From our Bureau of Socialist Entrepreneurship with some assistance from our Bureau of Panic at the Ministry of Honesty and our Bureau of Stalinist and Maoist Nostalgia
Wow. Over 3,000 arrests in a single week. Castro, Inc. has been very busy, indeed. And if all those arrested are jailed while awaiting trial, imagine how crowded Cuban prisons have suddenly become. Who are the targets of this crusade against corruption and illegal activities? “Independent” entrepreneurs, of course — who have never, ever been truly independent — as well as government functionaries who have claimed too many crumbs from Castro, Inc.’s monopolistic pie.
Is this a war against the “self-employed” as well as on certain “self-enriching” apparatchiks within Castro, Inc.’s Communist Party crime syndicate? Yes, you betcha. And it is highly likely that these 3,300 arrests are about shaking money loose from the pockets of those arrested, rather than on imprisoning them or on eliminating corruption. Let’s see what happens next.
Abridged and loosely translated from Marti Noticias
Cuban authorities announced the execution of more than 3,300 arrests on the island in one week, including serious cases of corruption, as part of a crackdown on crime, state media reported.
Colonel Deniset González, head of information for the Revolutionary National Police (PNR), described these arrests as the “transfer to police stations” of individuals involved in crimes and illegal activities.
As explained during the Cuban television program La Mesa Redonda (The Roundtable), the so-called “National Exercise for the Prevention and Confrontation of Criminal Activities, Antisocial Behavior, Corruption, Illegalities, Social Indiscipline, and Other Harmful Phenomena” has been underway since December 2.
During this period, 50 citizens, including workers and owners of non-state entities, have faced legal processes for “price violations,” while 15 others received warnings, and over 900 were fined for similar violations.
A resident of Las Tunas, who chose to remain anonymous, expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of this anti-crime campaign led by Cuban authorities.
“Here in Las Tunas, inspectors travel in a bus nicknamed The Seagull by locals. The exercise is good, but I worry about its consistency. The violators understand the nature of Cuban society—everything is ephemeral and done in campaigns. So, they conveniently close for remodeling or repairs. After a few days, they reopen with the same violations, and life goes on as usual,” the resident commented in a report published by the official media outlet Cubadebate.
In Ciego de Ávila, a central province, Frank Arley noted similar practices. “Everyone is warned in advance about the day of the inspection visits. Those violating regulations keep their sales points closed that day. The inspectors issue threats about closures if it happens again, but the next visit comes, and everything remains the same. This is all fully known by the government and the party,” he stated.
To date, 313,038 fines have been issued, amounting to 814 million pesos. Authorities have also ordered the “temporary” closure of 680 businesses, González reported on the state television program.
In November, the Cuban government announced it had imposed over 600 million pesos in fines since July 12, when new measures were introduced to regulate the private sector and “correct distortions” in an economy experiencing its worst crisis in decades.
“There are only two ways to have prosperous and sustained businesses in Cuba: 1—being part of the elite or working for them (and even that is temporary); 2—overthrowing the dictatorship and establishing a democratic country with the rule of law,” Cuban exile journalist José Raúl Gallego posted on Facebook.
According to official information, this crackdown on crime has involved over 800 police operations and closures, as well as “exemplary trials in all provincial courts.”
Among those arrested are individuals involved in drug trafficking in schools and over 100 citizens implicated in the theft and illegal reception of livestock, authorities said.
This is just evasion theater. It looks/sounds good, as if the regime is on top of things and doing right, but it’s just a way to distract from the gazillion problems CAUSED by the regime which are NOT getting fixed.