By Miriam Celaya in Translating Cuba:

17 December: First Anniversary of a Sterile Marriage

At the end of the first year of the restoration of relations between the governments of the United States and Cuba, the expectations that the historical event awakened in Cuba remain unfulfilled. With much pain and no glory, Cubans have continued their struggle with a precarious and hopeless existence, that, far from improving, has witnessed the permanent economic crisis deteriorate further, with increases in the cost of living and consolidation of chronic shortages.

At the same time, the general deterioration of the healthcare and education systems continues – the last stronghold of the official rhetoric – and a new and unstoppable process of emigration has been spawned and become a stampede, amid fears that negotiations between the two governments will eventually lead to the demise of the Cuban Adjustment Act.

With the diplomatic bases settled, the respective embassies in Washington and Havana reopened, and the agendas of a negotiating process that continues running in secret established, the Cuban authorities have set a policy to thwart, to the point of invalidation, the effects of the measures dictated by the US president in favor of opening up Cuba to the benefit of private, not governmental initiatives. The increase of visitors from the neighboring nation and the broad flexibility that renders ineffectual many of the limitations imposed by the embargo have not significantly benefited the Cuban people, although they contribute to foreign exchange earnings for the Cuban government and foreign businesses established in Cuba, especially those related to tourism.

Despite all this, revenues are insufficient even for the ruling clique, burdened by huge foreign debt, lack of access to credit from the International Monetary Fund, the agonizing dependence on external support – an issue which, paradoxically, is used as an element for discrediting and delegitimizing internal dissent – the lack of reaction by foreign capital to the “attractive” new Investment Law, and the urgent need to buy time to ensure their perpetuation of power.

Finally, in the shadow of Uncle Sam, the revolution cycle has closed with an end which, though long-awaited, is no less dramatic. Behold, the agonizing “Marxist-anti-imperialist” gang is working the miracle of recycling itself, metamorphosing from communist to bourgeois precisely thanks to the imperial capital.

Judging from the evidence, and in the absence of authoritative and verifiable information, the almost dizzying avalanche of unilateral proposals from the White House that took place during the course of the year have not gotten any proportional response from the Palace of the Revolution. The Cuban President-General has not only turned out to be incapable of matching in intensity and magnitude Washington’s positive steps towards an approach that would not be for the sole advantage of the ruling elite, but for the direct benefit of Cuban society, but has, instead, taken on the same pace (“no rush”) of the so-called “normalization,” the same rhythm as the untimely Guidelines of the last Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) that were never fulfilled.

From 17 December 2014, though not as a result of that event, the Cuban crisis has grown more acute. With the economy in a tailspin, a large part of the workforce in flight or with aspirations to escape, the aging population, the depressed birth rate, the rampant corruption, the rising inflation and countless other evils to solve, any other government would have taken this moment of relaxation and approach as an opportunity to open a path to prosperity and welfare for its people. Not so the Castro dictatorship.

In response, ordinary Cubans are more politically disbelievers, more indifferent and more pro-American than ever before.

Read more

Garrincha in El Nuevo Herald:

“Dude, 2015 is almost gone”

“On a raft or through a third country?”

By Maria Matienzo Puerto in Diario de Cuba:

Who sees the growth in the Cuban economy?

The Government just announced that Cuba’s economy grew by 4% this past year. What should that figure mean? Who is supposed to notice that growth? Where and how can it be seen?

“Oh, there was one year we grew nearly 7%,” said Antonio, a retiree in line for a newspaper. “I’ve worked all my life with numbers, and I really do not understand how they ever could have reached these conclusions. Growth, just look … ”

Santiago, a retired military man, mentions Health and Education, although these are not exactly economic line items. “It doesn´t matter, they’re achievements of the Revolution,” he says so that everyone can hear him loud and clear.

“In Alamar we can’t see any growth, unless you’re talking about grass, or the crime rate. Perhaps the growth began in Vedado,” Lourdes snaps sarcastically.

The El Falcon shopping center in Alamar is seriously undersupplied, although the management struggles to place the products so that it appears that there is a lot where there is actually little.

When it rains the town’s main streets flood, the public lighting is deficient, or non-existent; septic tanks can overflow, their sewage spilling and seeping all the way to the coast; most of the buildings have not been seriously repaired in over 20 years; and the lack of collection and oil trucks still serve as excuses for the accumulation of garbage in the street.

