Miami Herald. April 30,
2001.
Ordinary Cubans feel the lure of capitalist dollars
By Ron Howell. Newsday. Published Sunday, April 29, 2001 in
the Miami Herald
SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba -- As foreigners flock to this island to lounge on
beaches, stroll through museums or look for romance, increasing numbers of
Cubans are renting rooms to the visitors, earning Yankee dollars and testing the
waters of capitalism.
"It's not going to make us rich, but we're certainly better off than we
were before,'' said one experimental capitalist, Wiltse Escalona, 37. He and his
business partner -- his mother, María -- are among the relatively few
Cubans who earn a living as cuenta propistas, or, literally, "people who
work on their own account.''
Seven years after Cuban leader Fidel Castro opened new opportunities for
people to work on their own, the cuenta propistas remain at the margin of
Cuba's economy, and say they labor under pressure and harassment from the
authorities.
Even as Escalona and others go into the room-rental business, private
restaurateurs say officials sometimes force them to close as the government
tries to eliminate competition with state-operated restaurants.
ECONOMIC ANTIDOTE
Cuba is one of the last bastions of communism, and its government is not
inclined to allow a wholesale expansion of private enterprise. But in the early
1990s -- after the breakup of Cuba's patron, the Soviet Union, plunged the
country into an economic depression -- Castro's government scrambled to revive
the economy, in part by letting more people work for themselves.
It allowed people to work independently in many fields -- for example, as
plumbers, chauffeurs, restaurateurs and by renting rooms.
Two other changes led to the explosion of room rentals in Cuba: One was the
official policy, in the past decade, of aggressively promoting tourism. The
other was the 1993 decree that allowed Cubans to possess American dollars.
This year, 2 million tourists are expected to visit Cuba -- notably, beach
resorts such as Varadero and historic cities like Havana and Santiago, the
birthplace of the Cuban revolution. That is twice the total of five years ago,
and the tourism boom has Cubans looking at their homes and seeing U.S.
greenbacks.
For Escalona and his mother, the chance to rent rooms for dollars has
changed their lives. At their spacious two-story home, in a quiet area called
Vista Alegre, or Happy View, they charge $20 a night for each of the two
bedrooms they rent out.
After paying almost half their earnings in taxes, they keep a profit of
about $3,000 a year -- roughly 20 times what Escalona used to earn as a
geological engineer.
Between 1998 and 1999 -- the last years for which official figures are
available -- the number of cuenta propistas increased by 4.1 percent, to about
150,000.
GOVERNMENT PRESSURE
The number of cuenta propistas is staying limited partly because of
pressures from the government, according to U.S. analysts. In its four decades,
according to a report on Cuba last year in the U.S. quarterly Studies in
Comparative International Development, "[Castro's] revolution has
vacillated between periods of toleration for small enterprise (generally, in
periods of poor economic performance) and strict ideological repudiation of
anything that smacks of capitalism.''
In a television interview last month, Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez
reflected the government's mixed sentiments about the capitalists on the fringes
of its economy.
"We believe there's no reason for the self-employed sector not to
exist, if it follows certain regulations,'' he said. "But we don't
stimulate it because we don't think it's the solution to our economic
problems.''
In Santiago, a tourist destination on Cuba's southeastern coast, a
government crackdown on private restaurants -- called paladares -- forced many
to close or to go underground, relying on street hustlers to steer tourists
their way.
ENTERPRISING FAMILIES
The rush to open a family enterprise and earn dollars is evident everywhere
in Santiago, as in Havana. But it is especially notable among those who were
able to acquire their own homes or apartments in the years since the 1959
revolution.
Nereyda, a 56-year-old former seamstress who asked that her family name not
be used, is one of them. A year ago, helped by her working children, she put
together $500 to install air conditioning, a hot-water fixture for the shower
and a sofa. She moved in with relatives and began renting out her two-bedroom,
ninth-floor apartment to foreigners.
Nereyda charges her tenants $300 a month. Of that, $123, or about 41
percent, goes to the state, which also gets a tax surcharge of about $100 at the
end of the year, she said.
Still, she has been able to retire comfortably on the income. "I'm not
thinking at all about capitalism,'' Nereyda said. "But this is better than
my work as a seamstress, where I sat down at a machine all day. I saw my chance
to earn some dollars and live more comfortably, and I decided to take that
chance.''
Powell's Castro comment upsets exiles
Words of praise came amid rebuke
By Carol Rosenberg. crosenberg@herald.com.
Secretary of State Colin Powell stirred up a ruckus Thursday by telling a
congressional committee that Fidel Castro has "done good things for his
people.''
