen commentators polarised on his contribution and legacy. Critics have labelled him a ‘tyrant’ and ‘undemocratic’. Supporters point out that he won 15 out of 16 elections in Venezuela since 1998; elections described as free and fair by international bodies.

His opponents have described the Venezuelan economy as in crisis, but at 5.5% in 2012 Venezuela’s GDP growth is positively flourishing compared to crisis-ridden Europe. This is not just down to oil price rises. Construction grew 12.6% in the third quarter of 2012, fuelled by major government infrastructure programmes; including a project to build 3 million units of social housing by 2019. 700,000 homes have been built since April 2011. Poverty decreased by nearly 50% since 2003, with extreme poverty falling by over 70%; a reduction ‘unparalleled in Latin America’ (Brookings Institute).

Chavez’s 14 year-mandate saw the eradication of illiteracy and provision of free health care and education. The number of doctors per person increased by 400%, consequently, between 2003 and 2011, 1.7 million lives were saved and 1.5 million Venezuelans with reversible blindness recovered their sight as part of Operation Miracle, a cooperative health programme with Cuba. Thousands more babies have survived, people live longer, a far higher proportion of children attend schools, more homes can access clean drinking water and nutritious food. Historically disenfranchised communities have been given a stake in local power through the establishment of ‘communal councils’, institutions that Chavez was urging to take a greater role as part of ‘socialism for the 21^st century’.

Meanwhile, particularly after the failed coup of 2002 and the oil industry strike in 2002/3, Chavez made inroads against the ‘free market’, raising corporate taxes, nationalising businesses, expropriating and redistributing land. This attack on the sanctity of the market and private property fuelled opposition to Chavez. ‘Truth’ depends on whose perspective is presented; in this case whether it is the privileged Venezuelan elite and domestic and foreign corporate interests or the previously dispossessed majority who saw (and demanded) tangible improvements to their lives. 

Chavez’s impact spilled far beyond the borders of Venezuela, as the attendance of some 33 heads of state at this funeral testifies. Fidel Castro described Chavez as ‘the best friend the Cuban people ever had in their history’. In 2000, Chavez began trading Venezuelan oil for Cuban healthcare and education assistance. This form of barter exchange based on the resource strengths and socio-economic needs of those countries became the modus operandi for the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA,) incorporating seven additional neighbouring countries into a cooperation treaty that fosters sustainable and human-centred development, countering political interference and economic domination by the US and Europe.

Chavez was openly inspired by Cuban socialism and in October 2007, on the 40^th anniversary of Che Guevara’s death, he stated: ‘I have discovered Che the critical thinker, Che the transformer of the economic system, Che of the stage of industrialisation in Cuba…Che and his criticisms of the Soviet model and the Soviet Manual [of Political Economy]…’

Like Che, Chavez met an early death. Also like Che, while his opponents pour scorn on his legacy, his supporters will hold up his image as a symbol resistance and liberation in Latin America for many years to come. 

In March 2011, the book Cooperativas y Socialism: Una Mirada Desde Cuba, edited by Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, was published in Havana. Chapter 5 was written by me: El Che Guevara: las cooperativas y la economía política de la transición al socialismo.This publication is available free here. Please feel free to circulate widely.

The book has now been translated and published in English as Cooperatives and Socialism: a View From Cuba, by Palgrave Macmillan - with a somewhat less enticing cover. Unfortunately, it is only available in hardback and costs a hefty £75. But if you can order it into your academic or local library, then please do. 

The book is divided into four sections: Part 1, what is a cooperative; Part 2, cooperatives and socialist thinkers (which includes my chapter Che Guevara: Cooperatives and the Political Economy of Socialist Transition, and other chapters looking at Marx, Engels and Lenin on cooperatives and self-management); Part 3, cooperatives in other countries (with different chapters looking at experiences in the Basque country, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela); Part 4, cooperatives and Cuba's path to socialism, which includes an overview of the development of agricultural cooperatives in Cuba from 1959 to the present.

The book is interesting, important and timely, which of course is no coincidence. It is published as the process of 'updating' the Cuban economy sees an increased emphasis on cooperatives to solve the problems of incentives and under-employment, and consequent low-productivity and its many consequences, within a socialist framework. An significant expansion of cooperatives, which are emerging for the first outside of agriculture, has already begun and is set to increase in the coming years. 

