Cuban Economy Worsens, Citizens Face Toilet Paper Shortages

The extent of Cuba's economic crisis has become so severe that officials say the country is in danger of running out of toilet paper and other supplies, Reuters reports.

Cuban officials said they were reducing the prices on a range of basic goods, but may not receive more toilet paper supplies until later in the year.

Cuba does not currently have the raw resources to produce its own supplies of toilet paper, says Reuters.

The Cuban economy has been seriously affected by last summer's hurricanes alongside the global recession.

AP last week reported that upscale grocery stores that had closed to take inventory had failed to open as scheduled a few days later.

In a speech given last week, President Raul Castro said, "We have been forced to re-negotiate debts, payments and other commitments with foreign companies."

Cuba, which imports some 60 per cent of its food, has long blamed economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. for its financial difficulties.

Yesterday, AP reported that President Castro announced plans to expand a program providing tracts of land for farmers who use oxen to prepare the land for crops instead of modern oil-burning machinery.

The Cuban Communist Party Central Committee last month suspended plans to hold a party congress for the first time in 12 years and ordered energy savings across the island in order to cope with the economic crisis, ABC reported.

The HuffPost's blogger in Cuba, Yoani Sanchez, said the economic and energy situation heralded a return to the electricity blackouts of the nineties. Read her blog here.

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Comments

[Jeff9]

03:38 AM on 08/19/2009

They need to get hand held bathroom bidet sprayers and then they won't ever have to worry about running out of toilet paper again. With these you can use a towel to just dry off (yes your own personal towel for those with no imagination) and it's much more sanitary. I think Dr. Oz on Oprah said it best: "if you had pee or poop on your hand, you wouldn't wipe it off with paper, would you? You'd wash it off" It makes cleaning the toilet itself a breeze also. For those of us who really like to be clean it is the best invention since the toilet. It is so much better than a stand alone bidet and this is why: 1. It's less expensive (potentially allot less) 2. You can install in yourself = no plumber expense 3. It works better by providing more control of where the water spray goes and a greater volume of water flow. 4. It requires no electricity and there are few things that can go wrong with it. 5. It doesn't take up any more space, many bathrooms don't have room for a stand alone bidet. 6. You don’t have to get up and move from the toilet to the bidet which can be rather awkward at times to say the least. Available at http://www.bathroomsprayers.com

[dpiyjrtmfr]

06:00 PM on 08/16/2009

I am a long-time hiker. If you like I could send the Cubans a list of all of the leaves that can be used as a substitute.

[clearthinker2008]

03:43 PM on 08/12/2009

I bet the Castros have TP.

[jcko]

03:55 PM on 08/12/2009

Depends

[OliverTwist]

03:39 PM on 08/12/2009

What exactly does a picture showing toilet paper with Castro's picture on it have to do with this story?

It would be about as innappropriate to show rolls of toilet paper with Huffington's picture on it.

[Blackorpheus]

02:53 PM on 08/12/2009

Okay, the US has more toilet paper than Cuba. What does that make us?

Whatever mistakes Fidel might have made since the Cuban revolution, including the seeming official attitudes toward homosexuality, compare the country now, with its free education; its advanced, inexpensive healthcare; with how it was under the corrupt Batista

I traveled in Cuba in 2000 and spoke with many Cubans, young and old. They were impressive in every way: articulate, compassionate, not in the least hostile to the US, and, yes, sympathetic to Fidel's longstanding government.

Cuba itself was picturesque, clean (despite lacking toilet paper), and I saw just a single homeless person in the three weeks I was there.

Obama, in his presidential campaign, made some noise about how he'd try to restore friendly relations with Cuba, but, typically, he has since backed off.

[MadridFrank]

02:24 PM on 08/12/2009

The toilet paper goes before the fall!

[Ira7]

02:21 PM on 08/12/2009

For those who favor the lifting the embargo, I don't think you really get it:

Castro doesn't really need a lifting of the U.S. embargo--he needs CREDITS from the U.S. to buy stuff, which would be a result of lifting the embargo.

Unfortunately, he has failed to pay billions and billions to other countries he DOES trade with, and judging by experience, we can expect more of the same in the future.

Now, if you're willing to spend YOUR money to support this corrupt, repressive regime, have a ball. But don't spend MINE.

If they're just going to continue to be a welfare state, I say just invade the hellhole, make them the 51st state, and put the people on Welfare untill they come up to U.S. economic speed. But to give them that OTHER welfare (trade credits) and have Castro and his cronies still around to plunder it is total INSANITY! It's throwing good money after bad!

[liberalissima]

03:15 PM on 08/12/2009

All of you who support such anti-human acts against governments who simply choose not to install United States forms of free market capitalism, with that as the basis of all "trumped up" charges ongoing, belong precisely where the creator of that toilet paper belongs, in an unflushed, just used toilet.