"He's no longer the threat he once was,'' Powell added.
The former Army general mostly heaped contempt on Castro's regime during his
testimony before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, which is
responsible for the State Department's budget.
But those two sentences struck alarm bells among members of the
Cuban-American community determined to continue isolating Havana. José Cárdenas,
Washington director of the influential lobby the Cuban American National
Foundation, called the comment "profoundly regrettable.''
"The death and misery that Fidel Castro has caused trumps a thousand
times over any good he has done for the Cuban people,'' Cárdenas said.
Foundation leaders, who have met with National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice but not Powell since he became secretary of state, will "seek
clarification of his remarks with the Bush administration,'' Cárdenas
said.
It was the new Bush administration's second foreign policy brouhaha this
week. President Bush caused an uproar Wednesday by suggesting that the United
States would use military force to defend Taiwan against China, a deviation from
a more measured and perhaps ambiguous policy.
Powell made his comments in an overall condemnation of the Cuban regime,
describing Castro as "a leader who's trapped in a time warp'' after Rep.
José Serrano, D-N.Y., said U.S. policy to isolate Cuba is senseless and
inconsistent with policy toward Vietnam and China.
Thursday night, the White House rushed to soften the message by distributing
the full text of the exchange between Powell and Serrano.
Serrano, who was born in Puerto Rico, appealed to Powell, a fellow New
Yorker, to rethink Cuba policy.
COMMON ROOTS
Saying "you and I come from the same neighborhood,'' Serrano noted that
members of Congress' Black and Hispanic caucuses had "gotten into
educational business with Cuba'' by sending people from the South Bronx to study
medicine free of cost in Cuba.
"I suspect the medicine they'll study in Cuba will not make them come
back to our country and infect anybody with any disease, because Cuba, as you
know, exports doctors throughout the world,'' Serrano said in an impassioned
soliloquy. "And so I ask you, why China and not Cuba?''
Powell soon responded, saying of Castro: "He's done good things for his
people. You touch on some of them.''
But then he launched into a lengthy condemnation of Castro's 42-year rule,
saying in part:
"For most of those 42 years and the part of my career when I was in the
military, he was fomenting revolution, he was fomenting insurgencies, he was
trying to impose a system that was not a system of freedom, a system that would
have been disastrous for many of the nations in the region.
"And we had to meet him, we had to respond to that. We did. He's no
longer the threat he was. But 12 years ago, he was a real threat trying to
destabilize the region.''
Powell also described Castro as "an aging starlet'' and said on several
occasions he supports the U.S. embargo on Cuba.
A PRECEDENT
It's not the first time that a secretary of state's off-the-cuff expression
caused Cuban Americans in South Florida to sit up and pay attention.
In 1996, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Democrat and
staunch anti-Communist, caused a stir by waving a U.S. intelligence intercept of
Cuban MiG pilots crowing after they shot down two civilian planes belonging to
the Brothers to the Rescue.
"I was struck by the joy of these pilots in committing cold-blooded
murder. Frankly, this is not cojones. This is cowardice,'' Albright said of the
shoot-down over the Straits of Florida, employing an off-color Spanish
expression that might politely be translated to mean testosterone.
In contrast to Powell's comments, that remark was received with jubilation
in the Cuban exile community.
Journey to Cuba full of missteps
Cargo ship's trip hit several nerves
By Jane Bussey. jbussey@herald.com. Published Saturday,
April 28, 2001 in the
All systems were go for the first U.S.-chartered ship in four decades to
carry cargo from the United States to Cuba last week -- an unprecedented event
graphically signaling an easing of the U.S. trade embargo.
But there were already some anomalies when the container ship Orso lifted
anchor in Jacksonville on April 21 and headed for a predawn docking last
Saturday in Havana.
The ship was said to be carrying humanitarian donations and was also
licensed for commercial shipments of food and medical supplies now permitted
under U.S. law, although the exact cargo was not identified.
But for sure what was on board, according to U.S. officials, were household
items, or diplomatic cargo, for U.S. diplomats working at the U.S. Interest
Section in Havana, a much thornier issue for bilateral ties.
On top of the sensitive issue of what was on board, television crews and
photographers were camping out at the port waiting for the Orso to arrive and
film the unloading of the containers of goods from the United States, something
that has not been seen in decades.
At the last moment, "due to unforeseen difficulties,'' Crowley Liner
Services, based in Jacksonville, decided late April 23 to bypass Cuba and sent
the ship directly to Mexican stops that are part of a normal weekly schedule.
