“It is necessary for someone to explain to Díaz-Canel that the economy of this country today (if it can be called an economy) is fundamentally driven by private entrepreneurship,” said the artist.
MADRID, Spain.- Cuban theater director Ulises Aquino Guerra expressed his deep indignation after the recent statements by Miguel Díaz-Canelwho warned that private businesses that exceed their electricity consumption plans may be closed, even if their owners can afford the expense.
“I honestly can’t sleep.” Guerra wrote on his Facebook profilein a text where he confessed to feeling “stunned” at the “stark way” in which the ruler demands that private enterprises be inspected to verify compliance with energy plans. “It leaves me with a kind of helplessness in the face of so much nonsense,” he added.
The baritone also stressed that “the economy of this country today […] It is fundamentally driven by private entrepreneurship,” and he recalled that these businesses “pay a lot of taxes and still offer better salaries than the State.” In his opinion, the president’s words reflect a profound ignorance of the role of the non-state sector in the sustainability of the country.
In his publication, Guerra held the Cuban State directly responsible for the degradation of public services and the general deterioration of the economy. “The State is responsible for collecting garbage […] of not having repaired our thermoelectric plants in time and prioritizing the construction of hotels,” he wrote, denouncing the waste of resources and government inefficiency.
He also criticized the restrictions imposed on production and fishing, as well as excessive spending on bureaucracy and propaganda. “It was the State that took upon itself the sole and mandatory responsibility for supplying the people’s food, prohibiting the development of alternative productive forces for six decades,” he noted.
The theater creator also reproached the use of official euphemisms to describe poverty: “They are not called vulnerable, they are called miserable, hungry, poor, destitute, beggars, beggars, ragged. All of that exists today.”
In his criticism, he made reference to the effects of recent economic policies: “Since the ‘geniuses’ of economics designed the Ordering Task we have no sugar […] nor eggs, since the chickens became decrepit.”
The artist lamented the loss of hope of the Cuban people in the absence of a project for the future and the repression against those who protest. “This hopeless people have preferred to remain silent, to emigrate, to flee so as not to face the disappointment of an entire life dedicated to the revolution,” he wrote, before concluding with a message of confidence in the citizens: “It has been proven that you cannot; the people, I am sure, can.”
The theater director’s words add to the growing unrest within Cuban society following Díaz-Canel’s threats to the private sector, in the midst of an energy and economic crisis that has caused daily blackouts, shortages and the closure of numerous businesses on the island.
