Child of the Revolution : Growing Up in Castro's Cuba

Minor Interruptions

2009-03-26T13:57:00.001+11:00

Apologies to those of you popping by every now and then for being so lax in my posting duties recently. In fact, this will be my last post for a few weeks. Off on a (much-needed) break. See you soon and once again, thank you for your visit!

Quote of the Day

2009-03-26T13:54:00.001+11:00

"They are two of the Western agencies closest to the imperialist policy of the United States."

Fidel Castro, who seems to be spending his final days trawling through wire copy, attacking Reuters and the Spanish newsagency EFE in his most recent “reflection”. Apparently, the agencies have been spreading misleading information.

Quote of the day

2009-03-12T10:04:00.004+11:00

"If the travel ban is lifted, we might have a stampede of [American] airlines [wanting to fly into Cuba]. After all, there are more than 11 million people in Cuba - and my guess is, a lot of them would be interested in traveling to the United States as well."

Rick Seaney, a travel consultant and columnist for the American ABC television network, predicting much air traffic between Havana and Miami if travel restrictions for US citizens are lifted by Washington. He is probably serious, too.

News from nowhere

2009-03-12T09:56:00.003+11:00

It’s been nearly a week since those lovable Castro brothers stomped all over the once-stellar careers of Carlos Lage and Felipe Perez Roque, sending the two relatively young men into the Cuban equivalent of political death row.

And we still have no real idea what they are supposed to have done wrong – or when.

But it’s been fun watching the international media trying to explain the process by which two men that were until recently regarded by Western correspondents in Havana as logical heirs to the grand Castro dynasty become “counter revolutionaries” literally overnight.

They've tried hard but the the fact is that there is no rational explanation.

This is the way Fidel Castro and his slightly younger brother have always behaved, since the days in the Sierra Maestra. In their twisted, dictatorial paradise, there is room for only one and half tall poppies: the Castro brothers themselves. Sooner or later, everyone with even the slightest smell of ambition gets cut down, whether in a light plane on its way to Havana, in a jungle in Bolivia or in the utilitarian confines of the Palace of the Revolution in Havana.

No one is safe.

And guess what? The Castro brothers have always worked on the assumption that since they are in charge, they don't need to explain anything to anyone. Not to the Cuban people. Not even to that small but merry band of Castro apologists outside Cuba, who make a living out of unswerving support for the "revolution".

From these apologists – those who only the other day lauded the great work undertaken by Lage and Perez Roque - there has been nothing but silence. Stunned silence. And sadly for them, no instructions from Havana.

Havana, 2009

2009-03-06T10:37:00.002+11:00

Back in the good old days, high-profile Soviet officials who fell out of favour with the old men in the Kremlin would be forced to publicly admit their mistakes and offer their continuing loyalty to the Communist Party and its geriatric leadership.

Then, they would disappear from public view, sent into internal exile, if they were lucky (hello, Vladivostok!), never to be heard from again.

Well, you will be happy to hear that these essentially Stalinist tactics are still in use in Cuba in 2009, as we have seen overnight in the continuing (and increasingly intriguing) case involving Carlos Lage and Felipe Perez Roque.

In separate but near identical letters published by the regime’s official propaganda sheet, Granma, the two one-time golden boys of the Castro regime admit to having made “mistakes” and announce their immediate resignation from all Communist Party and government posts.

According to the letters, the all-powerful Politburo of the Communist Party met sometime over the past few days, inviting Lage and Perez Roque to supposedly hear the charges labelled against them before sentencing them to oblivion.

And of course, both men have dutifully followed the script, rounding off their letters with loyalty pledges not just to the Communist Party but more importantly, to the Castro brothers.

In his note, Lage, once regarded as the third most powerful man in Havana, wrote: "I recognise the errors committed and I assume the responsibility. I consider that the analysis made in the past meeting with the political bureau was just and profound."

For his part, the obnoxious Perez Roque, a hard-line Castroist that was Minister for Foreign Affairs for about a decade, wrote: "I fully recognise that I committed errors ... I assume my full responsibility for them."

Yes, it’s a sickening display but one that doesn’t surprise most ordinary Cubans – it’s the way the Castro brothers have operated for more than five decades.

And the message is as clear today as it was in Moscow 40 years ago: No one is safe.

Literary corner

2009-03-05T10:24:00.002+11:00

We have blogged previously about Leonardo Padura, a Cuban novelist whose best known work outside the island is a series of police procedurals featuring a Havana police inspector by the name of Mario Conde.

Padura is a rare beast: an internationally-known Cuban writer who still lives in Cuba.

His writing is often quite critical of conditions in Cuba today although Padura is careful enough never to criticise the Castro brothers directly or to question the “revolutionary process”, which may explain why his work is tolerated (if not necessarily promoted) by the Communist regime.