A week later, neither Washington, nor Havana nor Crowley have disclosed
exactly what difficulties triggered the cancellation of the ship docking. But on
all sides, there appear to have been miscalculations, according to a picture
pieced together after numerous interviews with officials, executives and
observers.
Although it is routine to ship household goods back and forth for diplomats
from all countries, between the United States and Cuba, no one appears to have
realized that changing the way washing machines and televisions are shipped need
to be part of careful diplomacy.
Right now, both countries send their goods through third countries, such as
Canada, Mexico or Belgium. The Crowley service is expressly forbidden to carry
any goods from Cuba to the United States, meaning Cuba could not send diplomatic
cargo north.
Crowley's original announcement that it would "carry humanitarian
donations as well as commercial shipments of food and medical supplies'' made no
mention of any diplomatic cargo. Furthermore, their statement that they had
conferred with "the shipper'' and not several shippers about returning the
cargo also hints the shipper could have been the State Department.
Crowley spokesman Mark Miller declined to comment on the problems, saying
only that "we were disappointed, but the results were not unexpected.''
Washington insists there was no attempt to sabotage this precedent-setting
easing of the embargo and that putting household items on board was just a
question of logistics.
"It was no attempt to try to tweak the Cubans or test the system,''
said Peter Romero, acting assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere
affairs.
Havana has not issued a statement on why the Orso did not dock.
U.S. officials also suggest that Cuban authorities got cold feet when they
realized the political implications of the photographs of dockworkers unloading
donated U.S. goods for Cubans.
But the episode points to a bigger miscalculation about whether the embargo
can be eased in the framework of a business decision. A bill approved by
Congress last year authorizing the sale of food and medical supplies was driven
by agricultural interests, mainly rice growers, anxious to capture markets in a
time of low prices. Crowley, sensing an opportunity, applied and received a
license to carry goods. Other licenses for shippers are pending.
But Cuba has insisted it will not be making purchases of U.S. rice or other
goods anytime soon because of a condition of the bill that prohibits U.S.
financial institutions from providing trade finance for any exports. It is
almost impossible to conduct foreign trade without trade finance.
Cuba and Costa Rica trade diplomatic volleys
By Frances Robles. frobles@herald.com. Published Friday,
April 27, 2001
Cuba and Costa Rica traded diplomatic slaps this week, as Cuban President
Fidel Castro expressed ire at the four Latin American nations that voted against
the communist island's human rights record.
The four -- Uruguay, Argentina, Guatemala and Costa Rica -- voted to censure
Cuba for its slow progress in human rights. The April 18 resolution was approved
22-20 by the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, with five Latin American
abstentions.
On the heels of the Summit of the Americas in Quebec -- to which Cuba was
not invited -- Castro went on the offensive. He called Costa Rica "lackeys''
and "pro-Yankee'' and dubbed the Argentine foreign minister a "boot-licker.''
"There are a determined number of Costa Ricans who are more yanqui than
the yanquis,'' Castro said.
Costa Rica in turn yanked diplomatic credentials from Juan Carlos Hernández,
the first Cuban consul in San José in 40 years. Costa Rica also withdrew
its consul from Havana, but allowed the vice consul to remain.
"The threatening language used against Costa Rica was shameful,'' Costa
Rica's foreign minister, Roberto Rojas López, said.
"He said we were under pressure. I can assure you, the only pressure in
this case has been from Cuba. He has to leave, prudently. The declarations he
made would have been impossible for a Costa Rican consul in Havana to make.''
Rojas said Cuba has not lost its right to have a consulate -- meaning Cuba
is free to name a replacement. Hernández vowed to stay on. "He has
absolute and total immunity,'' Castro said. "Let them pay his airfare.''
Castro appeared on live state television Wednesday night, saying Guatemala
went along with the censure because the United States threatened to deport
100,000 Guatemalans, a potential "nuclear bomb'' for the Central American
nation.
"We categorically deny that anyone was pressured,'' a U.S. official in
Washington said Thursday.
"What we did was share our views, make them known, as is normal in
these forums. . . . The 22-20 vote was a victory for the Cuban people: It
demonstrated the world is watching.''
The official expressed concern that Cuba would retaliate against the
countries by withdrawing humanitarian medical missions.
"This is typical of Cuba: They accuse us of behavior that characterizes
them,'' the official said.
Castro also poked fun at President Bush, saying his Spanish is lame and his
knowledge of poetry by Cuban patriot José Martí worse.
He also called Secretary of State Colin Powell "general in chief of the
lackeys in Latin America.''
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald |