In Cuba there will be elections in March for the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP). Those are potentially the most important ones that the system provides. Ricardo Alarcón, the previous president of Parliament, realized this, and Raúl Castro dismissed him or did not allow him to run for office again. “You don’t play with power” is the motto of the Castro brothers, and Alarcón was headlong for power.
They will run, and will be elected with 99% of the votes, Raúl Castro, Miguel Díaz-Canel, Manuel Marrero, Elián González, and the current president of the ANPP, Esteban the gori Lazo, as Fidel himself called him to humiliate him because he was black and corpulent, something that made him laugh and was heard directly by the extraordinary poet Raúl Rivero, before he faced the regime “of the deceased and flowers” (Silvio Rodríguez said in Hopefullya song created by the troubadour to insult the dictator, although disguised as a love affair).
Up to a total of 605 “fathers and mothers of the country” will be elected that day. My advice, not requested by anyone, is to enjoy the occasion very much. Maybe it’s the last. The date of July 11, 2021 is not only a precedent: it is a path. That day thousands of people shouted “freedom” and sang homeland and life, which immediately became Cuba’s second anthem. Of them, there are more than a thousand who have been accused before the courts, and are serving unfair sentences.
The number of newcomers to exile in the past year was more than 300,000 people. There are many children and relatives of generals, ministers and former ministers, deputies and former deputies. That includes only the United States because in that country they cultivate and preserve statistics better than in a good part of the world.
The number of newcomers to exile in the past year was more than 300,000 people. There are many children and relatives of generals, ministers and former ministers, deputies and former deputies
More than two decades ago, I received from the dissident Gustavo Arcos Bergnes (GAB) the name of an active general in command of troops. Shortly after, he told me that he was a reliable person to start a transition in Cuba. GAB was a party partner of Fidel, and an assailant at the Moncada barracks, where he received a shot to the spine that almost left him paralyzed. At the triumph of the Revolution he was the Cuban ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium.
GAB was a serious man. So much so that he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for criticizing his former boss. Once in jail, and then out of it, he met with Ricardo Bofill, with Martha Frayde, with his brother Sebastián Arcos Bergnes, a middle leader of the Revolution, and with his son, also called Sebastián, to place the opposition under the cloak of human rights and prevent Cuba from another bloody revolutionary cycle. Then followed Elizardo Sánchez and, less than 20 years old, Juan Manuel Cao, who was “occupied”, as if they were bombs, by some very witty verses against the Commander. Today he is a renowned novelist and journalist for Channel 41.
At that time I believed that the regime did not have much time left, but Fidel pulled Hugo Chávez out of his sleeve, and since he previously had Lula da Silva, and the support of the São Paulo Forum, he was able to weather the storm by hiring professionals. Fidel no longer exists, nor Hugo Chávez, and the Forum of São Paulo is under the constant scrutiny of the Brazilian army, so the death sentence of the Cuban communist dictatorship has been handed down. He died of starvation and incompetence.
Ultimately, it died of what communist regimes usually die of: the inability to generate sufficient quantities of goods and services. Much less than those achieved in an open economy subject to the market and the existence of private property, even if the alleged equality of results has to be sacrificed. However, how long it lasts, be it months or years, will depend on the ability of the opposition to exert pressure, and on the willingness of the thousands of reformers who still exist in the government to change. We all need to listen carefully.
In 1990, Soviet liberal economists put into circulation a plan to transform the USSR in 500 days; Cuba would only need 365 days. The plan promised to revive in that term the subordination of all to the market and, even within the rules of Marxism, it was thought that society would discover political freedom on its own. In short, they did not obtain economic or political freedom. That ended, despite having the approval of Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev.
In 1990, Soviet liberal economists put into circulation a plan to transform the USSR in 500 days; Cuba would only need 365 days
In 1990 it was Grigori Yablinski, president of Yábloko, the “apple” party, and Stanislav Shatalin who bet all their prestige as doctors in economics that the formula would work in the USSR, but it was enough for Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov to oppose it tenaciously. , so that the plan was destroyed. I don’t think that will happen in Cuba. If there is a very clear consensus, inside and outside of power, it is that there is no humane way to revitalize Cuban communism. That is why in the last year some 300,000 people have left to all parts of the planet, and among them numerous members of the nomenclature or their descendants
What has been found about the transitions is that they all have a high level of improvisation and uniqueness. In any case, collecting ideas put to work in other countries and in other systems has been useful:
– Return the illusion. Yablinski and Shatalin’s “unborn” plan serves to frame the reforms in a time frame. In a year “things” will start to get better. To a society that has been tricked countless times after crazy plans that don’t work, this is called restoring the illusion.
– USA, always USA. Little Cuba can be transformed into a place where you can do business with it. After all, there are only 11 million people. A free trade agreement is necessary. One of the reforms that must be made is the dollarization of the economy. The greatest wealth of that Island is having as neighbors, just 90 miles away, 325 million people, among whom are the richest and most creative on the planet.
– Between 20% and 30% of the Cuban-American census has its roots on the Island. This is an extraordinary source of enrichment on both shores for potential businesses.
– For the first time, the US has someone to talk to outside its territory. Cuban-American congressmen should be on that list of privileged people. Four or five of the former congressmen too.
What I mean is that it is not worth making any detailed plans. You just have to create the conditions for it to work and leave the rest to your imagination. We are still waiting for a person who can start the transition in Cuba. I don’t think the general in command of troops that Gustavo Arcos Bergnes warned me about is still alive.
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