Anyway, to publicise his latest novel to be translated into English, “Havana Fever”, Padua has provided The Guardian newspaper in Britain with a personal list of his top 10 Cuban novels of all time.

And what becomes immediately obvious is that the majority of the novels highlighted by Padura were written before Castro came to power, or by writers such as Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Alejo Carpentier or Reinaldo Arenas who were either forced into exile by the regime or fell out of favour big time with Fidel Castro.

You can read the list here.

Quote of the Day

2009-03-04T11:06:00.002+11:00

"Fidel Castro has a long history of mentoring younger leaders, giving them important portfolios and then basically banishing them once they began to feel secure in their own power."

Daniel Erikson, of the Washington think thank Inter-American Dialogue, speaking to Associated Press about the unexpected dismissal of Carlos Lage and Felipe Perez Roque.

Big news in Havana 3

2009-03-04T09:53:00.001+11:00

As is usually the case, the official Cuban media have failed to explain (let alone question!) the reasons why Raul Castro unexpectedly sacked several of his senior ministers yesterday, in particular two high-profile ministers who were often described as potential successors: Carlos Lage and Felipe Perez Roque.

In any other country, the head of the government would have been hounded by reporters for an explanation and the dismissed ministers themselves would have almost certainly held a press conference and provided their own commentary.

Not in Cuba, where disgraced officials simply disappear from public view, normally for decades ... just as it used to happen in the old Soviet Union.

Mind you, Fidel Castro has provided a glimpse of what might have gone wrong for the officious Lage and the odious Perez Roque in his latest “reflection”, which was published overnight in Havana.

According to Castro I, he was fully consulted about the changes and approved of them, describing the changes as “beneficial”.

And in characteristic style, he attempts to rewrite history once more by claiming that he had nothing at all to do with the promotion of Lage and Perez Roque to senior positions, which of course, is absolute crap.

As for their dismissal, the semi-retired dictator says they got the flick because they had become too “ambitious” for their own good and had started behaving in an “undignified” manner.

Intriguing, eh?

Big news in Havana 2

2009-03-03T15:04:00.004+11:00

Have you been wondering what's likely to happen to that awful Felipe Perez Roque now he has been sacked by Raul Castro from his high-flying job as Minister for Foreign Affairs? Perhaps not. Here is a possible clue, anyway.

Cast your mind back to 1999 when the then thirtysomething Perez Roque was appointed to the his new position to replace Roberto "Robertico" Robaina, another young Communist Party brown-nose who had been a favourite of Fidel Castro.

There was never any official explanation for the unexpected demotion of Robaina, who was not only stripped of his job but in due course was also kicked out of the Communist Party, effectively becoming persona non grata in his own country.

Unlike his successor, Robaina was a colourful character by Castroist standards. he enjoyed wearing fashionable jeans, pastel-coloured sports coats over his t-shirts, and not surprisingly, spending time in capitalist cities. Why, he even paid a visit to Sydney in the mid 1990s, where he told a group of Castro apologists (sigh ...) that the Cuban "revolution" remained highly popular among Cubans.

Before too long, Robaina was tagged by the international media as yes, a "reformer", a description he apparently started to take rather seriously, which more or less sealed his fate with the Castro bothers.

Last we heard, he was still living in relative obscurity in Cuba, pretending to be a painter and trying to sell his work over the Internet.

Cuban humour

2009-03-03T13:03:00.003+11:00

It seems the grand dame of American newspaper publishing, The New York Times, has fallen for that old story about a convalescing Fidel Castro exercising on the streets of his Havana neighbourhood.

You might recall that the original source for the story was the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, a man who has what most independent observers would regard as a credibility issue.

Not that this has stopped the Times, which reports from Mexico City (that's right, Mexico City), that the semi-retired dictator has been spotted by neighbours in the Siboney area of Havana "ambling along the side of the road", followed closely by a black Mercedes.

Castro I was supposedly wearing shorts, white socks "pulled up high" and a track jacket, and surrounded by security guards.

The paper admits that there has been no confirmation of the sighting by the official Cuban media, before adding: "Some of the Havana residents who have spotted him insisted that their names, genders and even the exact day in which they saw Mr. Castro not be published to avoid running afoul of the government, which has declared Mr. Castro’s illness to be a state secret."

In happier days

2009-03-03T12:39:00.004+11:00

Big smile, everyone ... Raul Castro with the two men often spoken of as possible successors, both of whom have been dropped without explanation from their positions, according to the Cuban media. In the middle is Carlos Lage. On your right, Felipe Perez Roque. Photograph: AFP.

Big news in Havana ...