These questions are addressed to international prize-winning Cuban 'blogger' Yoani Sanchez, who recently began a three-month international tour of the Americas and Europe. They were formulated by Salim Lamrani, a lecturer in France and specialist on relations between Cuba and the US, who, in early 2010 interviewed Yoani Sanchez in a hotel in central Havana. That important and sweeping interview can be found here.

The questions were originally posted on Opera Mundi in French, then reposted in Spanish and translated from Spanish into English by Colin Brayton.

Yoani Sanchez is greeting by supporters of Cuba's revolutionary government in Brazil, first destination after leaving Cuba on 18 February 2013.

40 Questions for Yoani Sánchez, by Salim Lamrani

 

1. Who is organizing and financing your world tour?

 

2. In August 2002, after marrying a German citizen known as Karl G., you left Cuba, describing it as “an immense ideological prison,” emigrating to Switzerland, one of the richest nations in the world. Surprisingly, in 2004, you decided to return to Cuba, which you called “a leaky boat on the verge of foundering,” where “shadowy figures feed off our human joy, terrorizing us with violence, threats and blackmail,” and where “pocketbooks are empty, frustration grows and the reign of terror takes hold.” What motivated your decision to return?

 

3. According to documents from the Cuban diplomatic mission in Berne and the foreign service offices, you asked to be permitted to return because of economic difficulties you experienced in Switzerland. Is that true?

 

4. How could you marry Karl G. if you were already married to your current husband, Reinaldo Escobar?

 

5. Is it still your goal to establish “a sui generis form of capitalism” in Cuba?

 

6. You created your blog, Generación Y, in 2007.  In April 2008 you won the €15,000 Ortega y Gasset journalism prize from the Spanish daily El País. This prize is usually given to prestigious journalists or writers with a distinguished career. This was the first time a person of your stature has won the prize. You were also named one of the 100 most influential persons in the world by Time magazine. Your blog was included in the CNN-Time list of the 25 best blogs in the world and was similarly recognized by Deutsche Welle’s The Bobs. El País included you on its list of the most significant Latin Americans in 2008.  Foreign Policy named you one of the most important intellectuals of the year in December 2008, as did the Mexican magazine Gato Pardo.

The prestigious Columbia University awarded you its María Moors Cabot journalism prize. How do you explain this avalanche of prizes, accompanied by significant amounts of money, after only a year in existence? 

 

7. On what have you spent the 250,000-euro prize money from these sources, which represent the equivalent of 20 years of a French minimum salary … and 1,488 years of a Cuban minimum salary?

 

8. The Interamerican Press Association — SIP-IAPA — a group of major Latin American media groups, named you its regional VP for Cuba, as part of its Commission on Freedom of the Press and Information. What is your monthly salary for this position?

 

9. You are also a correspondent of the Spanish daily El País. What is your monthly salary?

 

10. How many theatre tickets, books, months of rent or pizzas can be bought with your monthly income?

 

11. How do you intend to represent the Cuban people when you enjoy a standard of living that residents of the island can never enjoy? 

 

12. How do you connect to the Internet if, as you claim, Cuban citizens lack access?

 

13. How can your blog accept Paypal, a payment system not available to any island resident because of economic sanctions that affect, among other things, e-commerce?

 

14. How is it that you are able to display a copyright notice — “© 2009 Generación Y — All Rights Reserved” — when no other Cuban blogger can do the same because of the embargo? 

 

15. Who is behind the URL desdecuba.net, whose server is located in Germany and managed by Cronos AG Regensburg, a company registered in the name of Josef Biechele which also hosts extreme right-wing Web sites? 

 

16. How are you able to register your domain through the U.S. company GoDady, when this is formally forbidden under current economic sanctions?

 

17. Your blog is available in 18 languages  — including English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Dutch, Finnish, Korean and Greek. No other Web site in the World — not even the sites of important international agencies, such as the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, OECD or the European Union — offers this degree of linguistic support. Not even the U.S. State Department or the CIA offers this degree of access to non-English speakers. Who finances the translations? 

 

18. How is it possible that the site that hosts your blog offers bandwidth 60 times greater than the Internet access service Cuba offers to its users?

 

19. Who pays for the bandwidth control of 14 million monthly visits?

 

20. You have 400,000 followers on Twitter. Only 100 of them live in Cuba. You yourself follow 80,000 Twitter users. You have stated that you “twit using a SMS connection without Web access.” How can you follow 80,000 persons without having an Internet connection?

