Old gang's time running out
BY MIRIAM LEIVA
leivachepe@gmail.com
Astonishment was the reaction to the May 3 cabinet reshuffles and
defenestrations in the Cuban government.
Raúl Castro opened a Pandora's Box in 2007 when he acknowledged the
pressing need for changes to face the difficult economic situation that
existed. Later, he postponed them indefinitely and, on May 1, the
secretary general of the Cuban Workers Central, Salvador Valdés Mesa,
called for support for an updating of the economic model.
He didn't tell the workers if he had asked the government how it would
deal with the economic, political and social crisis or how he intended
to dismiss more than a million workers, a trim the president had hinted
a few days earlier.
But if any hope remained that Cuba's economy might somehow be modified,
the appointment of the octogenarian Gen. Antonio Enrique Lussón as vice
president of the Council of Ministers pointed to a hardening of the
circle of power, with comrades from the guerrilla days.
Lussón was minister of transportation for 10 years, during the 1970s,
without leaving a mark. As vice president of the Council of Ministers,
he replaces Jorge Luis Sierra, who seemed like a rising star as a member
of the Politburo and minister of transportation.
Sierra has been replaced at Transportation by the 51-year-old officer
César Ignacio Arocha. According to the succinct official announcement,
Sierra committed serious errors but, in Cuban tradition, the
announcement does not specify them.
The announcement also said that Luis Manuel Avila had resigned as
minister of Sugar, after he acknowledged the deficiencies that were
pointed out to him. He had been appointed in November 2008 and his
dismissal occurred just as Granma was acknowledging that the latest
sugar harvest was the worst since 1905.
The people say Avila did not inherit sugar mills or cane, because his
predecessor, Gen. Ulises Rosales del Toro, who is now the minister of
Agriculture, deactivated 60 percent of the mills before turning the post
over to him. The remaining mills are in poor condition, while the
plantations are sparse and produce little cane.
Replacing Avila is his deputy, Orlando Celso García, who will have to be
a magician to revert the situation.
These shifts cannot be seen in isolation, but in the context of the fall
of people who seemed to enjoy the trust of the highest authorities. With
this much thunder ringing in the air, no party, government or military
leader in Cuba will feel at ease performing his duties, much less
proposing initiatives to revert the overall crisis.
While allegations have been made about widespread corruption and other
ills, it is very difficult to gauge their veracity, because it is
customary to spread negative rumors about those who have been dismissed.
Undoubtedly, the immobility and continued prohibitions have created a
growing malaise in Cuban society. The measures adopted during this
purported change have been cosmetic and have had no impact in the
solution of the grave problems that exist.
The effervescence in the air rises at the same pace that misery
increases at home and the supply of basic foodstuffs decreases, even in
the state-run hard-currency stores. The elementary logic that supplies
be available on demand, at prices that bring extraordinary profits, does
not work in Cuba.
The authorities stopped paying their bills and froze the money of
foreign entrepreneurs, kept in Cuban banks, with the result that
supplies stopped coming. At the level of macroeconomics, the government
cannot obtain credit simply because it has not paid its creditors for
many years and the countries that usually come to Cuba's rescue --
Venezuela among them -- have their own problems and concerns.
There is an air of uncertainty and discredit, which the regime will
likely try to control by increasing repression. In their twilight, the
top leaders seem wary of anyone who tries to change any aspect of their
absolute power. In reality, they'll have to face their responsibility to
the motherland, whose current disaster they have caused in 51 years of
stubborness and imposition.
They can no longer gain time, because their time is running out, while
many capable Cubans in the population remain bound and gagged. And
there's no dynastic tradition that allows them to leave heirs in power.
Miriam Leiva is an independent journalist in Havana.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/14/1628652/old-gangs-time-running-out.html
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