Raul Castro Focuses on Flagging Economy in Speech
Posted by Portia Siegelbaum
Lacing his remarks with criticism of U.S. and European Union policy
toward Cuba as well as attacking the foreign press for its "distorted
and ill intentioned" coverage of recent events on the island, President
Raul Castro addressed the closing session of a communist youth congress
Sunday.
Castro decried what he called "one of the most vicious and best managed
media campaigns" against Cuba in the last 50 years and vowed not to cede
to international pressure to force change in the country's human rights
policy.
The U.S. and the EU, he charged, are trying to blackmail his government
by supporting recent opposition hunger strikes.
"While hypocritically raising the human rights flag, they are
manipulating, cynically and without shame, the death of a person who was
in prison for fourteen common crimes," Castro railed.
In late February, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, to whom Castro referred, died
after a lengthy hunger strike. Now an independent dissident journalist,
Guillermo Farinas, is fasting to demand the release of nearly two dozen
prisoners. Farinas, however, in the intensive care unit of a local
hospital is allowing himself to be fed intravenously, as well as to
receive antibiotics against any possible infection provoked by his
hunger strike.
Licete Zamora, a spokeswoman for Farinas, told CBS News by telephone
Sunday that doctors were treating him for his diabetes.
Castro denounced that the strike was encouraged and supported by forces
in the United States and Europe.
The main thrust of the Cuban leader's speech however - and probably the
part of most interest domestically - was the island's economic crisis
and the need to get the economy moving if there is to be any hope for
the survival of the Revolution led to victory by his older brother Fidel
in 1959.
"Today, more than ever before, the economic battle is the main task and
the focus of the ideological work of the cadres, because it is on this
work that the sustainability and the preservation of our social system
rest," Castro told the gathering.
The speech was carried live on Cuban television at 6:30 p.m. local time
and calls made to gather reactions reveal that the viewing audience at
that time was not massive.
But the issues Castro talked about are ones that are being raised
constantly by people trying to make ends meet on inadequate salaries and
in the face of shortages of all types.
"Without a sound and dynamic economy and without the removal of
superfluous expenses and waste, it will neither be possible to improve
the living standard of the population nor to preserve and improve the
high levels of education and health care ensured to every citizen free
of charge," Castro warned.
Efforts to reduce government food subsidies for consumers last year were
highly unpopular. Potatoes and dried peas were removed from the ration
system that provides cheap but limited food items to every household and
their prices went up accordingly. The threat to totally end price
controls on other food items drew an outcry from the population and the
government refrained from moving ahead with the plan.
Castro further noted that, "Without an efficient and robust agriculture
that we can develop with the resources available to us - avoiding the
dream of the large allocations of the past - we can't expect to sustain
and rise the amount of food provided to the population, that largely
depends on the import of products that can be grown in Cuba."
He offered the example of the millions of dollars spent to import beans
which could have been grown on the island.
The crux of the matter, Castro said, is "If the people do not feel the
need to work for a living because they are covered by extremely
paternalistic and irrational state regulations, we will never be able to
stimulate love for work or resolve the chronic lack of construction,
farming and industrial workers; teachers, police agents and other
indispensable trades that have steadily been disappearing."
Although not detailed by Castro Sunday, the economy faces a chronic
problem in the amount of petty theft by workers who steal everything
from food to stationary from their jobs because they can not get by on
their earnings. Absenteeism is another persistent issue. Government
efforts to crack down on a thriving black market have made some headway
but cannot be considered a success as witnessed by the number of people
knocking on doors offering to sell everything from lobster to electric
appliances at "prices you can't refuse".
In Sunday's speech Castro did place emphasis on the issue of inflated
payrolls.
"If we keep the inflated payrolls in nearly every sector of national
life and pay salaries that fail to correspond with the result of work,
thus raising the amount of money in circulation, we cannot expect the
prices to cease climbing constantly or prevent the deterioration of the
people's purchasing power," he said. "We know that the budgeted and
entrepreneurial sectors have hundreds of thousands of workers in excess;
some analysts estimate that the surplus of people in work positions
exceeds one million. This is an extremely sensitive issue that we should
confront firmly and with political common sense."
Felix, a 60-plus retired teacher, doesn't disagree with Castro but asks
what will be done with the excess workers, most of whom form part of the
management bureaucracy.
"They're not going to want to go to work in the fields or in
construction," he said. "They have an education; they studied so as to
have white collar jobs." Castro acknowledged this in his speech
referring to people who constantly turn down the jobs being offered to them.
But most of all, Felix asked if this speech was just more empty words or
if the government was really going to do something about the critical
situation.
While Castro said he was convinced of the "need to break away from
dogma" and to continue "upgrading" the Cuban economic model, he warned
against expecting too much too soon.
Acknowledging the dissatisfaction of people with the speed of reforms,
he said, "I know that some comrades sometimes get impatient and wish for
immediate changes in many areas."
But, Castro added, "We understand such concerns that, generally, stem
from ignorance of the magnitude of the work ahead of us, of its depth
and of the complexity of the interrelations between the different
elements that make society work and that shall be modified."
Castro urged those who want change to come faster to consider the danger
that the hasty solution of one problem could bring about yet greater
problems.
The Cuban president said the complexity of the situation and the need to
take a comprehensive approach were also the reason that the much
anticipated Communist Party Congress has been postponed for another few
months. There has been speculation among foreign diplomats in Havana
that the meeting has been postponed because of disagreements at the
highest ruling level over potential economic reforms and the impact they
would have on the system set in place by the Castro brothers more than
50 years ago.
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