Havana Cuba. – If we wanted to know what the true power structure is in Cuba, as well as have an idea of what will happen shortly in GAESA, now that the Castros’ “consigliere” has abruptly left the game, it would suffice to look at the photos of the funeral honors of recently deceased Division General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja.
Everything was as “intimate” and “secret” as befits the mourning rites of a clan, just as absolutely nothing was left to chance. Each of the guests occupied the precise place with Raúl Castro in the center, accompanied by the ninety-year-old José Ramón Machado Ventura, who for years was the neighbor who occupied the mansion next to the deceased, on the same exclusive street of Reparto Kholy, in El Vedado.
Those who were not in that room transformed into a chapel are absolutely expendable, recyclable and even disposable “soldiers”, including generals, ministers, deputy ministers, family friends and others who, although summoned to the funeral out of obligation or courtesy, were left waiting. in an adjoining room, and they were only able to enter to pay tribute after the chiefs had left.
According to what was stated by one of those attending the funeral, in a private conversation with CubaNet“Those who did not appear in the photo (with Raúl Castro in the center) do not have a guaranteed future once (Raúl) dies.”
The images released by the official press speak for themselves. In the Granma Room of the Ministry of the Armed Forces (FAR), in front of the ashes of the former executive president of the FAR Business Administration Group, were all those who are, including, in the second row to the left of Raúl Castro, and exactly behind Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, First Colonel Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera who, as First Vice President of GAESA, will replace López-Calleja on an interim basis.
In fact, according to information from sources directly linked to GAESA and consulted by CubaNet under condition of anonymity, he was doing it before and during his boss’s convalescence period, when at the end of 2020 he fell ill with COVID-19, left with serious lung conditions for which, on numerous occasions, during these two years, he required more hospital admissions and treatments.
“There is no doubt that Ania (Lastres Morera) will continue in office for a while,” says one of the sources. “She was promoted not long ago from colonel to first colonel, and possibly in December of this year she will be promoted to general because everyone talks about her good work, although it is also said that Marrero could at some point return to GAESA as president (… ); he (would accept it) more than happy, because although it seems that he falls well below prime minister, he knows better than Diaz-Canel where the real power is, where the money”.
For the official photo of the ceremony, Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, wearing military attire, was placed to the left of the current head of the MINFAR Economy and Finance Section and behind Marrero Cruz, the only one of the great leaders who, having appointed by Fidel Castro, he not only kept his position as minister (in his case of Tourism) once Raúl inherited the dictatorial scepter from his brother, in 2009, but was rewarded with a promotion to his current position, which, Only prior to him, it was occupied by Fidel himself, before he proclaimed himself “president of the Councils of State and Ministers of Cuba.”
“Marrero is no stranger to the GAE (GAESA) or the MINFAR, Marrero is prime minister precisely because he is a military man and is from the GAE,” affirms another source close to the Cuban military leadership. “Marrero is even much younger than Ania, and much busier in business affairs. Ania has always been like the one in charge of the dirty work, the one who does that part that tough guys don’t like to do. It is what he did in the MINFAR until he went to the GAE. Very efficient but that’s it. I don’t think they’ll leave her in the post for long.”
Who is Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera?
Besides of couple of photos circulating on the internetas a result of her appointment as a deputy to the National Assembly of People’s Power in 2019, not much public data appears about the first colonel Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera because perhaps, forced by her responsibilities in managing the regime’s finances, she has remained away from social networks where, at least the only Facebook account that appeared with her name was deactivated in 2014, as well as that of her children and other relatives, with the exception of the account of her sister Adys Lastres Morera, who is dedicated to renting houses to foreigners in Havana through AirBnB, where it has obtained high scores for the quality of the services it offers.
The main house —with two fully air-conditioned floors, which has large bedrooms, a suite with an independent entrance, gardens with a swimming pool, à la carte meals and laundry service included— is located just six blocks from the Plaza de la Revolución and is advertise on AirBnB as “Havana Green House”.
Also, according to information from people close to his circle of friends, he would have four other houses for rent since 2019, not managed by AirBnB due to the arrival of the pandemic and the paralysis of tourism, but which, because they are located in Nuevo Vedado and Miramar begin to promote themselves on the internet as “luxury rentals” only for foreign officials residing on the Island. Plus another one, in Old Havana, which is possibly reserved for a private bar-restaurant business, in association with her friend Raquel Mayedo, well-known presenter of Cuban Television.
