Cuba: changes? What changes?

Cuba: changes? What changes?
01May09 – 13:44

Ena Lucia PortelaThe Obama regime may be reaching out to Raúl Castro,
but it is unlikely any real reform will emerge for ordinary Cubans, writes
Ena Lucía Portela

The recent surprise dismissals of a number of well-known apparatchiks of
the Castro regime, including government ministers Carlos Lage Dávila and
Felipe Pérez Roque, has perhaps contributed to creating the impression
outside Cuba that a great political transformation is taking place. But
no, this is not the case. If any such 'reforms' do exist, they pertain
only to the higher ranks of the government. At the level of ordinary
people, my neighbours in the barrio where I live, there is no
perceptible, substantial difference from the previous situation. We were
up the creek with those high-ranking officials, and now we are just as
far up the same creek without them.

Despite all the hype that surrounded the changes announced by the
President Raúl Castro, over a year ago –– changes that generated so much
hope in the population and, to some extent, international public opinion
–– they have been reduced to small liberalisations of the laws
concerning Cuban citizens' rights, such as the right to purchase
computers and mobile phones, and unrestricted access to tourist
facilities that had previously been exclusively reserved, in flagrant
apartheid, for foreign visitors. It is not that these measures are bad —
of course they aren't — but they only benefit a tiny minority of the
population of the island: those who can already afford these goods and
services.

In spite of Castro II's trumpeting, there have been no truly important
changes so far. The regime continues to keep a stranglehold on what
little private enterprise exists among the Cubans living here and puts
innumerable obstacles in the path of foreign investors. The dual
monetary system is still in force; this involves the co-existence of the
peso or 'national currency', now dreadfully devalued, in which workers'
miserable wages are paid, with the CUC or 'convertible peso', stronger
than the US dollar and necessary for the acquisition –– at exorbitant
prices –– of numerous basic items. This situation means that no Cuban
worker can live on their wages alone. In Cuba, it is not a matter of
eating the same thing every day, as so many optimists here claim: there
are millions of people who, to put it plainly, often do not have enough
to eat. This has not changed.

Nor has there been any change in the serious problems of housing,
transport and the electrical infrastructure, while the education and
health systems, those mainstays of the Castro propaganda machine,
continue to be a couple of dead losses. Castro II talks less and,
therefore, spouts less nonsense and tells fewer lies than the Fidel
Castro regime, but the new government continues to have complete,
unlawful control of the media. It continues to censor any trace of an
alternative press or freedom of expression in general; it continues to
restrict access to the Internet, limit Cubans' freedom of movement (it
is necessary to have an exit permit to travel abroad), and criminalise
the non-violent opposition. In short, the Castro regime goes on being as
inefficient, corrupt, deceitful, oppressive and totalitarian as ever.

It is not surprising then, that, after long months of waiting for the
implementation of the promised and necessary reforms, the predominant
feeling in the country is one of frustration.

US President Barack Obama's elimination of the restrictions on travel to
Cuba and the sending of remittances by Cubans now resident in the United
States seem a very positive move, which will benefit hundreds of
thousands of my compatriots.

It would be wonderful if relations between the two countries were
normalised and the US government were to lift the embargo which, during
its almost half-century of existence, has served the Castro regime
(which terms it a 'blockade') as a justification for both its dreadful
mismanagement of the economy and its habitual suppression of our most
basic civil rights.

However, if the Obama administration expects an authentic gesture of
goodwill from the Cuban government, as Secretary of State Hilary Clinton
has said, I suspect that things will remain the same for the foreseeable
future. In the meantime, Castro I, in a spectral voice, is insisting
that the USA must 'beg Cuba's pardon'; that is to say, beg his pardon.

Ena Lucía Portela is an award-winning novelist based in Cuba. She was
chosen as one of the best Latin American writers under 39 in 2007 by the
Bogota 39 project

Translated by Christina MacSweeney

Index on Censorship » Cuba: changes? What changes? (2 May 2009)

http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2009/05/01/cuba-changes-what-changes/