 

21. Follower Wonk — http://www.followerwonk.com — enables us to profile the followers of any Twitter user. Starting in 2010 your account has been amazingly active. Starting in June 2010, you were subscribing to 200 different Twitter accounts each day, peaking at some 700 accounts per 24-hour day. How did you accomplish this feat?

 

22. Why are nearly 50,000 of your followers actually ghost accounts or inactive profiles? In fact, of the more than 400,000 profiled followers, 27.012 are “eggs”) (no photo) and 20,000 exhibit the characteristics of “ghost” accounts with zero activity — between zero and three postings since the opening of the account.

 

23. How is it possible that so many Twitter accounts exist only to follow and re-Tweet you, accounting for 2,000 messages? Would you be trying to create a fictitious popularity? Who financed the creation of fictitious Twitter accounts?

 

24. In 2011, you published 400 messages per month. The price of sending one SMS message from Cuba is $1.25. So, you spent $7,000 in one year of Twitter use. Who pays for this? 

 

25. How is it possible for President Obama to grant an interview to you out of the hundreds of requests he receives from news media around the world?

 

26. You have stated publicly that you sent Cuban president Raúl Castro a request for interview after receiving Obama’s responses. An official document from the chief U.S. diplomat in Cuba, Jonathan D. Farrar, states that you never wrote to Raúl Castro: “She was not expecting a response from him, admitting that she had never sent them to the president. Why did you lie?

 

27. Why do you conceal your meetings with U.S. diplomatic personnel in Havana?

 

28. According to documents revealed by Wikileaks, between September 16 and 22 September, 2010, you met secretly in your apartment with assistant Secretary of State Bisa Williams during her visit to Cuba. Why have you remained silent about this meeting? What was discussed during it?

 

29. Michael Parmly, the former U.S. chief of mission in Havana, says that he met regularly with you at your home, as confidential documents from the Cuban intelligence service attest. In an interview, Parmly shared his concern over the diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks: “I would be very distressed if the many conversations I have had with Yoani were disclosed. She could suffer the consequences her entire life.” The question that immediately comes to mind is: Why have you allegedly experienced legal troubles if, as you say, you operate within the bounds of the law?

 

30. Do you still believe that “many Latin American writers deserved the Nobel Prize for Literature more than Gabriel García Márquez did”? 

 

31. Do you continue to believe that “during the Batista dictatorship (1952-58) Cuba enjoyed open and diverse freedom of press coverage and radio programming”?

 

32. In 2010, you said: “The blockade has provided the regime with a perfect excuse to maintain its intolerance, its control and its repression of internal dissent. If economic sanctions were to end tomorrow, I doubt very much that the effects would be felt …”

Did you continue to believe that economic sanctions have had no effect on the Cuban people?

 

33. Do you condemn the imposition of economic sanctions on Cuba?

 

34. Do you condemn the U.S. policy of regime change in Cuba under the banner of democracy, given that the U.S. has supported worse dictators in the Middle East?

 

35. Do you favour the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile and former CIA agent responsible for more than 100 assassinations who has acknowledged his crimes and remains at large in Miami thanks to the protection of Washington?

 

36. Do you favour the return of the naval base at Guantánamo, currently occupied by the U.S?

 

37. Do you favour the freeing of five Cuban political prisoners held in the U.S. since 1998 for having infiltrated Cuban exile groups in Florida?

 

38. In your view, is it normal for the U.S. to finance internal dissidents in order to bring about “regime change”?

 

39. In your view, what have been the accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution?

 

40. What special interests operate behind the scenes of your persona? 

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 231 February-March 2013

 

                                         Enrique Oltuski Osacki, photo by Helen Yaffe

Enrique Oltuski Osacki (18 October 1930-16 December 2012)

Enrique Oltuski made an indelible contribution to the revolutionary struggle in 1950s Cuba, to the process of socialist transition and as member of government until his death, aged 83, on 16 December 2012. Oltuski led the urban wing of the Movement of the 26th July (M26J) in central Cuba in the final year before the Revolution toppled the Batista dictatorship in January 1959. The English publication of his memoirs, Vida Clandestina, was politically important in undermining the lie that Cuba’s urban population was not active in the revolutionary struggle.

