If Venezuela Falls Will Cuba Be Next?

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel (R) speaks to Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro at the Revolution Palace in Havana, Cuba April 21, 2018. Ernesto Mastrascusa/Pool via Reuters

US News and World Report: If Venezuela Falls, So Does Cuba, Experts Say

With Venezuela dealing with one of the worst economic crises in its history, economists warn that Cuba’s dependency on its Latin American ally will have dire consequences.

The economic crisis in Venezuela has turned millions of its citizens into refugees who are fleeing the country's hyperinflation and shortages in food and medicine. Now, it is having other spillover effects by dragging down an already ailing Cuban economy, two regional economists say.

A plunge in aid from Venezuela, along with a hardened trade embargo by the United States, has brought Cuba to its worst economic crisis since the post-Soviet depression in the 1990s, Carmelo Mesa-Lago, professor emeritus of economics and Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, and Pavel Vidal Alejandro, associate professor economics at the Pontifical Xavierian University in Cali, Colombia, write in their report.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The Cuban government will not fall. There are still too many people in Cuba who believe in the system, and coupled with their pride will not be open for change. The Cuban security apparatus is also something to be feared. They are brutal and extremely effective, and will crush dissent and opposition when it appears. Venezuela is a different story. The economy has collapsed, and it is now a failed state. And while there is still strong support for Chavismo and all of its wretched policies, with each passing month of misery and suffering that support rots away. Venezuela also has a history and culture of political change, and calls for change are now deafening.

Cuba's Entrepreneurs Face A Host Of Obstacles In Running Their Small Business

Photo: Hansel Leyva

Riury Rodriguez Lorenzo, Havana Times: Cuba’s Self-Employed and their “Struggle”

HAVANA TIMES — Ever since they emerged in Cuba, “self-employed workers” have had to put up with a host of obstacles.

Those of us who are with the times we live in (the 21st century!) aren’t recognized as an essential part of the national economy. The positive effect our actions have on the population’s quality of life is undervalued and worst yet, we are made to be victims of a manipulative thought: “the private sector is synonymous with easy money.”

The anti-capitalist culture that has developed in Cuba ever since the Revolution triumphed in 1959 has been confused with distrust and aggresion towards the private sector and entrepreneurship.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: This commentary reminds me of what it was like to start a business in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. My father and uncle went into real-estate, and the overwhelming sentiment that was directed at them and at every other entrepreneur in Russia at the time that was trying to start something new was that they were "mafia". This is what decades of propaganda, cultural indoctrination, and politicians/Communist Party officials exploiting the emotion of envy can do. I would say that it has taken almost 35 years for this mindset to finally change in Russia .... and today .... starting your own business is becoming the norm for many young people. In regards to Cuba .... they are now starting down this path, and while it is unfortunate that the Communist Party still controls the economy and media, the spirit of the entrepreneur is now clearly taking hold.

Update: More signs of change in Cuba, albeit very slow and still tightly controlled .... Communist-run Cuba starts rolling out internet on mobile phones (Reuters).

Will Cuba's Next President Change The Status Quo?

Cuba's President Raul Castro (L) speaks with his first vice-president Miguel Diaz Canel during a session of the National Assembly in Havana, December 20, 2014. REUTERS/Enrique De La Osa

John Caulfield, The Hill: Cuba's next president faces choice between economy and communism

On April 19, Cuba’s National Assembly will meet to elect Cuba’s next president. There will only be one name on the ballot for the legislators to consider and the vote will be unanimous. First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel will become president and Raul Castro, at 86 years old, will formally retire from government. Raul personally selected Diaz-Canel five years ago as his first vice president and has groomed him as his successor.

While Raul will retire from his head of state position, he will continue as first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, where he is likely to exercise a chairman of the board role rather than chief executive officer. At 57 years old, Diaz-Canel was born after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. He is a civilian who held increasingly important Communist Party positions and has a reputation as a low-key and efficient administrator.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: When I was working at the UN less than 30 years ago I got to know a few Cuban diplomats. When it came to discussions about economic growth, development, markets, and the importance and contribution of entrepreneurs to a growing economy .... these Cubans were dinosaurs. Flash forward to today .... these dinosaurs are still running the country. I had hopes a year or two ago that thing will change. But after talking to my Cuban friends I do not have those hopes anymore. My prediction. Soon to be President President Miguel Diaz-Canel will try his best to run the country as it has been since the revolution .... and more young Cubans will continue to flee not wanting to live under such a rigid dictatorship.