“Here two things have improved: transportation and the houses being built for the military and the police. Nothing else. People still have no money,” says Aylem, a hairdresser.

“The country should look like an animal that is growing,” reasons Alejandro, a chauffeur and former student of Economics. “But the animal’s movements are often faster and stronger than the numbers announced,” he adds, trying to explain to his passengers what 4% economic growth means.

“The growth seems very small, but the truth is that in economic terms it’s huge. And this animal looks sick,” he says.

He stops in the streets of Old Havana that they have been repairing, although it seems to him more like they’re being broken.

“They spend two months opening up holes and, you don’t know how, but within two months they’re bound to have to reopen them because they connected something wrong. But look at the big job being done on the police station here on the corner,” he says.

“Maybe the 4% is going to rebuild the Capitol, or being spent on the Gran Teatro de la Habana (theater), or maybe things are improving for the jineteros,” he jokes, as he alludes to the throngs of American tourists walking down the street.

“You can tell that they’re Americans, just from the way they look,” says Charly. “Look at them, with their linen blazers, their pricey Nikes, their Yankee scent and their English, but they don’t give anyone a thing.”

Continue reading HERE.

More coverage of Cuban dissident Vladimir Morera Bacallao, who despite Obama’s appeasement of the Castro dictatorship is languishing again in a Castro gulag and slipping closer to death.

Bridget Johnson in PJ Media:

Cuban Activist Freed in Obama Deal, Then Arrested Again, Now in Grave Condition

The Obama administration is calling on the Cuban government to free a political prisoner — one of the dozens released from prison a year ago as a rapprochement gesture, only to be re-arrested a few months later.

Vladimir Morera Bacallao, 53, is reportedly near death due to the hunger strike he started behind bars in October.

Morera Bacallao, a labor activist, was arrested in April in the run-up to the regime’s sham municipal elections for posting a sign outside his home stating: “I vote for my freedom and not in an election where I cannot choose my president.”

A month ago, he was sentenced to four and a half years behind bars.

Around the same time, another one of the political prisoners whose release was hailed by the Obama administration as a grand gesture of the Castro regime toward human rights was sentenced to another prison term. Jorge Ramirez Calderon received two and a half years behind bars for “joining a peaceful protest asking for improved sanitary conditions and water in his community,” the State Department acknowledged at the time.

“Respect for human rights is a cornerstone of our foreign policy, and we call on the Cuban government to respect its citizens’ rights to free expression and peaceful protest,” the State Department said Nov. 24.

Morera Bacallao was transferred from his prison cell to an intensive care unit last week. At today’s State Department briefing, spokesman Mark Toner told reporters the activist is in “very serious condition.”

“The United States is deeply concerned about the deteriorating physical condition of Vladimir Morera Bacallao, who has been on a hunger strike since October to protest his imprisonment for peacefully expressing political dissent,” Toner said. “Mr. Morera Bacallao was one of 53 prisoners of concern released shortly after the December 2014 announcement of the president’s new policy direction on Cuba, but detained again in April of 2015 for hanging a sign outside his home in protest of municipal elections.”

“…The United States urgently calls on the Cuban government to release Mr. Morera Bacallao.”

Continue reading HERE.

While Latin American countries like Venezuela and Argentina have finally begun to fight off the deadly disease of Castro-communism, Rafael Correa continues his headlong dive into the Cubanization and Castrofication of Ecuador.

Maria Aguilar in the PanAm Post:

Correa’s Constitutional Reforms Are the End of Ecuadorian Democracy

Amendments Designed to Disguise the Path to Indefinite Reelection

After the November 13 attacks in Paris, President François Hollande stated that France’s current constitution is inadequate to wage the new war against terrorism. He said that a constitutional reform is needed in order for the state to take “exceptional measures” against terrorists and suspects without having to call a state of emergency.

Legal scholars and lawmakers have criticized Hollande’s announcement and raised questions about the initiative’s true intent. Some believe that, behind Hollande’s proposal, there lies an executive power grab. The current constitution, they claim, allows the government to respond to exceptional and urgent situations under very clear legal rules.

Meanwhile, in Ecuador, the ruling PAIS Alliance is about to pass 16 amendments to reform the constitution. Their aim is to adapt it to the new conditions that President Rafael Correa demands for his personal project, putting one person’s interests over the country’s general welfare.