2009-03-03T09:37:00.003+11:00

The official Cuban media has just announced a major reshuffle of the Council of State, the body that is supposed to govern the island, although in fact, it’s nothing more than a bunch of colourless Communist Party apparatchiks who owe their loyalty to the Castro brothers.

The unexpected shake-up involves the removal of a truckload of ministers, most of whom would be little known to ordinary Cubans.

However, there are two noteworthy demotions, involving two senior ministers who have had a very high public profile outside Cuba: Carlos Lage and Felipe Perez Roque.

Lage, 57, a doctor by training, is a one-time economics adviser to Fidel Castro and vice-president of the Council of State who was seen until recently as a possible contender for the top job in a transitional scenario.

The odious Perez Roque, 43, used to be chief of staff to the now semi-retired dictator back int he late 1990s and early 2000s, and later became minister for Foreign Affairs and thus, the public face of the regime internationally.

The announcement does not explain why the two men have been removed from office but then again, this is not unusual - the regime never officially explains why it moves its senior people around.

Intriguingly, both Lage and Perez Roque were always seen as protégés of Castro I.

Stay tuned.

Quote of the Day

2009-03-02T09:07:00.001+11:00

"Per-capita-wise, Cuba qualifies as the world's biggest debtor nation with a foreign debt of close to $50 billion, a credit rating nudging Somalia's, and an uninterrupted record of defaults."

Author Humberto Fontova writing in The American Thinker magazine about Fidel Castro's new Republican allies.

Quote of the Day

2009-02-27T12:34:00.001+11:00

"We are not China, but could be an important market close to home. Every little bit of trade would help struggling U.S. farmers and companies as well as Cuba in these hard economic times."

Pedro Alvarez, head of the Castro regime’s food importing agency, tells Reuters how lifting the US trade embargo will benefit “struggling” American farmers.

Alcohol

2009-02-27T12:20:00.001+11:00

Ah, yes, let’s talk about Cuban rum ... new figures released by the official media show that despite the global economic downturn, sales of Havana Club outside Cuba grew by 13 per cent last year to a total of 3.4 million cases.

It seems the Germans in particular, have developed a taste for Cuban rum – sales there increased by about 26 per cent.

In fact, those thirsty Germans have now overtaken the Italians as the top overseas market for the Havana Club brand, which as with almost everything else in Cuba, is controlled directly by the Castro brothers, with a little help internationally from the French group Pernod Ricard SA.

Quote of the day

2009-02-26T09:43:00.002+11:00

"The Castro regime is one which, for romantic lefties living in comfort in the West, still represents the smiling face of revolutionary socialism ... There are many ... who prefer their illusions about Castro to remain unblemished."

Commentator Terence Blacker, writing in The Independent, London, about the enduring love affair between the Castro regime and Westerners who should know better. H/T Penultimos Dias.

That old embargo

2009-02-26T09:01:00.001+11:00

The US House of Representative has just passed legislation to partially lift some of the trade restrictions imposed by Washington on the Castro regime.

Under the legislation, which is yet to be approved by the Senate, the Treasury Department will no longer demand that Havana pay cash in advance for agricultural goods purchased from US primary producers.

In other words, the Americans could soon be selling produce to Cuba on credit.

Those favouring the change believe that the lifting of the cash-for-goods rule will result in a huge increase in agricultural sales, which is good news for American farmers.

And they are right – after all, the US is already Cuba’s number one source for agricultural produce, including beans, corn and rice.

The only problem with this seemingly optimistic scenario is the fact that the Castro regime has a shocking record when it comes to paying its debts, almost always making late repayment or simply refusing to pay what it owes.

Perhaps the US lawmakers should have a chat to the Canadian multi-national Sherritt International, which has been dealing with Havana for decades.

According to this report, Sherritt officials have just confirmed that the cash-strapped Cuban government owes the Toronto-based minerals company about USD 393 million in (very late) repayments for oil and gas production and electric power.

But there is more: Cuba also owes about USD100 million to a second Canadian outfit, the Montreal-based corporation, Pebercan Inc.

Our Irish connections

2009-02-18T14:49:00.003+11:00

The Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheal Martin, is on his way to Havana for the first ever visit to Cuba by an Irish government minister.

And to mark this historic occasion, the Irish press has published extensive background reports on Fidel Castro's island paradise, often repeating the same old lines about "free" education, "excellent" health care services, the US "blockade", blah, blah, blah ...

But among all the predictable silliness, there are some gems, including this commendable attempt by John Moran from the Irish Times to link the two island nations.

According to his research, Cubans see Ireland in "a very positive light" as both nations share a "similarly turbulent history in the shadow of a powerful neighbour".

