AREQUIPA, Peru – Two journalists inserted in the ruling party of the Castro regime criticized this weekend the opening of the Supermarket in the 3rd area. and 70, Miramar, where Cubans are forced to make purchases in dollars.
The establishment, belonging to Tiendas Caribe of the CIMEX corporation—linked to the Business Administration Group (GAESA) of the Armed Forces—only accepts three payment methods: dollars in cash, foreign bank cards and the “Classic” card, which also operates in USD.
In one Facebook postRadio Rebelde journalist Ana Teresa Badía questioned why cards in Freely Convertible Currency (MLC), which in recent years had been used in these types of establishments, are not included in the supermarket’s payment methods.
“Why can’t you buy with MLC cards but with the so-called Classic? What became MLC, Aladdin’s dust? No, dollars or euros that were delivered to the bank,” the reporter asked.
In his text, Badía compared the new store with the scams of the dictatorship Cuban doctors (like his mother) who were forced to convert their payments for “missions” outside the Island from MLC to Cuban pesos, at the official exchange rate, or leave them in “deposits” that “remain unpaid to date.”
“I would be very happy if that money certainly helps to supply other businesses that allowed themselves to be destroyed and not precisely due to lack of resources, but of initiatives and identity,” says the journalist.
Likewise, Badía highlighted that although communication does not solve all real organizational problems, there cannot be any experimental project in Cuba whose implementation is not explained.
In that sense, the reporter expressed her hope that the new initiative restores customer love in commercial establishments, arguing that they are currently tortuous places to shop.
“Not one bit of attention as if they were breaking in or we owed them something. Not a single thing, terrible treatment, lack of love. Of course it is part of the culture of the ugly that seems to prevail,” he added.
For her part, another journalist within the Castro regime’s media system, Ania Ortega, reacted to Ana Teresa Badía’s criticism by describing it as “soft.”
“We are soft mate. “The reality we live in does not have soft journalism, but we have come that far and they have taken us,” Ortega mentions without also pointing directly to those responsible.
“All the reasons you question are as elementary as it is illogical that they have not been reported. It seems like a market from another world, placed there by the work and grace of artificial intelligence. Are we or are we not a blocked country to which nothing is allowed commercially and financially? “So, all those goods were abducted and placed there by ET?” he added.
Although both journalists agreed on the misinformation regarding the opening of the supermarket, far from offering clarity on that and other issues raised, they preferred to conduct the debate through questions that would have served a better purpose by properly presenting themselves to regime officials.
“Who or who has the duty and obligation to report on this new sales mechanism on 3rd and 70th? Why do rumors and doubts continue to arise, does this misinformation help anyone? Whom? Whose store is that? “What will the dollar collected in this new type of market be used for?” Ortega wrote.
In this regard, the economist and researcher Mauricio de Miranda Parrondo, offered an analysis on Facebook on the subject without the discursive lukewarmness that Castro’s employees usually resort to to evade repression.
In his opinion, the Cuban Government has demonstrated its rentier nature with recent measures.
“Their thing is to squeeze, but they should understand that they can squeeze to the limit that they can get something out of it. There comes a time when even the lemon – which we were once told was ‘the base of everything’ – no longer releases juice (…) To squeeze a society is to exploit it, that has no other name,” he says.
In her post, Miranda Parrondo recalls actions that the Cuban regime has taken for more than four decades to squeeze the pockets of the people on the Island. She thus highlights the creation of gold and silver stores to exchange jewelry for “currency certificates.” during the 80s; the opening, some time later, of the Currency Recovery Stores (TRD); the banking of the Cuban dollar and the exchange for the “chavitos” or CUC; the recent attempt at monetary unification with the failed “Task ordering”; and the proliferation of stores in MLC.
“The point is that so much mockery of the Cuban Nation is inadmissible, yes because here those who live inside the country and those of us who live outside are being mocked. They squeeze us all, as long as we allow them to,” concludes the economist.