Cuba's Communist Party Still Resistant To Change

Cuba's First Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel and his wife Lis Cuesta stand in line before Diaz-Canel casts his vote during an election of candidates for the national and provincial assemblies, in Santa Clara Cuba March 11, 2018. REUTERS/Alejandro Ernesto/Pool

Reuters: Cuba's Communist Party admits errors, slowdown in reforms

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba’s Communist Party admitted a slowdown and errors in its implementation of Raul Castro’s market-style reforms, just weeks before he steps down from the presidency, but vowed to continue updating the Soviet-style command economy.

The party central committee held a plenary session to discuss the state of reforms undertaken during Castro’s 10-year presidential mandate to open up the ailing economy and give the private sector and foreign investment greater roles.

Castro, who steps down as president on April 19, presided over the plenary which took place this week. The 86-year old will remain head of the party, the country’s guiding political force, until 2021.

“Despite the errors and insufficiencies recognized in this plenary, the situation is more favorable than a few years ago,” Castro, 86, was quoted as saying by party newspaper Granma.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: These central party committee members are a bunch of dinosaurs. Truth be told .... they are terrified of market reforms because it will create a class of people that will be completely independent from them and who may in teh future threaten their privileged status. This reminds me of the old debates in the former Soviet Union and in Russia after the break-up .... how much freedom should entrepreneurs be given to create their own enterprises. Fortunately .... the first Russian government threw out this bureaucracy. Unfortunately for today's Cuba .... these apparatchiks are still in control.

With The Death Of Fidel Castro, What Is Next For Cuba?

Castro speaking with the press in Havana during a visit of U.S. Senator George McGovern in May 1975. Prensa Latina / Reuters

NBC: Cuba After Castro: How Much Change, and How Quickly?

MIAMI — As the world takes in the news that Fidel Castro has died, many people are asking what will happen next in one of the last remaining Communist countries.

Raul Castro has been the leader of Cuba since his brother handed over power 10 years ago, and significant change has taken place on the island including reforms that would have been unthinkable under Fidel.

Raul Castro and President Barack Obama stunned the world in 2014 when they announced their countries would re-establish diplomatic ties after decades of isolation and hostility. Both nations have opened embassies and scheduled flights from the United States to Cuba have resumed after decades.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: I have been to Cuba .... for both business and pleasure .... and my parents were regular visitors over the years as tourists. Over the years my impressions of Cuba have not changed .... it is a terribly poor country with limited opportunity .... and even though the Castro regime and their allies in the West were always boasting of their great achievements .... particularly on education and healthcare .... I have seen both up close .... and I will put it bluntly .... it is nothing to be boastful about .... a fact that many Cubans ... particularly the young .... have long realized. But with the Castro brothers alive and in power .... any hope of change was never realistically in the cards. That is why the death of Fidel Castro and the approaching retirement of his brother is a pivotal moment .... but for now I just do not see any change happening soon. The 1% who rule and run the nation do not want to lose their power and privilege, and there is no leader within the Communist regime who has the stomach to initiate any real change or progress. But change is coming, and IMHO it will be coming from primarily three sources. One .... the massive influx of American tourists .... primarily Cuban Americans who can speak the language and who have an affinity to Cuba. This alone will help to change the cultural mindset of many Cubans that there is a better life that they should be entitled to .... hence expect the pressure on the Cuban government .... especially on the street and local level .... to intensify . Two .... media .... primarily social media .... will influence the future leaders of Cuba. While Cuba's internet and communications networks are still limited, tightly controlled, and regulated .... these barriers are slowly coming down .... and once the cell companies move in and cell phones become as popular in Cuba as in the rest of the world .... watch-out. Three .... Cuban parents are fed up that their children .... at great risk to their lives .... fleeing the country for a better life. What will keep these kids home is the hope that a better life is around the corner .... and the death of Fidel Castro is now giving that hope. Break that hope .... again .... the Cuban government better watch-out. On a final note .... Jeffrey Goldberg .... the last American journalist to interview Fidel Castro .... sums it up best from El Commandente himself .... Fidel Knew the 'Cuban Model' Couldn't Last Forever (Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic)

