Havana Cuba. – He invites to remove the obstacles to fishing so that the fish arrives at the Cuban table, after years absent, but Díaz-Canel pretends to forget not only that people are still waiting for the glass of milk promised by his predecessor, Raúl Castrobut rather, something much more ironic, the only obstacle for the “miracle of the fish” to happen is that they stop sending one hundred percent of the catches to tourism and export, in addition to eliminating the Ministry of the Interior and its political police, who are the ones who grant or deny licenses for the use of fishing boats, large or light, not exclusively by virtue of the exercise of fishing but of “proven loyalty” to the regime.
In Cuba, obtaining a license to go out to sea to fish (or recreate) is not a matter of will or having the vocation to do so, and we know that the permit is preceded by an extensive verification process that, if approved, will be maintained periodically, like limpets attached to the hull, throughout the life of the fisherman.
And if he receives no for an answer, then he must settle for casting the hook from the mainland or try his luck in rivers and dams, as long as a state company does not claim him for the use of the water (perhaps destined for the foreign vacationer) or that some old military man, one of those they call “comandantes”, let him know through shots into the air and notices of “protected zone” that the flora and fauna of the place belong to him and his family, that is, to the Revolution and to socialism.
But entering the sea and catching the fish is more complicated. No one in Cuba can go further than a kilometer from the coast if the regime does not first approve that the person is faithful to it, and no one who is not under the shadow of power can get on a boat, much less build or buy it, even when was born and lived all his life where the waves of the sea break.
It is enough to take a look at the entire existing legal body to realize not only that very few roads lead us to the sea (except to sneak away), but, to add insult to injury, only the regime can dispose of the fish and shellfish, as long as they are its property. So fishing to sell, even on the smallest scale and as a breadwinner for a family, is a crime when done without permission.
Beyond the difficulties in using the sea to provide us with food, Cubans “without godparents” and without permanent residence abroad, even if they had dollars in their pockets, should only settle for fishing on the Malecón, taking pictures with the bottom boats and yachts and never sailing on them, because we are all under suspicion of a leak.
Even to get on a sports sailboat when we go to the beach, it is mandatory not only to register our data but also to do so accompanied by a person authorized – precisely by the Ministry of the Interior – to pilot the boat. So, then, hands behind your back and no attempting the same adventure as the tourist or the Cuban émigré who is allowed to cross the horizon line. We, the second-class citizens, to pay for smelling the saltpeter and pretending in a photo that we are free.
But even that limited permissibility of recent years was a total prohibition in the times when Fidel Castro he liked to go out for a ride on his yacht wherever he wanted, even knowing how expensive his whims were.
I have heard from several fishermen that, during the 70s and 80s, even well into the 90s, they knew when the dictator was going fishing or diving offshore because then during those days they were prohibited from using the boats, even when they were in the middle of some seasonal bullfight. These days of total unemployment translated into considerable economic losses for the cooperatives and, by carambola, in salary affectations for the workers.
Wherever Fidel Castro chose to sail, perhaps accompanied by one of those gray characters he called “friends” but in reality he drove at will, no other vessel could be within several miles, except those of his guard. personnel that days before “El Jefe” arrived was in charge of “cleaning the perimeter”, for which the entire Army was put on combat alert.
There were areas (and continue to be, although not to the same extent as before), both to the south and north of the Island, where no one could go through as they were permanently reserved for the use of a military elite, even when they belonged to the waters richer in diversity of edible species.
Today that elite, largely out of necessity rather than will, has allowed itself to be replaced by the foreign visitor who supports it financially, and consequently a few fish—not all—have jumped from one table to the other, without going through the of us.
We Cubans were forced to live without the sea and without fish, and for too many years we have lived like this, under the fear of claiming for our free use what should never have been the property of a family clan. Now those absences, that scam, are customary and “normal” for many who are content to accept the surreal distortion of buying “chicken for fish”, something like receiving “pig in a poke”.
Fish and shellfish disappeared from our kitchens when someone decided that eating them was the privilege of a caste and a crime for anyone who dared to hide them in the refrigerator. Or when the “genius” on duty came up with the idea that the fishing fleet was worth more to sell as scrap—together with the sugar mills—than to preserve it in the event of not being able to keep it active.
So our “appetite” for the absent fish is more “political will” than geographical doom, as the food has been swimming in shoals around us for all these years but the communists have preferred to let it pass us by, albeit in direction to their private pantries.
So, knowing the history of what happened to our warm territorial waters, there is plenty of mockery in making us believe that very soon the fruits of the sea will return to humble kitchens when a decade has passed since the promise of the glass of milk and much more time. since Big Brother promised us to become the world’s largest producer of beef, flood an entire lagoon with milk, grow more oranges than the United States and more coffee than Colombia.
While we digest the new promise, the most naive and faithful will continue here, waiting, with their eyes wide open but like fish on a platform.
OPINION ARTICLE
The opinions expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the person who issues them and do not necessarily represent the opinion of CubaNet.
Receive information from CubaNet on your cell phone through WhatsApp. Send us a message with the word “CUBA” on the phone +525545038831, You can also subscribe to our electronic newsletter by giving click here.
