Cuban aviation scandal highlights growing corruption problem
A scandal involving Cuban officials taking profits from government
aircraft flights hints at Raúl Castro's lack of control.
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
A corruption scandal whispered about in Havana involved Cuban government
aircraft being used for off-the-books flights, with profits going to
Cuban officials, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.
``In Cuba they say that under socialism, everyone owns the means of
production, a principle that apparently was taken literally by some,''
the BBC correspondent in Havana, Fernando Ravsberg, wrote Thursday.
Word of the scandal has been swirling around Havana and the blogosphere
since the March 8 dismissal of Civil Aviation Minister Gen. Rogelio
Acevedo, a long-time revolutionary, although Cuba's official news media
has not reported on the case.
The BBC'S Ravsberg was the first professional journalist in Cuba to
write about the scandal. He cited unidentified ``people at the airport,
customs, transport and travel agencies'' as his sources on his BBC
webpage, Cartas Desde Cuba.
Cuba-watchers said the corruption reflected a lack of control by Raúl
Castro's government, and showed that even top government officials no
longer embrace the austerity and selflessness that the revolution once
required.
``Twenty years ago this simply did not happen,'' said Alina Fernandez, a
Miami radio commentator and daughter of Fidel Castro. ``You can't keep
people in ideological formaldehyde. The revolutionary credo was
abandoned a long time ago.''
Ravsberg, who has been the BBC's reporter in Havana for several years,
wrote that each new detail he learned about the scandal was ``more
mind-boggling than the previous one.''
Airplanes owned by the government's Cubana de Aviación airline ``sold
space clandestinely to Latin American companies to transport their
merchandise from one country to another, and the directors pocketed all
the money,'' he reported. They even sent planes to transport goods.
When they wanted more money, he added, ``they started to report that one
or another plane was under repair in Canada, when in reality it was
transporting passengers in other places.''
``Their entrepreneurial ambitions were such that they apparently decided
to buy some small airplanes to compete with Cubana de Aviación. The
first purchase would be in Mexico, and the airplane cost several million
dollars,'' Ravsberg wrote.
State Security agents are now interrogating ``a lot of people'' at the
notorious Villa Marista detention center in Havana, Ravsberg said, and
there are reports that each day more functionaries have been arrested as
a result of the confessions of the first ones detained.
Ravsberg, wrote that the corruption scandal, though larger than most,
``was not an exception but rather the rule.''
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/03/1561116/cuban-aviation-scandal-highlights.html
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