From our Bureau of Socialist Tolerance, Compassion, and Social Justice
“No relief for any of you!” So says Castro, Inc. through several of its mouthpieces. Don’t expect the economy to improve and expect to be squashed by us if you dare to complain. Castro, Inc. also released some fake statistics about the damage caused by two hurricanes and an earthquake.
As usual, the information provided is a smokescreen. The geniuses who run Castrogonia want the world to know it desperately needs foreign aid to carry out repairs, but has no interest in repairing anything except its hotels and property owned by oligarchs
Loosely translated from Diario de Cuba
The Cuban government, unable to offer an exact quantification of the economic impact of the most recent natural disasters, has admitted that there will be no growth in 2024, while the justice system reiterates threats against those who express their discontent in the streets and demand that the authorities take responsibility for the worsening misery in which many families are mired.
The heads of Economy and Planning and Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Joaquín Alonso Vázquez and Óscar Pérez Oliva-Fraga, respectively, appeared this Thursday before national and international media to report on the preliminary effects reported by the country associated with the passage of hurricanes Óscar and Rafael and seismic activity in eastern Cuba, published the official Cubadebate portal.
So far, more than 34,000 homes have been damaged between the three events, with varying degrees of damage, including total, partial and roof collapses, said Alonso Vázquez.
According to him, recovery plans are underway, which “depend largely on the availability of resources (scarce since before the disasters), on the country’s willingness to improve the housing stock and enhance its adaptation and resilience to climate change.”
Regarding the electric service, with two previous outages of the National Electric System (SEN), the damage amounts to around 2,449 transformers, an as yet undetermined number of fallen poles, 200 kilometers of distribution lines and the fall of eight high voltage towers.
In agriculture, losses are reported in 37,000 hectares (ha) of land dedicated to agricultural production, as well as in 381 agricultural facilities, with considerable economic damage in the sector and preliminary loss estimates of around 383 million pesos.
Damage is also reported in 22 hospitals, 605 communication poles, 276 educational facilities, 189 domestic trade establishments and 25 warehouses, 88 pumping systems and four bridges, among other damages in different areas, added Alonso Vázquez.
In the words of the minister, the data “represent a minimal part of the estimated annual damages” caused by the United States embargo on the regime.
According to Alonso Vázquez, even without an exact quantification of the economic impact of the disasters, it is not possible to make an accurate forecast of the impact of these events on the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), “but it can be intuited from now that there will be no growth in the economy during the year.”
Meanwhile, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment praised the support of the United Nations System in Cuba. According to Pérez, a large part of the immediate response deployed was possible thanks to the resources provided by the UN that had already been placed on the ground.
Pérez Oliva-Fraga referred to “the multiple displays of support offered by numerous governments and authorities of other countries, solidarity groups, companies based in Cuba and Cubans residing abroad,” who have continued to send the necessary resources to the country for the recovery of the SEN, food, medical supplies and medicines, consumer goods and construction materials, as well as donations through the accounts enabled by the Government.
An example is that of the Government of Spain, which sent 9.3 tons of humanitarian aid materials to Cuba for the victims of Hurricane Oscar in the eastern part of the island, reported the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), cited by EFE.
The aid contains, among other things, 70 tents, 1,000 mosquito nets and 227 kitchen sets, all for a value of 56,000 dollars, according to the AECID, an agency attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
General Raúl Castro received on Thursday afternoon Lieutenant General Alexander Viacheslavovich Kurenkov, Minister of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation, who on Wednesday also had a meeting with Miguel Díaz-Canel.
According to the official newspaper Granma, the general thanked the allied regime for its donations made at different times, its support for the specialized training of Cuban firefighters and rescuers to deal with exceptional situations, and sent a “cordial greeting” to President Vladimir Putin.
“Both parties reaffirmed the political will to continue strengthening cooperation relations in the interest of dealing with complex contingency situations, as has become evident in the face of the severe impact of hurricanes Oscar and Rafael, as well as the recent earthquakes that affected the eastern region of the country,” the note added.
In a reiteration of Miguel Díaz-Canel’s threatening speech in the wake of popular discontent on the island, the chief prosecutor of the People’s Tribunal in Havana, Lisnay Mederos Torres, promised severity against those who violate the established order.
In the face of popular discontent on the island, the chief prosecutor of the People’s Court in Havana, Lisnay Mederos Torres, promised severity against those who violate the established order.
The prosecutor said, in statements collected by Canal Habana, that Cuban citizens are “disciplined and overcome difficulties,” but she assured that the authorities will act “with all rigor and severity” against those who, driven by the harsh conditions in which they live, commit behaviors considered transgressive.
Mederos Torres said that authority must be respected, all public officials, auxiliary agents and any figure of authority who is acting under orders from the Defense Council.
“This is a time when we have rights, but rights cannot be overstepped. And we all have to fulfill the duties that correspond to us as citizens,” declared the Havana provincial prosecutor.
Mederos Torres said that charges of attack, theft, robbery and damage to essential economic infrastructure, such as the electrical system and public telephone systems, are being prosecuted.
continue reading HERE in Spanish
Castro, Inc. is only interested in what generates revenue and in maintaining its repressive capacity to prevent a slave revolt. It’s ALL about the prime directive. The quality of life for ordinary Cubans is not just low priority but moot, since the regime is incapable of effectively addressing that and has written it off as unattainable. However, it appears to be approaching a dead end scenario which may be unsustainable.