It turns out that the current Constitution, which was enacted in 2008, is no longer useful. Seven years ago, however, the Constitution’s supporters labeled it a historical landmark that would last for at least two centuries. Things have changed, apparently. Among other things, Ecuador is no longer a democracy.

What we have is an autocracy where the National Assembly simulates democratic procedures while rubber-stamping any legislation sent by President Correa, who believes he is not accountable to anyone. As a result, Ecuadorians are no longer asked to approve new constitutional reforms at the voting booth.

Absurdly, the 2008 Constitution required a referendum to be approved, but current amendments made in the National Assembly do not need the Ecuadorian people’s consent.

The 16 amendments in question are ornamental, semantic distortions meant to disguise the underlying issue: they will allow Correa to reelect himself indefinitely. They legitimize his wish to perpetuate himself in power.

Continue reading HERE.

By Orlando Palma in Translating Cuba:

Hard Times for Cuban Sugar Cane Harvest

14ymedio, Orlando Palma, 28 December 2015 – Guarapo,  sugarcane juice, may be harder to get in 2016, thanks to the climate, obsolete technology and missed payments to producers, all of which are affecting the current sugar harvest, according to information presented to the National Assembly on Sunday by the directors of the AzCuba Group.

Delayed payments from the last harvest to private, leasee and cooperative producers total more than 95 million pesos and are of particular concern in the provinces of Holguin, Mayabeque, Matanzas, Camagüey and Granma.

According to AzCuba president Orlando Celso Garcia, the drought in July and August and the excessive rain in the months of November and December also will negatively affect the sugar harvest.

The delay in starting by a group of centers in the so-called “little harvest” is another negative factor, and is due to the immaturity of the cane and infrastructure problems in the sugar mills.

According to AzCuba’s official figures, the technological and input needs of the sector required 173 million pesos in imports, but only 98 million pesos worth was approved.

Data from the last harvest were handled very discreetly in the official press, and no figure was given for the number of tons produced. A summary of the report prepared by AzCuba and published in the newspaper Granma limited itself to saying that although “the plan fell 4% short of what was expected,” production “grew 18% over the previous harvest.”

Cuban sugar production reached 8.5 million metric tons in 1970 and fell to 1.1 million metric tons in the 2009-2010 harvest, a figure that had already been reached on the island in the early years of the twentieth century.

“I LOVE Dat movie! I seen it ten ‘freakin times! And I ain’t never seen no Cuban evangelicals in it!–So there, Ted Cruz!”

“Dem people don’t look like no evangelicals to me!  See what I mean Iowa delegates! So don’t let Ted Cruz snooker ya!”

Is Donald Trump now also a Cuba “Expert?” He certainly sounds stupid enough to qualify. To wit:

“You gotta remember. In all fairness, to the best of my knowledge, not too many evangelicals come out of Cuba, OK? Just remember that, OK? Just remember…When you’re casting your ballot, remember.” (Donald Trump, Dec. 29, Council Bluffs, Iowa.)

And this is the second time this month that Trump flaunts his expertise on Cuba’s ecclesiastical history to bash Ted Cruz.

For the sake of this discussion let’s gloss over Trump’s purpose for the imbecility. (But I’m guessing he meant to stir up the nativist and ignorant hayseeds who Trump reckons make up much of the Iowa ballot-casters against Cruz as a fake evangelical. They’re the ones who should feel insulted….whatever)

First off: Ted Cruz did not “come out of Cuba.” He “came out of “Canada, where he was born of an American-born mother of Irish-Italian ancestry who was married to a man who was born in Cuba and lived there until the age of 19.

Secondly: A fair number of Protestants DO INDEED “come out of Cuba.” By the mid 1800’s–though a formal Spanish colony–Cuba was already conducting more business with the U.S. than with Spain. Most of these U.S. business contacts were Protestant and their religious affiliation rubbed off on many of their Cuban friends and neighbors. Many Cubans–especially the rebel fighters against Spain–also associated the Catholic Church with Spanish colonialism. This meant the Protestant missionaries who flocked into Cuba from the U.S. in early 20th century found very fertile ground.

Let’s take some fairly well-known Cubans (albeit, only one appeared in Godfather II.)

Tomas Estrada Palma. He was Cuba’s first president and was a graduate of Cuba’s protestant schools and attended Protestant services.