Although so far, due to lack of evidence, it is not possible to link Ania Guillermina as a direct beneficiary of her sister Adys’s rental business —in clear expansion despite the current crisis— it is interesting to know that in the past of the substitute López-Calleja’s interim office, before joining GAESA and still from her position as economics of the MINFAR, there are experiences as a director in the real estate sector outside the Island, as well as her name being linked to several companies off shore registered in Panama and the United Kingdom, mostly related to the import-export of inputs, with shipping traffic and financial services and, of course, the purchase and sale of real estate.
Taking into account the information that appears in the Public Registry of Panama there are at least six companies, all founded between 1980 and 1992, in which Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera is already registered as director or secretary, some of them directly related to other companies off shore of financial and mercantile services registered on the same date in the isthmus country by Guillermo Faustino Rodríguez López-Calleja, an official of the Ministry of Transport with nearly a dozen off shore in charge and brother of the deceased president of GAESA.
Although most have been inactive since the late 1990s, the last one having been dissolved in 2017 —due to “delinquency” and according to a provision of the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Panama—, the most important ones in charge of Ania Lastres Morera were ACINTEX SA, importer/exporter; ANLAMEX Corp., related to the acquisition of real estate, and the financial company Lukenwest Holdings, SA, in charge of managing transactions between Cuban shipping companies and importers registered in Panama and European and United States companies.
“Lukenwest Holdings was a financial company with intermediary services that was created for the Cuban fleet with Panamanian and United Kingdom flags,” says a source associated during the 1980s and 1990s with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and consulted by CubaNet under condition of anonymity. “Lukenwest worked until she stopped serving. (…) This type of finance company is registered with the minimum capital and only to carry out certain operations. Then it dissolves and another one is created (…), that is why no sanctions (from the United States) affect the scheme, which it is worth saying was created in the FAR, at least the protocol (…). Already when last year several North American senators requested sanctions against companies like these they had long ago been dissolved or changed their name (…). Lukenwest Holdings was not created by Ania (Lastres Morera), it was just part of it like many people from the MINFAR, even in 1980 she did not even think about working in the MINFAR”.
Born in 1960, Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera began her working life in the Cuban Armed Forces in 1984, as a specialist in the Directorate of Economic Collaboration and Material Fund, as a direct subordinate of General Julio Casas Regueiro —creator of GAESA— but also of who else Later, in the mid-1990s, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja would become his immediate superior boss at GAESA. However, as early as June 1987, with less than three years as a university graduate, she was appointed as director of ANLAMEX Corp., one of the first creations of the FAR business system that was registered as a commercial company in Panama.
Despite his rapid rise in the economic system of the FAR and the appointment of López-Calleja as right-hand man, several people related to GAESA consulted by CubaNet for this report, on condition of anonymity, they do not bet that Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera will remain for a long time as the main head of the business emporium and they believe that, possibly in a few months —depending on whether or not she is promoted to the rank of general—, she will be removed from her second position in GAESA to occupy other functions, including as deputy minister in the Ministry of Economy and Planning, where Alejandro Gil Fernández, current minister, fulfills a “temporary” function.
“Not because of the death of Luis Alberto, but there was talk since before that (Ania) would go to the Ministry of Economy,” says a source linked to GAESA.
In this sense, it is valid to remember that, in 2009, Raúl Castro appointed Colonel Armando Pérez Betancourt as Deputy Minister of Economy, who was the man in charge of implementing the so-called “Business Improvement” as head of the Business Improvement Group in the FAR since 1986. .
“Neither Marino Murillo, nor (Ricardo) Cabrisas, nor now Alejandro Gil, they have left none of them to set up and dispose of them alone, Raúl has always put a guy he trusts next to them,” says the same source. “They fulfill a conjunctural function, they serve to stand up for what others do in the shadows (…). I believe that the same thing will happen to Alejandro Gil as to Murillo, when the time comes, he will be forgotten (…). They will put another, another, in this case it could be Ania, but GAESA is for the one who has behaved the best, and that could be Marrero, without a doubt. Not only was he a great friend of Luis Alberto, his brother, as he said (in the condolence note posted on Twitter), but he was his best student. Maybe he is not today or tomorrow, maybe he assumes it from the shadows, but GAESA is not for Ania, who does not even dream of it, ”concludes the interviewee.
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