Born in Cuba in 1930 to a family of Polish Jewish immigrants, his family lived in Santa Clara in central Cuba, where his parents’ business prospered. Oltuski wanted for nothing, bothered only by the grinding daily poverty around him: ‘I saw barefoot children my own age begging, elderly people dressed in rags. At night women with children in their arms slept in the doorways of public buildings and in parks…we concluded that this had to be changed.’*

Oltuski went to the US where he studied architectural engineering at the University of Miami before working for a couple of years as an architect in Florida, with the intention of setting up his own business in Cuba. He began to read Marx and to learn about the Bolshevik Revolution. Returning to the island on holiday following Batista’s coup in 1952, he was drawn into the revolutionary struggle against the US-backed dictatorship, joining first the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement and, when that was disbanded, the M26J in Havana. In 1955 he moved back to Cuba permanently to take an active role in the struggle. He was employed in the Technical Department at Shell Oil, joining the exclusive Rotary Club and cultivating an image as a promising young entrepreneur as a cover for his revolutionary activities. This activism was necessarily secret because of the brutal repression by the regime.

When Shell Oil sent him to Santa Clara as the technical head of Las Villas, he became responsible for leading the M26J in the province (from January 1958), under the nom de guerre ‘Sierra’. ‘It was an honour, but also your life was in greater danger than ever before,’ he explained.

‘We collected money to buy guns for the armed struggle in the mountains, published the underground press and distributed it to the population; we organised the student and workers movements and we carried out sabotage against the government. We blew up electrical installations, set fire to sugar cane fields that belonged to members of the Batista regime.

We ambushed and killed the Batista police who tortured and murdered our comrades. This was the struggle in the cities and we worked to convince the people through clandestine propaganda that the government were exploiters and that we had to create a government which represented the true interests of the people, that we had to have agrarian reform, educate people, build hospitals to care for the health of the population.’

Oltuski provided a vital link between Che Guevara, who arrived with the Rebel Army column in the Escambray Mountains in central Cuba in October 1958, and the urban movement. The battle for control of Santa Clara, headed by Guevara, was a decisive victory for the revolutionary forces against the Batista regime. Despite some initial disagreements about strategy, Oltuski went on to collaborate closely with Guevara.

Oltuski was one of only three representatives of the M26J to enter the Council of Ministers in the first government in January 1959 as Minister of Communications. In 1960, he joined the Department of Industrialisation to work with Guevara who had been given responsibility for the development and socialisation of Cuban industry. As Director of Organisation, Oltuski helped create the operational shell of the Budgetary Finance System (BFS), Guevara’s innovative system of economic management for the transition to socialism in the concrete conditions in 1960s Cuba.** They studied existing laws, created new laws, formulated the enterprises’ plan of production, decided how to control the factories within different sectors and determined relations between those sectors and the ministry, and between the ministry and the central government. Oltuski recalled: ‘This work took us months. The ideas were taken to the Management Council for debate and approved or adjusted.’ Through the BFS, Guevara attempted to take the structural and managerial efficiencies of the capitalist monopolies and apply them to a socialist framework. Oltuski was key in explaining how those management techniques and organisational structures worked. ‘I had mastered all of these things in my studies in the United States and I applied them in the structure of the enterprises we were creating…We discussed it, Che and I. We spoke about the common structures of both systems – capitalism and socialism.’

In 1961, when the new Ministry of Industries was opened, Oltuski transferred to work under Guevara’s instructions on the Council for Economic Planning (today the Ministry of the Economy and Planning) as vice minister. Later, and until his death, he worked as vice minister in the Ministry of Fishing.

In 2005 in Havana, Oltuski told me: ‘I was lucky to be part of the revolutionary government and to work to develop the ideas that we had since we were young about changing Cuba and building a society in the interests of all the people and not an exploiting minority. We still haven’t finished, there are many things to improve.’ This effort continues, he said, despite the blockade and threat of invasion, ‘because we are in the process of building a society which many people in the world understand should exist in their own counties.’

Helen Yaffe

* All quotes are from interviews by Helen Yaffe with Enrique Oltuski in Havana, 12 January 2005 and 15 February 2006.