"Ireland has another advantage in that we have prominent blood ties to the island – and not just Ernesto 'Che' Guevara (Lynch)," an enthusiastic Mr Moran writes. "One of the founders of the Cuban communist party, Julio Antonio Mella, who is greatly revered in Cuba, had an Irish mother, Cecilia McPartland. And researchers have claimed that Eamon de Valera’s father emigrated from Cuba to the US in the 19th century."

So, there you go - from the Emerald Isle to the Caribbean. Just like that.

Quote of the Day

2009-02-12T14:35:00.001+11:00

"Buena Vista was the acceptable face of communism."

Simon Calder, travel editor for The Independent newspaper in London, explaining the success outside Cuba of the Buena Vista Social Club franchise.

Trading figures

2009-02-12T14:34:00.000+11:00

For the record, new figures published overnight in the US confirm that food exports to Cuba increased by a massive 61 per cent during 2008.

According to data compiled by a Washington-based lobby group, the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, American primary producers exported more than USD710 million worth of food – up from USD437.5 million in the previous 12 months.

It means that the US has now become probably the Castro regime’s fourth largest trading partner.

Visitors

2009-02-12T14:32:00.004+11:00

When all is said and done, there is nothing particularly special about this week’s three-day visit to Cuba by Michelle Bachelet - the first such visit by a Chilean head of state since the days of Salvador Allende.

After all, democratically-elected Latin American leaders from right across the political spectrum have visited the island over the past few years to be dined and wined by those always-welcoming Castro brothers.

And yet … there is something inherently disappointing in Ms Bachelet’s visit, and in her inexplicable decision not to upset the semi-retired dictator by setting aside an hour or so to meet with a handful of dissidents.

As dissident Owaldo Paya put it: "It will be a sad paradox indeed that someone representing a country that has been through a dictatorship comes to a country where there is a dictatorship and fails to show a sign of respect for diversity of opinion.”

Quote of the Day

2009-02-10T10:08:00.003+11:00

"The promotion and protection of human rights are guaranteed."

Maria Esther Reus, the Cuban justice minister, tells the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council that when it comes to human rights, all is well on Fidel Castro's island paradise. Shameless.

Quote of the Day

2009-02-03T12:01:00.002+11:00

"We are not giving any money to Cuba."

A senior official at Moscow's Finance Ministry, Konstantin Vyshkovsky, explaining that while Russia had agreed to provide the Castro regime with another USD270 million "soft loan", the money would be used mostly to buy Russian agricultural and construction machinery.

Farming News

2009-02-03T11:52:00.003+11:00

You may recall that some months ago Raul Castro announced plans to allow private farmers to lease State-owned agricultural land, injecting some much-needed, old-fashioned capitalism into a food production system that has been a colossal failure for … well, for close to 50 years.

Under the new system, farmers could apply to lease up to 99 acres of unused land for a period of 10 years, with the possibility of renewing the lease for a further decade, and do what farmers are supposed to do: grow food.

Now, the official Cuban media has reported that close to 96,500 applications have been received so far for the lease of some 1,300,000 acres of land.

However, for reasons that remain unclear, only about 45,000 – or less than half - of the applications have been approved by the bureaucrats in Havana.

For the record, about one third of all arable land in Cuba is worked by private or family farmers, with the rest of the land controlled directly by the Communist Party authorities through various ministries.

You won’t be surprised to hear that while half of the land controlled by the State remains unused, the private farmers produce about 70 per cent of all the food grown on the island.

Dime con quien andas

2009-01-29T14:12:00.002+11:00

The saga involving Sherritt International and their long-standing relationships with those lovable Castro brothers continues to get more bizarre by the day.

You may recall that the large Canadian conglomerate and one of its partners, Pebercan, announced over the weekend that the Castro regime was "revoking" a 16-year-old petrol production agreement with the companies. No explanation was given for the unexpected decision to break a contract that had another 10 years or so to run.

However, the Cubans did promise to pay the Canadian companies USD140 million in compensation for breaking the contract.

So, it’s all OK, right? Well, no. It’s now come to light that the severing of ties followed months of efforts by Pebercan to have the Cubans “catch up on missed payments”, which are apparently worth more than US118 million.

But there is more.

The chief executive of Sherritt, Ian Delaney, has confirmed to Canadian media that Sherritt has also faced “missed payments” from the Cubans. In fact, they are owed nearly US400 million, which is a lot of money in anyone’s language – and especially so if you are a Sherritt shareholder.

Not that Mr Delaney is worried, mind you.

"Like every developing country in the world, particularly one with the enormous social objectives of Cuba, they never have enough money, so we're always depending on the cycle,” he told the media. “We're always running big receivables with these people.”

He said he’d been working with the Castro regime for 18 years and would use those “ high-level relationships” to find a “solution” to the scrapped production-sharing agreement, adding: "This is a country that has always been very good to us.”

Wish him luck. Or perhaps not.