From our Annals of Socialist Compassion and Fairness Bureau with some assistance from our Annals of Socialist Efficiency Bureau
How’s this for Revolutionary ethics? Why not remove Cubans from as many buildings as possible around tourist sight-seeing hot spots and turn their buildings into luxury apartheid hotels?
To hell with Cubans. They don’t matter. And to hell with sick Cuban children and their families. Aaaahh…but there’s a catch. Due to the wonders of socialism there is absolutely no housing available into which the displaced families can be moved. So the end result is a stalemate between two branches of the same government: the one that displaces Cubans and the one that builds hotels.
Guess which branch is going to win that battle?
Loosely translated from Diario de Cuba
For several months the Manzana-Payret hotel, one of the largest hotel projects that the GAESA business group, controlled by the Cuban military elite, has in its portfolio, has not made progress in its execution.
One of the causes of this delay is that in that wide block, right in front of the Capitol, a family still lives that has not been able to leave the only residential building in the area.
The demand of this family is very simple: that they be granted a home in the same municipality or a nearby one due to the fact that they have a daughter with a chronic blood disease, sicklemia —which produces a faster destruction of red blood cells than usual. normal – and needs ongoing medical attention. For this reason, it is essential for him to live near the hospital where he is treated.
The authorities’ plan since they decided to transfer the families living in Zulueta # 422 was to place a group in new building complexes in the San Agustín district, in La Lisa, and another in buildings in the Playa municipality. To this last place, far from any hospital center, they were going to send the family of the sick girl.
“Since the beginning of 2019 they have been taking the families who lived here for the hotel they are going to make, despite the fact that many years before several neighbors got tired of writing letters due to the poor condition of the building and never received any attention. The authorities They were only interested in taking us out when they already had a plan to build this hotel, “Leonel Lozano, father of the 13-year-old girl, told DIARIO DE CUBA.
“My daughter has been in a serious health situation twice due to sicklemia. She has suffered six ischemia and a heart attack, so we have every reason not to agree to go to that building in a place far from any hospital and where at night it is very difficult to have access to transport for an emergency situation, “he added.
“The authorities have told us that we have paralyzed a State construction project but we (…) have asked for a house on the ground floor or a second floor, and that it be in this or in a nearby municipality,” said the woman.
Yes, because more facilities for foreign tourists is a MUCH higher priority than better housing for Cubans.
I assume “sicklemia” is sickle cell disease, which tends to affect people of color (who in this case do NOT matter). Too bad the hammer-and-sickle crowd is involved, because the victims are likely to get hammered.