** For details see Helen Yaffe, Che Guevara: the economics of revolution, Palgrave 2009.

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 231 February-March 2013

 

Documents posted on the US National Security Archive website on 18 January 2013 reveal that the government has ‘between five to seven different transition plans’ for Cuba, and that USAID-funded ‘democracy’ programmes designed to promote regime change are ‘an operational activity’ requiring ‘continuous discretion’. The documents were filed in a US court in response to a $60 million lawsuit filed by the family of Alan Gross, a US citizen serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba for ‘subversion against the state and the revolution’, against his employer Development Alternatives Inc (DAI).

Entrepreneur and mercenary, Alan Gross (above) was under contract to DAI, which in 2008 had won a $6 million contract with USAID to ‘advance democracy’ in Cuba. This involved taking communications equipment, satellite phones and laptops with internet access into Cuba to promote subversion whilst posing as a tourist. The US government and Gross claim that he was on a humanitarian mission to aid the tiny Cuban Jewish community to achieve unfiltered internet access by distributing communications devices. However, the minutes of the 26

August 2008 meeting (http://tinyurl.com/CDCPPdocs) between DAI and USAID expose this as a lie. Gross’s contract comes under the USAID-funded Cuba Democracy and Contingency Planning Program (CDCPP). The introduction to these minutes reveal that the CDCPP had channelled $75 million to programmes ‘encouraging greater democracy and free enterprise on the island’ in eight years since it was started in 1996 (under US President Clinton). The documents provide further proof of the systematic attempts by US imperialism to overthrow the socialist government in Cuba and explain the role played by Gross as an agent on the ground.

Cuban-American lawyer José Pertierra pointed out that, ‘this isn’t simply a matter of supplying equipment to the tiny Jewish community in Cuba’. The purpose was ‘to establish an alternative network of dissidents used in the interests of the US,’ he said, adding that ‘this is illegal in Cuba and in all the countries in the world – no sovereign government accepts a foreign power involving itself in internal activities aimed at promoting regime change’. The documentation describes CDCPP as working to ‘support the [US government’s] primary objective of hastening a peaceful transition to a democratic, market-oriented society’ in Cuba. The words ‘transition plans’ and ‘contingency’ in the CDCPP minutes are US government euphemisms for the overthrow of the Cuban state.

Pertierra contrasted the case with the 2001 convictions in the US of the Cuban Five on charges of spying against the US. ‘Gross’s programme had the intention of destabilising Cuba,’ said Pertierra. ‘The Five didn’t have the objective of destabilising the US; instead, they were working to prevent acts of terrorism against Cuba launched from and protected by the US.’ The Cuban Five have been imprisoned in the US since 1998.

Jimmy Mac

Published in Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! December 2012/January 2013

The new migration laws to be enacted on 14 January 2013 present a challenge to US imperialism and should bring political and economic benefits to Cuba. Announced in October 2012, the legislation removes the requirement of an exit visa, known as a ‘white card’, and letter of invitation for Cubans planning to travel overseas, and extends the period for which Cubans may stay overseas without losing citizenship rights. The measures also facilitate the return to Cuba, either permanently or for visits, of Cubans currently living overseas, including those who left illegally or who abandoned internationalist missions. HELEN YAFFE reports.

Madrid, 20 October 2012, 6th meeting of Cubans living in Europe, representing some of the 133 associations of Cubans living abroad who support the Revolution. Photo by Virgilio Ponce.

 

Cuba’s revolutionary government was impelled to operate migration controls for several reasons. Firstly to slow the exodus of professionals in the first years of the Revolution, mainly leaving for the US. The threat of ‘brain drain’ continued as the revolutionary government established a system of free, universal health care, education, access to sports, culture and so on, creating a highly-skilled but low-waged population (monetary incomes in Cuba are less significant than in capitalist countries because so many material benefits and services are provided free or subsidised by the socialist state). Cuba’s socialist development has depended on the individuals who have received such benefits contributing back to society. Therefore, university graduates who have paid nothing for their education, accommodation and sustenance are obliged on graduation to spend several years employed in the area of their expertise. If all these professionals left Cuba immediately to earn high wages in the private sector in the imperialist world, socialist development would break down. Cuba has also had to defend itself from an imperialist strategy to use migration as an economic, social and political tool against the Revolution. Through the blockade and other aggression, the US and its allies attempt to create misery for the Cuban people, while at the same time endowing them with a unique status which entitles them to citizenship in the US. The US strategy is to encourage illegal emigration as a tool in its political war against socialist Cuba.

