Cubans Allowed to Stay at Hotels - Finally

Finally by imperial decree, the government of Cuba condescends to allow its own citizens the right to stay in hotels they earn their livelihoods in. How generous. Tourists need not mix with the local riffraff was the attitude strictly enforced under Fidel. Cuba, under the hand of almost octogenarian president; Raúl Castro is enacting a series of reforms meant to dispel certain cobwebs that cover aspects of the isolated island's freedoms of associations. Not that a cell phone is a human right, but buying them would produce a new source of revenue for the government from its own cash starved citizenry. (National Hotel in Havana, AP Photo/Javier Galeano)

Castro has enacted multiple reforms since succeeding his ailing older brother, Fidel, on Feb. 24. He has ended a ban on private ownership of cellphones, done away with rules that required farmers to buy materials from state-run stores, voided a rule that forced residents to pick up prescriptions at inconveniently located pharmacies and lifted a ban on purchases of electronics.

The electronics reform, which also goes into effect Tuesday, will let Cubans buy computers, microwave ovens and car alarms, among other items. Several stores were stocking shelves Monday. At La Copa in Miramar, a fancy Havana suburb where many foreign embassies are located, computers were prepared for purchase. Electric bicycles were displayed at Galer¿as Paseo, a store on the Malecon, the avenue that runs along Havana's famed seawall.

The catch of course being who can afford these new swanky privileges with wages dictated by the state, severe price controls and payment for premium services in only cold hard cash. Hotel management is a public-private partnership between the Cuban military and certain international conglomerates. State run stores are mandatory shopping places for many staples in Cuba. Cuba entices rich tourist and their money, but the economy is not set up for underpaid workers to benefit openly from their own industriousness. Havana is one of the priciest tourist spots in the region with tremendously spectacular beaches.

Unfettered access to the internet would be a bridge too far. The real issue is the property rights are temporary in Cuba and wiring homes was not in the top 1,000,000 things to be done under the guise of Revolucion. Human Rights is something China is getting re-educated about as a boycott is fomenting in the wake of its crackdown on Tibet. Cuba doesn't have a military crackdown as much as an economic one that equates to the same evisceration of Human Rights.

Most Cubans are estimated to earn between 400 non-convertible (Cuban) pesos (eg a factory worker), to about 700 (eg a professional) - the equivalent of between $17 and $30, or £9 and £15.

Non-convertible pesos are good for buying the subsidised official rations of rice, cooking oil and other perishable goods.

Tourist Apartheid is the name given to the practice of making the Hotels and their amenities TOURIST areas only. Usually it is Europeans that spend freely at the resorts like Varadero Melia, as they are not under the half-century old sanction issues that US citizens must abide by. The amazing juxtaposition of world class luxury available for those with means residing next to workers who arrive by bicycle or a 1950's made in America car relic as new cars are for tourists and not allowed to Cubans.


Brian Lattell, a former CIA analyst assigned to Cuba & Latin American, writes in his interesting book, After Fidel: Raul Castro and the Future of Cuba's Revolution updated in light of recent events, but still with its major emphasis on Fidel and his despotic rule of Cuba.

President for Fifty Years, Fidel Castro Quits

After almost 50 years of his brand of revolution on the island nation of Cuba, President of the Council of State, Fidel Castro, is grabbing his gold watch and exiting the political stage right. No US president from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush made him bow to American pressure. US policy implemented and maintained harsh sanctions that hurt the people of Cuba while cooking up dastardly deeds and stupid assassination plots, to force coup maestro Castro to bend to their will. Soviet and Russian leaders anxious to ensure Castro had the money and tools to withstand American pressure, made him a showpiece client state to spread the virtues of Communism into the Western Hemisphere.

Caught in the tightening vice between geopolitical realities and starvation, Cuban people were jailed, beaten, executed in a willy-nilly fashion while the more fortunate were stripped of ancestral homes and property under Castro's regime, making escape their number one priority with the twin objectives of saving their lives and shaming Castro. Cuba earned its vile reputation for human rights abuses under Fidel Castro's rusty iron fist. Fidel's assumption of the presidency arose from his bloody coup after his Mexican exile.

