From our Bureau of Socialist Social Justice with some assistance from our Bureau of Coveting and Stealing
As one would expect in a country that is an exact replica of George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm — where the ruling pigs claim that some animals are more equal than others — some of the properties stolen from middle class Cuban families are in better condition than most others.
Stolen houses given to oligarchs tend not to be in ruins, like the vast majority of all other dwellings on the island. Oligarchs have always had funds with which to maintain and even improve the stolen properties they inhabit.
Here is a story about one such house, which is now a source of income for some oligarch, as told by the Cuban from whom it was stolen..
One footnote: Tres Fotutos looked for this house on Airbnb but couldn’t find it. Apparently, the current owner has been spooked by the fact that its real owner is letting the world know to whom it really belongs. But he did manage to find THIS HOUSE which is only two blocks from the house stolen from him and his family, and THIS APARTMENT which — given the location and its appearance — could very well be the one stolen from his uncle Amado, the architect who built this seaside condominium building and lived on the second floor. Sure looks like it..
Abridged and loosely translated from CiberCuba
A Cuban exile recallled memories of the house that the regime expropriated from the family, after finding on Google Maps that the house is rented to tourists through the Airbnb application.
“For many Cubans who had to go into exile during their childhood, I suppose it happens to them like me who would like to know what condition that house is in now that has remained in their memories forever,” Lillian Pons Montero said in an emotional post on Facebook. who resides in the city of Scottsdale, in Arizona, United States.
Pons Montero said that she left the house where she was born, located at Paseo 409 street, between 17 and 19, in Vedado, Havana, 62 years ago, when she was 11 years old and with only three changes of clothes.
“Because of the injustices of communism, which took over the Cuban island, my memory plays a trick on me because I am not clear about all the details that I would like to remember,” the Cuban exile clarified.
She said that “a few days ago I had a surprise, when my son Luis Miguel, by chance looking in Google Maps for the address of my birth house, out of mere curiosity, discovered that they have turned it into an Airbnb classified house for tourists who want to go there to stay and enjoy it.”
She said it was a bittersweet surprise because he takes comfort that “it’s not dilapidated and in ruins, like many of the old houses in Havana. I think, at least, that I have been lucky that I can see it in the 40 photos that appear advertised on Google Maps, on Booking.com and on Airbnb, and I am happy that it is perfectly rebuilt on the outside and inside with magnificent qualities and good taste” …
… In March 2021, the Spanish businessman Jordi Cabarrocas, executive president of 1898 Compañía Recuperaciones Patrimoniales S.L., assured CiberCuba that at least 500 families from the United States, Spain and some Latin American countries have already completed the procedures to legally demand the that was taken from them in Cuba in 1959.
Cabarrocas’ company, with offices in Miami, Madrid and Barcelona, is dedicated to claiming nationalized properties in Cuba and has contacted between 700 and 800 families who are considering whether to take the plunge.
Continue reading HERE in Spanish
Sorry. It’s not just that the usual suspects don’t care about this sort of thing, but they think it’s totally OK.
But yes, there is stolen property of all sorts all over Cuba, including small towns. It’s all “normalized.”
For anyone who may not know, when people left Cuba, all their property–house, car, household goods, whatever–was appropriated by the state. Those who left could not sell their property or even give it to a relative or friend. It was simply confiscated, and then the state, as new owner, did whatever it wanted with it.
One of my relatives had a house like that in the Vedado area. It was, of course, confiscated when they left the country. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it’s being rented out to tourists.
Sometimes, even though it’s a very old story, one is struck by the degree of willful blindness deployed by the usual suspects. I mean, we’re NOT talking about subtle things, but they still ignore the glaring truth.
And it’s not just that the usual suspects don’t care about stolen properties, but that they think the victims deserved to be robbed. That’s why they keep accusing “those people” of simply wanting their stuff back.