The key moments in the recent history of Cuban migration are summarised below.

• 1954 The requirement to obtain permission to leave Cuba introduced under the Batista dictatorship.

• 1959 Cronies of Batista’s dictatorship fled Cuba for the US, taking with them as much of the country’s wealth as they could pack.

• 1959 Only 1% of Cubans were university educated and the departure of this professional elite left Cuba practically de-skilled. For example, 50% of doctors and 65% of engineers left by 1961.

• 1960-1962 The US government and the Roman Catholic Church terrified middle-class Cuban families into sending their children to Miami in Operation Peter Pan. 14,000 children were separated from their families, many of them permanently.

• 1961 Kennedy expanded a programme to settle Cubans in the US whilst launching the Bay of Pigs invasion with Cuban exiles in April. In December, the Cuban government in­tro­duced a compulsory exit visa to halt the brain drain.

• 1965 Between September and November the Cuban government opened Camarioca port for Cubans who wanted to leave. In December, it allowed US-sponsored flights out of Cuba. The programme was stopped by US President Nixon in 1973.

• 1966 The US government enacted the infamous Cuban Adjustment Act which allows all Cubans arriving in the US, including illegally, to remain there and be granted citizenship after one year. No such programme exists for the emigrants of any other country in the world.

• 1980 In April the Cuban government opened Mariel port for Cubans who wanted to leave, including prisoners. In September, US President Carter threatened to punish anyone bringing Cuban emigrants to the US.

• 1994 In August of the worst year of the Special Period, the economic crisis following the collapse of the socialist bloc, the Cuban government said it would not stop those who wanted to leave. They left in rafts, hoping to be picked up by boats from Miami or the US coastguard. To stop the flow of emigrants, in September the US government signed a migration accord with Cuba, agreeing to grant at least 20,000 visas annually to allow Cubans to visit or migrate to the US. It committed to return Cubans caught at sea but continue to grant residence to those who reach the coast. This ‘wet foot, dry foot’ policy encourages illegal emigration.

• 2004 US President Bush restricted Cuban-American travel to Cuba and limited the money they could take and the remittances they could send.

• 2006 Bush introduced the Cuban Medical Professional Parole program to encourage Cuban health professionals working overseas to abandon internationalist missions for US cit­izen­ship. Only around 2% of the 40,000 Cubans eligible have been seduced by this programme. Few of them have been able to practice medicine in the US.

• 2009 US President Obama revoked the Bush-era restrictions on Cuban-Americans. However, Obama’s first presidency saw increasing fines issued to companies and individuals trading with Cuba under the US blockade. By September 2012 fines totalled $2.26 billion, including $622 million since the start of 2012, up from $89 million in 2011.

Of the 20,000 visas they committed to grant annually, the US Interest Section in Cuba has routinely, as policy, denied 90% of applications.

In addition to requests for residency, these include temporary visas to visit relatives, study or participate in professional events, sports and cultural activities. For reasons of geography and history, one in three Cubans has family in the United States. The intention is clearly to generate a backlog of applicants, fostering frustration to encourage the emergence of an internal opposition and creating an incentive for the illegal emigration through which many Cubans have lost their lives. However, despite billions of dollars spent on overt and covert programmes to seduce Cubans with the ‘American dream’, the US government has closed the door whenever the Cuban government has allowed waves of emigrants to go there.

The US administration now faces a political challenge to its Cuban migration policy. Any new wave of Cuban emigrants will mostly head for the US claiming their legal right to citizenship. The US government fears that Cubans who travel legally to other Latin American countries will end up on the US border. The US cannot afford such an influx, especially as it is clear that the vast majority would be economic migrants, not political opponents of Cuban socialism. They may be forced to suspend or abolish the Cuban Adjustment Act. That would be a huge victory for the Cuban government. Given the implications for US domestic policy, it is perhaps not a coincidence that these legal changes, in the pipeline for many months, were announced just three weeks before the US Presidential election. Republican presidential candidate Romney pro­mised to revert to the Bush-era restrictions on Cuban-Americans.