[noweknow]

12:54 PM on 08/12/2009

This also happened in Russia and Easter Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[JScott]

11:52 AM on 08/12/2009

Corn cobs, Sears catalog (oops guess they won't have that there) but like the other commenter noted...newspapers I guess there will be plenty of that......hmmm might be a good opportunity for those japanese plumbing makers to sell the toilets that have built in features to wash and dry you after your done.

[jcko]

03:57 PM on 08/12/2009

errr....Okay, no comment..... this joke is too easy.

[den1953]

10:47 AM on 08/12/2009

Anyone that wipes there butt on a picture of el President now that's loyalty like no other!

[carpinter]

10:25 AM on 08/12/2009

Toilet paper is a chronic problem in Cuba, but there are alternatives:

Katherine Hirschfeld describes hospitalization during the 1997 dengue fever outbreak: “Sixteen patients shared one large bathroom … with no soap or toilet paper.” Health, Politics and Revolution in Cuba since 1898, page 58.

“The toilet paper at Elizardo Sanchez’s house was made from Granma, the newspaper, which he cut up into small squares and stacked by the commode.” Patrick Symmes, The Boys from Dolores, page 160.

Ben Corbett, in This is Cuba: an Outlaw Culture Survives (Cambridge, MA: Westview Press, 2002) describes journalism as toilet paper on pages 142-143:
… said Enrique. “Nobody reads the daily papers in Cuba.”
“We use it for toilet paper,” he said. “It’s cheaper. Everybody buys the dailies to clean their asses. That’s all it’s good for. The toilet paper at the stores costs 4.5 pesos per roll. With this many pesos, I can buy twenty-two newspapers, mas o menos.”
“I wait until Monday and buy the weekly Trabajadores. It has more pages. Your Granma there has only two pages folded. Trabajadores has twice as many pages at the same cost.”
[Cubans also clean themselves with book pages from the collected letters of Lenin, circa 1922.] “The campesinos use book pages. When we visit the city, we always bring a good book along. And when the habaneros visit the campo, they always bring us a supply of Granmas.” (pages 142-143)

[yankees]

10:05 AM on 08/12/2009

USA policy what it is, where are Fidel's friends? Chavez and crew? Surely with all their oil money they can send toilet paper.

[clearthinker2008]

03:40 PM on 08/12/2009

Excellent point. Also I get sick of other Countries blaming the US for everything. So what we don't trade with them, they still have the RESPONSIBILITY to find a ways to take care of their people. They are not Americans. Now, I hope the embargo is lifted, I have no problem with that. But other Countries what us to stay out of their business at the same time blame us for all their woes.

[KinkyGirl]

08:27 AM on 08/12/2009

Running out of toilet paper?. Hardly a problem. You just wash your ass with soap and water.

[MadridFrank]

02:07 AM on 08/12/2009

Anyone interested in an objective portrait of life in 80's Cuba should rent "Before night falls".The dictatorship has always mistreated gays as sub-human. A profound biography by gay Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas.

[karenlee]

02:21 AM on 08/12/2009

Objective??? Is that a sick joke? You can say anything you want about the quality of Arenas' writing, but please, let's not pretend there is ANYTHING objective about what he wrote concerning Cuba.

[MadridFrank]

02:31 AM on 08/12/2009

Truth is always the basis of objective thought.Arenas lived the lie of the revolution.Cuba=Democracia ya!

[Tulka2]

01:19 AM on 08/12/2009

After the Revolutionary War, the new United States of America paid reparations to British sympathizers who, for fear of their life, left their land and property and escaped to Canada.

Expat Cubans bring that historical fact up. They will resist normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba until Cuba offers reparations for the property they left in Cuba. Here's the thing. Cuba is too poor to pay them off. The new United States was a rich, bountiful frontier. Truth is most of the people who left Cuba early on were the exploiters of the underclass. They lived on the backs of the Cuban people long enough.

This is a generational thing. The second and third generation of expats are not down with the violent anti-Castro passions of their elders. Let's get Obama over this health care bump.

[MadridFrank]

01:54 AM on 08/12/2009

Democracy is NOT a generational thing.There are over a million Cuban exiles,the only exploitation
over the past fifty yrs.is the a consequence of a brutal dictatorship that has historically denied it's citizens of basic rights and freedoms.Cuba=white minority gov't!

Four things Fidel:free press,free opposition parties,freedom for political prisoners,a single free election.Cuba DEMOCRACIA YA!

[Rog49Thomas]

08:25 AM on 08/12/2009

After the USA's Civil War, the slave holders were not compensated for their loss of property.

Same situation with the Cuban kleptocracy.