Fulgencio Batista. He was Cuba’s last “President” and also a graduate of one of Oriente’s many Protestant grammar schools.  Yes the “U.S.-backed dictator” of media and Godfather II infamy even  attended protestant services as youth.

So the Cuban leaders who literally bracket Cuba’s history as an independent republic were both nominal Protestants.

Furthermore: A study estimates that south Florida alone has about 80,000 practicing Protestants of Cuban heritage.

But Trump didn’t see too many Evangelicals in Godfather II’s Cuba scenes. Probably that settled the issue for him.

“I mean everybody who saw Godfather II knows what it was like when Castro took over,” NBC’s Chris Matthews, winner of the “David Brinkley Award for Excellence in Broadcast.”)

“All I know about Cuba in the 1950’s I learned from the Godfather II!” (Jon Stewart.)

Should we add Donald Trump to the distinguished roster above?

“Le RRRONCA!!!”

Garrincha in Martí Noticias:

“The O.A.S. is a puppet of the United States”

Like his former boss President Obama, it is quite obvious the violent repression and racism of Cuba’s murderous apartheid dictatorship is of no concern to Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Elliott Abrams in the Council on Foreign Relations Pressure Points:

Rahm Emanuel in Cuba

Here’s the news out of Chicago:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is cutting short his family vacation in Cuba and will return to Chicago on Tuesday to deal with the latest crisis involving the city’s Police Department.

While the press is paying attention to the shootings, I’d like to ask another question: what is he doing taking a “family vacation” in a viciously repressive communist country?

Think of it: the liberal Democrat ignores suppression of freedom of the press and speech and religion. The elected mayor frolics in a place where there has not been one free election since Fidel Castro took over in 1959, nor will there be while he and his brother Raul live.

The island’s prisons are full of political prisoners, but Emanuel ignores this. There are plenty of human rights activists and former political prisoners who would be happy to talk with him about Cuba’s future, but that won’t happen: he’s on a “family vacation,” you see.

Can you imagine a “family vacation” on South Africa’s beautiful beaches while Nelson Mandela sat in prison on Robben Island? A fun time in Russia while Sharansky was in the Gulag? No. So why is Cuba different?

Emanuel’s visit to Cuba is an expression of indifference to human freedom. Cuba is surrounded by democracies whose people do not live in a police state and do not go to jail for asking to vote or trying to publish a newspaper–and their beaches are equally beautiful. Chicago’s mayor chose to hand some badly needed cash to the Castro regime, and there is simply no excuse for it. But there is a considerable irony here: just as Amnesty International is pounding Emanuel over protection of human rights in Chicago, he’s off sunning himself on an island that is famous precisely for the violation of human rights.

Many Cubans saw this yawning abyss on the horizon a year ago, on 17 December 2014.

Anyone familiar with the workings of the Castro dynasty could have told you that the normalization circus would make life far worse for Cubans.

On that fateful day last year, Raul Castro told his slaves that the new deal with the U.S. would not bring about a change in any of the “principles” of the so-called Revolution (that is, his family’s control of everything).

A few months later, after the first few rounds of negotiations with the U.S. were concluded, he and his feudal lords boasted that they hadn’t ceded even a tiny “millimiter” to the imperialist trolls up north.

Well…. as unpleasant as it is to say “we told you so,” it’s appropriate to do so after reading today’s article in the Washington Post.

As long as the Castro dynasty and its feudal hierarchy control Cuba, the island’s 11.5 million  serfs and slaves will know nothing but abject misery.

And as long as the U.S. continues to support that regime, the misery will only worsen. Read the last paragraph of the article below to get a glimpse of one of the many reasons for this.

King Raul is taking his  theater of the absurd taken to new levels of absurdity.  Call it post-absurdity or neo-absurdity or hyper-absurdity.  Unfortunately, the actors in this insane asylum theater have no choice but to play their part or to flee.

And the rest of the world thinks that this theater is absolutely normal, and quite wonderful for the exotic noble savages who are forced to act in it.

From Michael Weissenstein of the Associated Press, via The Washington Post:

Raul Castro prepares Cuba for tough year despite US opening

President Raul Castro warned Cubans on Tuesday to prepare for tough economic conditions in 2016 despite warmer relations with the United States. Castro said that while tourism is booming, low oil prices have damaged the outlook of an economy that depends on billions of dollars of subsidized oil and cash from Venezuela.