Some Commentaries and Analysis On What Is Next For Cuba

With One Castro Gone, Questions About What the Other Castro Will Do -- New York Times
What's next for Cuba? -- Houston Chronicle
Cuba after Castro: How much change, and how quickly? -- CNBC
Analysis: Castro's death won't end Cuba's communist rule -- USA Today
Cuba after Fidel: how will the island change? -- Simon Calder, The Independent
After Fidel Castro, What Comes Next? -- Peter Kornbluh, The Nation
Cubans worry about what comes next after Fidel Castro’s death -- Washington Post
What’s next for Fidel Castro’s large immediate family in Cuba? -- Miami Herald
Analysis: Fidel Castro's death will do little to change US-Cuba relations, experts say -- FOX News
After Fidel Castro's Death, What's Next For U.S.-Cuba Relationship? -- NPR

What Cuban Reforms?

Tourists pass by images of U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro in a banner that reads "Welcome to Cuba" at the entrance of a restaurant in downtown Havana, March 17, 2016. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

Jan De Deken, Daily Beast: Cuba’s ‘Reforms’ Are a Myth

As Obama heads to Cuba, islanders reflect on their revolutionary past—and their uncertain future.

“Witness the real Cuba here!”

Writer Pedro Juan Gutiérrez is exclaiming on his eighth-floor rooftop terrace, while pointing at the surrounding ruins of Central Havana—mansions that once exuded luxury and that now offer a full view of the heavens from their stripped frames. From this same terrace in the ’90s, Gutiérrez saw people push small boats into the Caribbean in the hopes of crossing over to Miami, only 370 kilometers away. “Desperate, often drunk, people stumbled into an ocean full of sharks to meet their death,” he says.

There is no such thing as el periodo especial in the Cuban press, that time when the Soviet-Union fell apart and Cuba lost its Communist Sugar Daddy. While novelists painted island idylls in baroque words and journalists acted as propaganda machinery of the Castros, Gutiérrez spat the despair and the struggle for survival of the pitch-black ’90s onto paper. “There was no drinking water, no food, no gas for cooking. The garbage was not picked up because there was no petrol. My apartment began to collapse like so many of the houses here.”

Read more ....

WNU Editor: Too little .... and far too late .... is what all of my Cuban friends and Cuban watchers are telling me when they comment on the Cuban government's reforms. Speaking of tourists .... Cuba rolls out red carpet for historic Obama trip despite embargo (Reuters).

The Generals Will Run Cuba After The Castro Brothers Are Gone

Cuba's President Raul Castro attends a ceremony at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana May 19, 2015. Photo: Reuters

José Azel, WSJ: Cuba After the Castros: The Likely Scenario

The armed forces control 70% of the economy now. It’s not likely they’ll give that up for a free market.

The 2008 succession from Fidel to Raúl Castro was efficient and effective. But the popular hallucination outside the island—in which Gen. Castro intervenes forcefully to end the communist era and inaugurates a democratic, market-oriented Cuba—is not going to be how the story ends.

Given Raúl’s age—84—there will be another succession in the near future. The critical question is not what economic reforms Raúl may introduce, but what follows him.

José Ramón Machado Ventura, second secretary of the Communist Party, is also 84 years old and Cuba watchers do not see him as the next leader. If Miguel Díaz-Canel, 55, the first vice president of Cuba, ascends to the presidency, he will most likely be a “civilian” figurehead for the generals to present to the international community.

WNU Editor: Could not have said it any better.

Is 'Free Speech' Coming To Cuba?

Connected: an internet cafe in Havana

Marc Frank, Financial Times: Cuba flirts with free speech

Cuba is using the internet to experiment with toning down its political censorship in a sign that a glimmer of glasnost has arrived on the Communist-run Caribbean island.

Havana’s decision to open up on the once-taboo subjects of the electoral system and civil society — by allowing Cubans to question policy in two online forums — is reminiscent of the early days of free speech in what was the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

For a number of years there has been public discussion over the pros and cons of market-oriented reforms in Cuba, and ample criticism of the bureaucracy. But public criticism has stopped short of questioning the political status quo, aside from a fledgling dissident press, such as the online newspaper 14ymedio.com, run by writer Yoani Sánchez.

