Another Sweeping Law

Another Sweeping Law / Rosa Maria Rodriguez
Posted on April 18, 2014

The National Assembly or Cuban parliament approved with no problems —
not a rare thing for this organ where although it's not divine it "comes
from above" — the new foreign investment law. You don't need a crystal
ball to know that new legislation, like the new broom of the refrain,
sweeps fundamentally well for them and their orbit.

The suffocating financiers of the nineteenth-century Cuban political
model shows that for the nomenklatura the urgency of their bank balances
or updating — aerating — their state capitalism is more important than
truly reviving the battered "socialist economy."

Like every law "that is disrespected" in Cuba after 1959, it was
approved unanimously, meaning that everyone agreed, or at least raised
their hands, in a caricature of a senate composed almost entirely of
members of the only party legalized in Cuba which has been in government
for 55 years and although it calls itself communist, it is not.

One might then suggest to the Cuban authorities, to be consistent with
their own laws, to carry out an aggiornamento also of the philosophical
basis of their ideology and the name of the historical party of government.

The Cuban state has had its eyes on foreign investment for a long time.
Rodrigo Malmierca, Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, said
earlier this year in Brazil, which in Cuba there would continue to be
only one party. Emphasizing, of course, the interest in Brazilian
entrepreneurs and the message of confidence and stability he wants to
convey to them from the Cuban ruling class, to encourage them to do
business in Cuba.

This norm becomes another discriminatory law "with the bait" of fiscal
and tax benefits for foreigners, in contrast to the thunderous taxes
payable by nationals who venture into the private sector. They did away
with all the Cuban and foreign businesses when this model came to power
and now stimulate and encourage only foreign capitalists to invest in
our country.

They say they aren't giving it away, but any citizen from other climes
is placed above nationals, who once again are excluded from the
opportunity to invest in medium and large companies in their own country.

Just like our Spanish ancestors committed shameless abuses and
marginalized native Cubans and restricted them in their economic role in
their own national home.

The state still owns "the master key" of labor contracting–the employing
company– to calm their followers and to urge them to continue giving
their unconditional support to the established and visible promise that
they will be rewarded and privileged, if only with a tiny,
revolutionary, symbolic and coveted "mini-slice" of the state pie.

On the other hand, the impunity in the management of public officials,
on part with the lack of respect for society implicit in secrecy,
exposes the heart of corruption. One of the many examples that get under
the skin of Cubans of various geographic coordinates is, what is the
state of the country's accounts. What are the periodic incomes and
expenses in different parts of the economy. Why isn't Cuban society
informed about the annual amount of the income from remittances from
Cubans who have emigrated, and how these resources are used?

A lot could be said and written about the new law and the old
discrimination and practices contained in previous legislation, which
for me is a horse of a changeable–not another–color.

But it would give a lot of relevance to the segregationist, sloppy and
desperate search for money by power elite in Cuba, which requires
increasingly huge sums of "evil capital" to sustain its inefficient
bureaucracy and unsustainable model.

In short, the new law, like the proverbial broom, will always sweep well
for them and that seems to be all that, according to their dynastic
mentalities, fiftieth anniversaries and blue-blooded lifestyles, they
care about.

15 April 2014

Source: Another Sweeping Law / Rosa Maria Rodriguez | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/another-sweeping-law-rosa-maria-rodriguez/