The Guidelines that Failed

The Guidelines that Failed / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar
Posted on January 18, 2015

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 16 January 2015 — After so many
years of demanding an end to the American blockade, the Cuban government
discovered it is not prepared even for the first relaxations which its
neighbor to the north has implemented with unprecedented agility. It
turns out that the entire scaffolding erected by way of the 33
Guidelines agreed to at the Sixth Communist Party Congress is
insufficient, if not crippling, before the prospects on the horizon.

Perhaps the most glaring inconsistency between the American apertures
and the Cuban bureaucracy's stubbornness, is with in regards to
remittances for the development of private initiatives, including small
farmers, which the United States will authorize without limitations.

From this side, putting this measure into practice could be interpreted
as a violation of the regulations in the Foreign Investment Law, which
restrict the entrance of money to operate businesses to legal entities,
that is, State entities or those authorized by the State. Not to mention
what it means to receive money for humanitarian projects or to support
the Cuban people through the activities of human rights organizations.

Among the advantages that might have difficulty being fully implemented
on the island because of ideological restrictions, is access to the
Internet. A decade ago, the country viewed World Wide Web like science
fiction, but now there is a generation that knows what it is and that
realizes what they're missing by not being connected.

The new general license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control
facilitates the establishment of commercial telecommunications
facilities and authorizes additional services related to communication
via the Internet. As of that decision, it is no longer possible to blame
the "criminal imperialist blockade" for the existing limitations and
they will have to choose between accepting the free flow of information
or displaying the unmasked repressive face of the prohibitions.

There is a working hypothesis in which they could produce a kind of
recycling operation where the elements and the military structure, along
with other spheres considered 'reliable,' assume the role of "approved
private entrepreneurs." Then, through a network of relationships, the
funds will go to the ruling elite. The failure of this idea is that
there has to be someone on the other side willing to provide financing
to an unknown party, and that seems highly unlikely.

The Cuban government has shown a special knack for generating euphemisms
that mask reality. Instead of the term "unemployed" these people are
called "available," and private businesses are called "the non-state
sector of the economy."

But the full acceptance of private ownership of the means of production
requires tremendous linguistic effort to find a new name. For the simple
reason that private owners find a way to empower themselves and to grow,
threatening the role of centralized socialist planning system as the
principle engine of the national economy. The dinosaur state production
mode, devoid of the injection of capital which the private sector could
count on, could not compete.

The other risk factor for the Cuban government will be the influx of
Americans in Cuba. Although the restrictions against tourist travel
formally remain in place, the new permissions are so broad that they
could lead to an uncontrollable avalanche. The appetite for
communication, and for tipping, will be at its highest level. Private
restaurants, B&Bs, street musicians and hookers of every kind will be in
their element and surely it will be all the same to them whether they
get dollars or convertible pesos.

In the face of each of these new measures, the dilemma is the same.
Whether to make a vain attempt to maintain the rigid control now
established, or to let everyone do as they wish and let prosperity
become an individual goal and not a planned program. Anyone who knows
the natural elusive escaped-slave nature of this people, know it will be
very hard to put internal brakes on the tremendous impact that is coming.

Will we have to wait, perhaps, for the 7th Cuban Communist Party
Congress, announced for 2016, for new and more flexible guidelines to
put the country in sync with its new reality? Hopefully not.

Source: The Guidelines that Failed / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar |
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-guidelines-that-failed-14ymedio-reinaldo-escobar/