WNU Editor: As long as the Castros and their supporters run the country .... sorry .... there is no "free speech" in Cuba .... especially when it comes to questioning their rule. But this is a start ... albeit very late, tightly controlled, and for a small part of the population.

The Hellish Mindset Of Cuba-Enthusiasts -- A Commentary

From The Times Online:

Cuba - what a word to conjure with. And what nonsense people have used it to conjure up for half a century now. Those who are determined to see Cuba through the rosy tints of revolutionary spectacles have for decades claimed the country as proof that socialism can work; a Cuban David was able to stand up to the western Goliaths of colonialism and corruption, and Castro’s revolution 50 years ago last week brought peace and plenty - or, if not exactly plenty (given the wicked US blockade), then something better in the shape of brotherly and sisterly content and hospitals far better than those of the National Health Service.

All my adult life this has completely infuriated me. I cannot count the number of friends and acquaintances - at one time almost everyone in the BBC - who have flocked to Cuba and come back with socialist stars in their eyes. It has been extremely irritating to be lectured on Cuba’s moral rebuke to capitalist democracies by people who actually knew nothing about the place - even less, very often, than I did. Cubans are happy, they claimed; it’s a joyful, free society, full of hospitable, joyful people.

Read more ....

Cuba: A Photograph As Metaphor -- A Commentary

From Real Clear World:

Cuba celebrated fifty years of its Communist Revolution the other day. It was a subdued celebration, as befits a celebration where the locals were not invited, and where the anniversary is marked by grief.

I was doing a roundup of posts for my blog's Monday Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean when I came across this image:

The rusted wrought-iron balconies and fading handcrafted doors look back to an older era of artisanship and pride of ownership, now gone. Paint colors from decades ago, stucco coming apart from the wall, graffiti and mold, signal decay and pain.

Hope has bypassed that wall.

Read more ....

History Lessons On Cuba For A New President -- A Commentary

WAITING GAME Five decades after the revolution, the disappointments of the past haunt relatives split apart. Sven Creutzmann/Mambo Photo, via Getty Images

From The New York Times:

I first set foot in Havana 30 years ago because Jimmy Carter thought he could end the tensions that had torn apart millions of families, including my own. It seemed like a new beginning, but it turned out to be more of the same old story about Cuba and the United States.

Time and again Fidel Castro has taken an American overture or challenge and, using a Fidelista jujitsu, turned it to his own advantage. In the process, countless families like mine have been whipsawed between hope and despair.

Mr. Castro’s enduring tactic has been to fit each initiative to his revolutionary script of a brave Cuba resisting the giant United States. Framed that way, attempts to bring down the regime strengthened it. Efforts to democratize Cuba left freedoms further restricted. Presidents came and went, but the constants were disappointment, and Fidel.

Read more ....

Fifty Years Of Fidel -- A Commentary

From American Thinker:

Fifty years ago, the forces of Fidel entered Havana and Batista left. Fifty years ago, freedom left Havana and it has never come back. There was an odd sort of celebration in many parts of America when the Batista government collapsed.

There was an even odder sort of canonization of Castro in the subsequent twenty years. Radical students from American colleges used to travel to Cuba during the 1960s to help Cuban harvest its sugar crop. Rock stars today wear tattoos of the monstrous twerp Che Guevara, something as surreally immoral as poets writing odes to Reinhard Heydrich. The Maximum Leader, Fidel, attracts the fawning adoration of every sort of American Leftist silliness.

Read more ....

My Comment: For the past twenty years I have been to Cuba a number of times. This commentary from the American Thinker is completely right.

Cuba: Tear Down This Wall -- A Commentary

From Washington Post:

It was around 3 a.m. on Jan. 1, 1959, when Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista slipped away to the airport and fled his island nation, hauling as much loot as his aircraft could carry. Hours later, the audacious young man whose badly outnumbered guerrilla forces had defeated Batista's army stepped onto a balcony overlooking Cespedes Park in the eastern city of Santiago. It was the first time that Fidel Castro had faced a cheering crowd as Cuba's unquestioned leader. It would hardly be the last.

The turning of the year marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution -- and yet another reminder of wrongheaded U.S. policies that have unwittingly helped shield Castro's revolution from historical trends that long ago should have forced the regime to give way, or at least compelled it to evolve.

Read more ....