Havana Cuba. – The powerful hurricane Ian devastated the province of Pinar del Río and furiously affected Artemisa, Mayabeque, Havana and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud, on September 26. The restitution of destroyed homes and household goods will take many years, if the owners lack FE (Relatives Abroad) and freely convertible currency (MLC).
The loss of thousands of homes, electrical and telephone networks, roads, 8,000 hectares of crops such as bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes, corn, beans, rice, poultry and pig farms, dairy farms and tobacco exacerbate the existing misery.
The Cuban Government lacks money to undertake the reconstruction, together with the meager importation of food, medicine and other vital products, and the expenditures made for the referendum of the Family Code celebrated on September 25. The immense donations from Mexico and Venezuela favor the reconstruction of electrical networks, basic services, food and other products, as well as contributions from other countries and international organizations, but these are emergency solutions.
In popular protests throughout Cuba, the people have expressed their dissatisfaction with criticism of the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel, they have demanded changes and denounced the lack of food and the regular blackouts, increased by the destruction of the hurricane, and the consecutive days without electricity or Water. Although shock troops have been launched into the streets, some leaders have presented themselves as “understanding” in the official media and have directed their propaganda at the external “counterrevolution”.
The decrease in fuel, raw materials, fertilizers, equipment and other items had notably constrained the obsolete capacities of industry and unproductive agriculture since 2018, which has worsened with inflation and the sharp drop in the purchasing power of wages. and pensions due to the erratic economic policies of the “Sort Task”applied in January 2021.
The hundreds of measures supposed to unblock agriculture and state enterprises have not had the expected results, making it difficult to compensate for current losses. The postponements of debt payments with the Paris Club and various countries should begin to be honored, although under current conditions it will be impossible. You will also not be able to aspire to new credits. Added to this is the difficult acquisition of fuel because Venezuela sends small and unstable quantities to the island, and Russia has difficulties supplying it.
The 1959 Revolution promised Pinar del Río progress, but today it is the region with the greatest poverty in Cuba: it accumulates 7,000 people who have subsisted in inhospitable places of transit for more than 20 years, due to the destruction of hurricanes, according to the highest authorities in the country.
The roofs of the flimsy houses made of rotten wood and of the tobacco houses were blown off in San Luis and San Juan y Martínez, the so-called lands of the best tobacco in the world.
In San Luis, 1,250 natural healing houses and 36 controlled healing houses were affected, and in San Juan there were 1,700 collapses of both. Nearly 12,000 natural healing houses, 90% of those in Vuelta Abajo, have been affected. Also in the chosen ones, stemming and warehouses the damage was very severe. Part of the collapsed facilities had tobacco from the latest harvests, so 11,000 tons were wet.
Tobacco and sugar cane are the two main crops that make up the Cuban nationality, patriots and Creole scholars have agreed. But the Revolution has almost extinguished them, not natural phenomena.
OPINION ARTICLE
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