However, the increase in Cubans leaving the island from mid-January 2013, either temporarily or permanently, is not likely to be dramatic. The exit visa and letter of invitation were unpopular amongst Cubans and their abolition has been welcomed. Be­tween them they cost $350, a lot of money in Cuba where the average monthly wage is about $20. However, with that obstacle removed, Cubans will still face the principal obstacles to travel confronted by the rest of the world, particularly the underdeveloped world: money (to pay for flights, visas for the countries of entry, accommodation and sustenance – the latter two being free or subsidised in Cuba) and obtaining a visa to enter the destination country. In the midst of a global recession when attacks on immigrants

escalate in the imperialist countries, it will not be easy for Cubans to obtain entry visas. Minimally they require wealthy ‘sponsors’ to prove they can pay their way.

As usual, the Cuban announcement unleashed Cuba-bashing in the bourgeois media. The New York Times claimed the exit visa was responsible for ‘trapping many Cubans looking to leave even for just a few days’ and the Washington Post said ‘many Cubans are simply denied the visa’ (16 October 2012). In fact, between 2000 and 31 August 2012, 99.4% of the 941,953 applications for an exit visa were granted. This figure also shows that, contrary to the common criticism of that Cubans are not allowed to leave, Cubans are internationally mobile – and not just on internationalist health or education missions. From a population of 11.2 million, almost one million Cubans travelled abroad in this 12-year period. Of those, only 12.8% settled abroad and the rest returned. In 2011 alone, 250,000 Cubans went overseas by legal means.

In 2011, 400,000 Cubans living abroad visited their homeland, 300,000 of them from the US where 80% of Cuba’s emigrants live. That is one in four Cuban-Americans. These are clearly not political refugees, as the US government claims, but economic migrants or individuals who have settled with families and study or work abroad, part of the movement of people in a globalised world. The Cuban measures have further facilitated this flow, even allowing those who left illegally or who abandoned missions overseas, including high profile artists, sportspeople and medical and other professionals, to return to the island eight years after their departure. Cuban-American professor Nelson Valdes suggests making it compulsory for Cubans between the ages of 19 and 24 to go abroad. ‘Then we can wait and see how capitalism educates them about their rights.’ Indeed, in the context of the global recession, up to 2,000 emigres are returning from abroad annually to resettle in Cuba while increasing numbers of Cubans are sending money to help their families overseas; a case of reverse remittances. By encouraging the return of emigrants, the Cuban government can expect increased income from tourism and remittances and, in the context of recent measures promoting self-employment in non-strategic areas, an inflow of cash for setting up micro-businesses either by individuals or by families and friends.

Prior to the new laws only 0.6% of applicants were denied exit from Cuba. Among them was Yoani Sanchez, international prize-winning star of the tiny Cuban opposition, who loudly claims to have been refused an exit visa 19 times. She is not so loud about the curious fact that she actually emigrated from Cuba in 2002 to live in Switzerland and then, despite being a vociferous critic of Cuban socialism, returned to the island two years later. After she ripped up her Swiss passport she was granted a waiver to recover her permanent resident status in Cuba, and then took up employment in the service of imperialism. Ironically, while Cuba may now let Yoani Sanchez travel freely to the US, she will go there to denounce the Revolution to a population who are still denied the freedom to visit Cuba. All non-Cuban US residents require the equivalent of an ‘exit visa’ to visit Cuba. Usually reserved for religious or study groups, these ‘licences’ are granted by the US Office of Foreign Asset Control, an institution responsible for implementing the US blockade. No other government in the world requires its residents to obtain an exit visa to visit Cuba. The Cuban abolition of the exit visa will increase pressure on the US to do likewise. 

Yoani Sanchez may still find her exit blocked, however, as the Cuban government has retained its right to deny a passport to prisoners, those under criminal proceedings or indebted to the state, or those who for reasons of national security and defence, authorities decide should not be permitted to travel. This will include people in vital economic and political positions. The editorial of Granma, the daily newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party stated ‘as long as policies designed to favour the “brain drain” persist, aiming to rob us of the human resources necessary for the economic, social and scientific development of the country, Cuba will be obliged to maintain measures to defend itself on this front’ (16 October 2012). The editorial went on to point out that: ‘The vast majority of Cubans settled in more than 150 countries maintain stable ties with their homeland and their families, they oppose the blockade and do not want an aggressive policy against their country of origin.’ Indeed, 133 associations have been set in 72 countries up by Cubans living abroad who support the Revolution.

This video, produced by Cubainformación and translated by Rock around the Blockade, gives more information on the situation of the Cuban ex-prisoners in Spain which I wrote about in the article posted on this blog last month.