Famed for firebrand speeches - often lasting several hours, his straggly beard and the cigars he reluctantly gave up for his health, he was the world’s third longest-serving head of state. Born Fidel Castro Ruz on August 13, 1926, he attended Catholic schools before graduating from the University of Havana with a law degree.

He later ran for a parliamentary seat, but Fulgencio Batista overthrew the government and cancelled the election.

An angry Castro assembled an unsuccessful rebel force, but was captured and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Defending himself at his 1953, Castro delivered one of his most famous speeches. “Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me,” he said.

Pardoned after just two years, he headed to Mexico where he trained a group of revolutionaries called the 26th of July Movement.

Their first invasion of Cuba failed, but Castro’s guerilla war quickly won him many supporters and eventually, on January 1, 1959, Batista fled the island and Castro seized power.

Last year, Fidel Castro, 81, underwent life threatening surgery for stomach ailments described as cancer, that made him give temporary custody of the Cuban presidency to his 70-something baby brother, Raul. Previously, Castro fainted during one of his excruciatingly long rambling speeches about Cuba's revolution. One of his bedside well wishers was Castro's Venezuelan acolyte Hugo Chavez with his continuing supply of oil and friendship. Meanwhile in Miami, Florida, Little Havana is throwing a party that will be awash in news photographers from around the world. Castros resignation letter uses his grandiose quote - "I will not cling to office", now would have been a good admission addition.

Fidel's longevity as a bearded political tyrant and head of state, despite coup attempts, the Bay of Pigs, the Soviet nuclear Missile crisis, embargoes trapping the country in the 1950's, the Mariel Boat lift, the deaths of so many attempting to float on capricious and rough waves to America atop the wildest mixes of cardboard, 1950's car parts and patched up innertubes and Elián González, his political antics and dynamics have been sources of deep angst and embarrassments inside the Oval Office. Cuba immigrants have a special plan or entry into the US - "the wet foot, dry foot" policy determining their status.

Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Havana and Miami is an outstanding book that takes a deep look at Cuba in the twentieth century through the eyes of Castro's colorful and fractious family - a few who sit in the US House of Representatives - and its people as told about a seven year old kid washed up on a south Florida Beach starting an international firestorm on custody resulting in a fully armed FBI night raid to return the little boy in his pajamas back to Cuba. All the high drama and reasons are chronicled by the powerful writer, Ann Louise Bardach.

Meet the New Cuba Policy, Same as the Old...

Cuba has an entwined thorny history with the USA. Illegal entry into the USA grants fleeing Cubans a separate and unequal immigration stance, the horridly named "wet foot, dry foot"policy.

During the recent boiling over of immigration suds, no one really attacked that difference. Cubans come knowing the proviso, if they are Cuban and make it to land even by millimeters (dry foot), the immigration umpire yells "safe". Caught in US territorial waters in a flimsy boat or an inner tube as a Cuban, is ruled a foul (wet foot). Many take another chance.

Some rallied for "Keep Out" fences along the land-locked US-Mexican border. No one is funding a twin northern Canada fence, though the Millennium Bomber used that entry.

Nothing galvanizes US policy towards Cuba the way the name Castro does. Al Qaeda's Osama does not have near the same longevity of dominating policy. On both, the US has deemed them or their organization or country sponsors of terrorism. Yet, if you have a dry foot... Fidel Castro handed over the reigns to Raul Castro. The notable change is that Raul's speeches are shorter about the Revolution. There is talk of the needed structural changes for Cuba, but the more things change the more they stay the same.

Cuba's rich and vibrant history is smothered by oppression. The US has a history of touting Democracy and slavery at the same time. At some point, the cognitive dissonance regarding the dialogue needs to take place, especially when the fence is advocated against a country we import oil from and have not designated them a sponsor of terrorism.

Cuba's rich intellectual history is documented in the poems of Jose Marti (1853-1895). Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana by Ann Louise Bardach is a must read book that is part Cuba travelogue providing precious insight into all sides of the debate that divides families and loyalties. An org chart of connections to families in the US; especially Miami, and Havana is invaluable. Tad Szulc wrote Fidel: A Critical Portrait that informs and challenges what drove his actions.