Why Raul Castro Will Not Allow Political Discourse

Why Raul Castro Will Not Allow Political Discourse / Ivan Garcia
Posted on February 8, 2015

Ivan Garcia, Havana, 31 January 2015 — After secret negotiations with
his lifelong enemy lasting a year and a half, General Raul Castro seems
to have come out ahead early in the game. But Barack Obama has been shrewd.

He is playing for the long-term and has a different perspective and
strategy. The United States thinks and acts in accordance with its
geopolitical interests, always with its national security in mind.

Cuba is not as attractive a market as portrayed by some analysts. On the
contrary. Its potential consumers have no money in their pockets and the
government's coffers are empty, not a promising scenario for big business.

Extending credit to a regime that is broke is always a risky
proposition. There is nothing more cowardly than money, especially if
there is a risk you won't get it back.

Even worse, obstacles remain. There is the U.S. economic embargo as well
as Castro's embargo on his citizens. Ludicrous regulations are imposed
on businessmen who, in addition to having to deal with absurd exchange
rates and laws dictated by the regime, cannot contract to hire their
employees directly.

The door remains open for telecommunications and private employment but
communications is not among the monopolized sectors up for sale in Cuba.

It is yet to be seen if Castro II will allow a private farmer from
Camajuani to directly seek credit from an Illinois bank in order to buy
fertilizer, seeds or a tractor.

The embargo could be lifted in a matter of months if the general
initiated political changes and promised to respect human rights, but
there have been no signs suggesting political reform.

On the contrary. The government went into a panic on December 30 over
nothing more than an event by a performance artist and used the weapon
it knows best: repression. They could have been creative; they could
have simply unplugged the microphone Tania Bruguera was using to
communicate with her supporters.

The dictatorship is not about to take a turn towards democracy. No way,
no how, if for no other reason than its survival.

Too often, American politicians are guilty of naiveté. The history of
Cuba since 1959 shows that the Castro brothers have three sworn enemies.

One is external — the United States — and serves as fuel to preserve
domestic unity and the politics of the barricade.

Another is internal — the community of dissidents — which, no matter the
particular type (political, journalistic, intellectual or artistic), is
always treated as a threat, targeted by the special services, whose main
mission is to divide, discredit and destroy them.

The third enemy is the private sector, whose small businessmen are seen
as criminals. Just check Cuba's statutes and read the second paragraph
of the legal guidelines promulgated by Raul Castro.

It is stated quite clearly: Cubans living on the island will not be
allowed to accumulate capital. The statutes covering self-employment are
designed as a firewall to prevent citizens from acquiring wealth.

The government knows jobs and professions are uncertain. People may earn
money to feed and clothe themselves, have a beer and maybe spend a
weekend in a hotel, but nothing else.

The label "small businessman," which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce so
generously bestows on someone like Pablo— a guy who sells bread with
mayonnaise and churros filled with guava in the south Havana
neighborhood of Mantilla — is not inappropriate according to the
organization's bylaws.

There are many examples in the United States of tiny personal businesses
which go on to become major corporations. Mark Zuckerberg created
Facebook almost as a game while goofing off with his fellow university
students.

One morning Bill Gates started a computer company in the garage of his
house. LeBron James, a boy who grew up without a father and with n
mother living in poverty, is now a formidable basketball player earning
millions of dollars a year.

Such is the mindset of businessmen and politicians in the United States,
where people are born into a society that nurtures creativity,
enterprise and individuality.

But on the Island of the Castros, society is set up to thwart individual
talent, competency and small businesses.

These are the laws of communism. China and Vietnam were more original,
but they are not in the western orbit and their maritime borders do not
hug the coast of the most powerful and affluent nation on earth.

Deng Xiaoping's maxim that making money is not a sin is not part of Raul
Castro's strategy. The Cuban regime only allows those enterprises run by
its most trusted associates, mostly men from the military, to prosper.

The key to the regime's system is power. Did Obama therefore make a
mistake by changing the rules of the game? No, it was a good move based
on his own nation's interests and its ideas about how a society should
operate.

But on this side of the Florida Straits, the mindset and the maneuvering
are very different. One might think that, without an enemy on which to
blame the disastrous economy, Raul Castro would open the gates.

Until December 17, 2014, the regime operated best in confrontational
situations, but with the ball now in their court, they are feeling
uncomfortable.

They will accept new reforms and changes in the economic rules as long
as these do not threaten their hold on power.

Politics will continue to be completely off-limits and for the
foreseeable future they will continue to levy tariffs on the
self-employed through a barrage of excessive regulations and high taxes.

They will do this for one simple reason: This is who they are.

31 January 2015

Source: Why Raul Castro Will Not Allow Political Discourse / Ivan Garcia
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