Remittances Are Pure Profit (For Castro)

By Cuban blogger Ivan Garcia in Desde La Habana:

Family remittances: Cuba’s number one industry

Fidel Castro’s revolution is an ocean of contradictions. It billed itself as a paradise for workers and the humble. Fifty-two years later, those two sectors are precisely the ones who are suffering the most.

Castro attempted to diversify industry, increase agriculture and become a power in the livestock industry. Not one was accomplished. The rulers designed a system where property would be in the hands of the workers. And today those workers continually rob their workplaces in order to compensate for low wages and attempt to live a better life.

The Cuban revolution has ended up hiding in a labyrinth. Even its social, educational and sports advances are in their darkest hour.

In the search of oxygen, and above all not to lose the presidential seat, the brothers Castro have become cross dressers. The luminous Marxist discourse and the fictional philosophy that is scientific communism is bankrupt.

What is left of socialist Cuba is a parody. At the sound of the trumpet, it begins reconverting itself into State capitalism. The military corporations have taken over the principle economic branches. Above all, those that produce money.

The “sacrificing leaders” sleep on plush mattresses. They live in air-conditioned residences with internet, satellite television and cars that always have a full tank of gas. And when summer arrives they leave with their families to Varadero without having to pay one penny.

The almost 2-billion dollars sent by Cubans in the diaspora during 2010 has served to pay for their luxuries and their private clinics.

In Cuba, there are four industries that produce revenue: aeronautics, tourism, telecommunications and family remittances. This last one is number one. There is no need to invest one cent. Everything is profit.

Here is another of the incongruities of the Castros’ island: those who work are paid in a useless currency. And they have to buy cooking oil, toiletries, clothes, shoes and appliances with dollars.

In spite of this arbitrariness, the Cubans do not take to the streets. Discontent in Cuba manifests itself in other forms: routine, laziness, sloppiness, workplace robbery or emigration.

The typical citizen resolves the shortages by picking up the phone and calling his family on the other side of the Florida Straits. “Send me some money that things are bad.” And that family member goes to an agency in Florida and wires them a hundred dollar bill.

Within 24 hours they receive the money at home. They can buy food and powdered milk for their 7 year old son, for the government has decided that at that age, the child no longer needs to drink milk.

In part, he resolved a big problem, at least until next month. And the regime honchos, with big smiles on their faces, watch the digits on their cash registers. Remittances are a lifesaver for the both of them. The government milks exiles as if they were cows. And to amass more dollars, they raise the duty fees on the products sold in dollars.

That hundred dollar bill received by the impoverished and insular family has a tax placed on it of 13%. That goes on top of the 240% markup placed on the items in the “shopping centers” or dollar stores.

One hundred dollars today was 65 dollars ten years ago. All the basic items cost anywhere from 15 to 20% more than they did in 2001. The rulers justify themselves with the Robin Hood theory. According to them, the State can subsidize the rest of the population, the 35% that does not receive dollars, with these taxes. But in practice, that is simply not the case.

The elderly, who gave the best of themselves applauding the cheating bearded one, and those who risked their lives in African wars, live worse than ever in 2011.

Schools and hospitals are deteriorating, and the sports complexes find themselves in similar conditions. Large areas of fertile land are filled with marabu weeds. The construction of 63% of the homes is in bad shape, with many of them on the verge of collapse.

Let’s take out the calculator: Since July of 1993, when the dollar was legalized, at one-hundred million per year in terms of remittances, the government has received 18-billion dollars. Add to that more billions that came from the partnerships in tourism, aeronautics, and telecommunications.

What have the Castro brothers done with all that cash? What have they spent it on? There is only official silence.

A large part of those remittances come in handy for certain olive green corporations to create companies and invest in projects that do not benefit the majority.

But if the family members did not send money, then those 65% who do receive dollars would have had to have taken one of two paths: throw themselves to the sea on anything that floats, or start screaming “liberty” in a public plaza and receive an overabundance of blows by the paramilitary mobs.

You cannot ask the people to adopt a heroic stance. We have never had a calling for martyrdom. In a survey of 30 families that receive dollars, 28 are tired of Fidel and Raul Castro and all their clan.

Family remittances have meant a better life for an innumerable amount of Cubans throughout the island. They eat and dress better, and they have been able to repair their homes. And although some of them continue living behind a mask — they participate in the revolutionary dance and vote in the elections — they are also in favor of political and economic changes.

That they do not protest is easy to understand. In closed societies under the absolute control of secretive services, fear tends to win over the desire for liberty.

But the dollars sent by our relatives strengthens the power of the Castros. It is a truth that is as plain as day.

Translated by Babalu Blog.