According to state-controlled media, Cuba’s president told the National Assembly to expect 2 percent growth in gross domestic product next year, half the rate his government reported in 2015. Foreign media are barred from the twice-annual meetings of the National Assembly.

Despite the government’s assertion that the GDP grew 4 percent this year, there is widespread dissatisfaction among Cubans over the widening gap between low salaries and the high price of essential goods, most particularly food.

Castro appeared to be preparing Cubans for harder times ahead, saying that “we must cut any unnecessary spending and make use of the resources that we have with more rationality and with the goal of developing the country.”

He dedicated a lengthy section of his speech to Venezuela, where the opposition to Cuba-backed socialist President Nicolas Maduro recently took control of parliament amid widespread shortages and spiraling violence.

 Cheap oil “has affected our relationship of mutual aid with various countries, particularly the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the target of an economic war aimed at undermining popular support for its revolution,” Castro said.

He urged Cubans to avoid what he labeled “defeatism” in the face of a drop in Venezuelan aid, saying “the history of our revolution is full of glorious pages despite difficulties, risks and threats.”

More than 3 million tourists visited in 2015, an increase of nearly 20 percent in the wake of President Barack Obama’s declaration of detente with Cuba. The surge in visitors pumped cash into the state-controlled tourist economy and the growing sector of private bed-and-breakfasts and restaurants, but it also drove up household inflation. In the absence of a wholesale market for private businesses in Cuba’s state-controlled economy, entrepreneurs have been forced to compete with cash-strapped consumers, driving up prices by driving off with cartloads of basic foodstuffs like eggs and flour.

 

We can all do our part. You may think our individual efforts are small and insignificant, but when you add them all up, they become large and quite significant.

Via Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter:

Help save the life of a Cuban political prisoner by calling on Cuban government to free him now

The way to #SaveBacallao is to #FreeBacallao

81 days later and the United States government has appealed to the Cuban government to release Cuban political prisoner Vladimir Morera Bacallao. However now is not the time to stop the effort to raise awareness on the plight of the labor activist and human rights defender. Citizen activists of goodwill around the world need to intensify our efforts to obtain his release and save his life by doing three things. First, please reach out to your elected representatives and ask them to speak out on Vladimir Bacallao’s behalf. Second, call the hospital he is currently at inquiring about his health and if the Cuban government will free him. Third, use the hashtag #SaveBacallao and let others know about his plight.

Work to save his life now so that if you fail and the question is asked: Where were you the day Vladimir Morera Bacallao died then at least you can say: “Trying to save his life.” Canadian punk rock band I.H.A.D. put that question to music in September of 2010, just seven months after Orlando Zapata Tamayo died asking Canadian tourists: “Where were you the day Orlando Zapata Tamayo died?” Below is a video of the song from 2012.

Continue reading HERE.

From the offices of U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL):

Diaz-Balart Calls for Medical Care and Immediate Release of Vladimir Morera Bacallao

WASHINGTON – Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) released the following statement regarding incarcerated Cuban pro-democracy activist Vladimir Morera Bacallao.

“Vladimir Morera Bacallao is in intensive care after being transferred from his prison cell where he has been on hunger strike since October 9, 2015.  Reports indicate that he is gravely ill.

“Morera Bacallao was released as part of the Obama-Castro deal announced on December 17, 2015.  However, he was re-arrested in April 2015 for placing a sign outside his home during the Castro regime’s sham ‘elections’ that said, ‘I vote for my freedom and not in an election where I cannot choose my president.’ Last month, the Castro regime gave Morera Bacallao a new four-year prison sentence for the ‘crime’ of expressing his political opinion.  

“During the Obama administration, activists Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Wilman Villar Mendoza died under uncannily similar circumstances.  Activists Laura Pollan and Oswaldo Paya also perished at the hands of Castros’ thugs during this administration.

“Morera Bacallao has risked everything for the basic right to have a voice in his government.  His unjustifiable imprisonment and mistreatment are further indictments of the brutal malevolence of the Castro regime, and the utter failure of Obama’s appeasement of Cuba’s dictators.  I urge human rights organizations and the Obama administration to bring attention to the urgent case of Vladimir Morera Bacallao, and to demand that he receive immediate medical attention.  We must not remain silent while another courageous activist hovers on the brink of death.”