Cuba "There is no food, there is no medicine, there is nothing in Cuba, and that is not a product of the US embargo"
Direct Witness "We waited five hours and when we entered the store there were only soft drinks"
"This government is alive and we are looking for solutions to the people."
The social outbreak has twisted the arm of the Cuban government, something that seemed impossible just a week ago.
This was confirmed by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, whose apologetic words open this chronicle, by informing the country that, exceptionally and temporarily
, travelers will be authorized to import medicines, food and cleaning products
free of tariffs and without a limit on the value of import.
"A person can bring the amount they want.
The limit is not set by the country or customs, but by the airline they are traveling on,
" confirmed Marrero.
In this way, the emigrants will send their family and friends, directly or indirectly, the tons of medicines and basic products collected in recent weeks and that the Government prevented importing in
one of its most criticized "self-blocking" measures.
What excuse was he arguing?
The humanitarian corridor proposed from abroad, with the support of a platform of artists, was in reality a "covert invasion".
The same refusal and explanation that Nicolás Maduro already wielded in Venezuela.
"We are facing a reaction to social protests. The Government knows that it has to lower the pressure somewhere. And yes, it is a relief, but limited.
Most people do not have someone to bring them food and medicine,
" he confirmed to EL MUNDO Cuban economist
Pavel Vidal
, a former official of the Bank of Cuba.
This is the first concession for Cuban society since last July 11 a popular and spontaneous revolt broke out throughout the country to the rhythm of the song "Patria y Vida", turned into a hymn of freedom.
The outbreak occurred days after the #SOSCuba and #SOSMatanzas campaigns
caused the adhesion of thousands and thousands of citizens inside and outside the island. Initiated by immigrants abroad, it was intended that the Government of
Miguel Díaz-Canel
allow the shipment of medicines and food to alleviate the disaster that is being experienced in the interior of the island, especially in the province of Matanzas, overwhelmed by the pandemic.
The Government also recognized the
shortage of antibiotics, analgesics, contraceptives, antihypertensives and vitamins
, but once again wielded the US blockade as the cause. "We have suppliers that, due to pressure and the new US measures, are unable to guarantee shipments. The whole issue of the blockade has meant for us an increase in acquisition and input costs of between 30 and 50% in many products" Marrero assured in the Round Table, the most famous program on Cuban television.
The concession to force made by the Government of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) also represents another contradiction in the face of the famous embargo as the sole cause of the economic pandemic that the island has suffered for decades. "There are many more convincing arguments and evidence that show that
the blockade is not the cause of all the problems
. I don't think anything changes if another appears," said Vidal.
Arguments such as those put forward from the island by another renowned economist,
Pedro Monreal
: "In the first five months of 2021, the accumulated food exports from the United States to Cuba already represents 80% of the total exports for all of 2020, and approximately half of the exports of 2019 ". Or as Monreal himself sums up:
when the "alternative" to a blockade is to invent another blockade.
The outlook is looking gray for the Castro revolution, incapable of vigorously implementing the reforms ordered by
Raúl Castro
in its guidelines. "They do not have many options this year, they have already done what they could in the monetary field and are working on getting the rules to open the TCP (the rules for self-employed workers, the embryo of capitalism designed by the Government) and the small and medium-sized companies. They could speed it up a bit, "predicts Vidal.
The implementation
of the dollarization process on the island
has been a severe setback for the Government, as well as a political handicap, something that economists and experts warned from day one.
The economic strategy of one step forward and a half back, applied not only with the self-employed but also with the monetary reform and the devaluation of the peso,
has had an impact on rising prices and a hotter black market than the Malecón itself .
The looting of these days in dollar stores has confirmed the national outrage, also increased by the proliferation of electricity cuts (in the middle of the Caribbean summer) that have reminded so much of the Special Period of the 90s.
"The Venezuelan crisis is affecting Cuba in a brutal way. The lower arrival of crude through PetroCaribe, in a country massively dependent on hydrocarbons, has already caused
serious energy restrictions and continuous power outages
, which affect the sectors more. with less income, who cannot afford the expense of having emergency generators, "said
Carlos Malamud
, principal investigator at the Elcano Royal Institute.
If to all this is added the impact of the pandemic on tourism, and the enormous fall in the inflow of foreign currency, the change in the government's discourse is explained before
a society fed up with the great excuse of the "besieged fortress."
And what is coming will not be better, when the gigantic plan of repression against protesters, dissidents, opponents, artists and independent journalists is still underway.
"Before yes, the Government has a second semester complicated by
the increase in Covid cases and because the shortage
, inflation and blackouts persist. Until 2022 there is no possible recovery," Vidal certified the same week in which Cuba breaks records deaths since the start of the pandemic, exceeding the 50 per day mark.
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