What does the voice of Henrique Capriles sound like? A neighbor asked me a few days ago. I didn't know whether to tell him it was high-pitched or deep, soft or forceful, because the Cuban media is careful not to air it. Instead, we only have the opportunity to hear the agitated shouts of Hugo Chavez, the verbal attacks he throws at his young opponent.
A few days before the Venezuelan elections, our official press has closed ranks around the current occupant of the Miraflores Palace in Caracas. The television commentators assure us that there will be a landslide victory for the Socialist Party and celebrate in advance. But that's just in front of the cameras; behind the cameras is nervousness, not certainty.
Raul Castro's government has too much invested in the Venezuelan elections on October 7. Much more than with the dismemberment of the USSR and the conversion of the Eastern European countries. On that occasion, the loss of the Soviet subsidies and the political allies of the socialist bloc submerged the country into a profound material and diplomatic crisis. But within the country the control exercised by Fidel Catro's regime had the strength -- and stubbornness -- to withstand the blow.
Today, more than two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, little remains of the fervor, the stubborn will, with which we faced what Fidel Castro called The Special Period, a crises presented to us as a necessary sacrifice, a test of ideological fortitude.
There are so many similarities and yet profound differences. The loss of the economic underpinnings from the Kremlin forced Fidel Castro to allow self-employment, the renting of houses, the development of farmers markets, foreign investment, and opening of the Island to international tourism and dollarization.
However, it was precisely the rise to power of Hugo Chavez in 1999 that was the key element to the walking back of these reforms. With a powerful and nearby partner lavishly giving us oil, why continue to deepen the process of relaxations that resulted in a loss of power.
Raul Castro, years later, would retake the path of economic openings that his brother had retracted. This time he would be supported by the Venezuelan subsidy, which has enabled him to implement the few changes slowly in a lukewarm fashion. Perhaps there was a moment when he believed that offering farmers the ability to lease land in usufruct, or expanding licenses for self-employment, would allow Cuba to take its first steps towards economic independence.
Or maybe he always knew that this type of dependency, once established, ends up becoming a chronic situation. More than a circumstance, the need for external subsidy is the core of the Castro regime, the direct result of its inability to successfully manage the national economy.
If, on Sunday, Venezuelans reelect Hugo Chavez as president, Raul's regime will get some breathing room. But the great polarization in Simon Bolivar's fatherland will make it more difficult to publicly sustain the maintenance of Cuba. It will no longer be the same.
On top of that, the obvious physical collapse or the expected death of Fidel Castro is an open secret throughout the whole country. His last brief and delirious "Reflections" column was published in the newspaper on June 19. Some say they are only waiting for the end of the Venezuelan elections to put an announcement date on his obituary.
The government in Havana is approaching complicated months. Venezuela's will be the first in a cycle of three elections that will influence, to a greater or lesser extent, our national life. The presidential election in the United States follows immediately in the list of electoral processes that lie ahead. Mitt Romney has promised a heavy hand with the Cuban authorities, but Barack Obama can also be very caustic to the Cuban system if he deepens his policy of family, academic and cultural approaches.
The first five-year term of Raul Castro will end in February 2013. Few are betting that he's thinking of retiring to make way for a younger figure. These elections, the third that await us in the coming months, are also the last in importance and in generating expectations. The process of nominating People's Power delegates and installing them in the National Assembly has already begun, and this body will approve the nominations to the Council of State.
If the Venezuelan results will decide whether we are granted billions in subsidies, and our relationship with our powerful neighbor to the north is in play in those elections, the Cuban elections smell strongly of a play whose script is already written. We don't even need surveys or voter polls. There is no possibility of a surprise.
Translating Cuba is a compilation blog with Yoani and other Cuban bloggers in English.
Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanifromcuba
HP, if there is anything we can do to help her, please let us know...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19846317
It's obvious the clock is ticking for both Chavez and Fidel Castro.
Capriles, his opponent, is running circles around Chavez with a message of "hope-n-change" against a message of fear-n-dread when most of this beautiful country has been ruined.
Chavez tried to peddle his influence throughout South America by using Venezuela's powerful oil reserves to buy off politicians in Ecuador, Bolivia and even Argentina.
The problem is that Chavez forgot his own people and just assumed that people would forgo their livelihoods for the sake of a charismatic leader who has undoubtedly done alot for the poor.
Chavez also forgot that while you might call yourself a "revolutionary", the world right now is controled by a cartel of international criminal banksters centered in Wall Street/City of London.
Cuba will probably be forced to change their economy and perhaps form of government if Chavez is defeated and Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina will just forget about relying on Venezuela's oil wealth.
And as for creating wealth!!!! Well, you must have the wrong profession. Farmers, at least those in the US, Canada and the UK barely scrape a living. Farmers in most countries are taking 2nd jobs, their wives almost always have to work elsewhere, their children escape to the city as soon as they come of age in order to make more money, the number of farms and farmers continues to dwindle at an alarming rate because it is too much hard work for too little money. Now, how, and why should farmers in Cuba be able to "create wealth" ? If you find out, please let the farmers of the rest of the world know so they can copy these amazing Cuban farmers.
In this paper we provide a brief summary and evaluation of the main economic changes or
‘reforms’ undertaken by the Cuban government during the 1990's. The thrust of our argument is that the regime does not seem to be interested in reforms that lead to a transition to a market economy or even in the more limited goal of introducing widespread market mechanisms subservient to the needs of the communist party as in China. Instead, their policies seem directed at generating mechanisms for the appropriation of foreign exchange by members of the nomenclature while keeping most citizens deprived of independent access to wealth creation activities. We develop our argument by looking separately at ‘reforms’ in two type of markets: those in which transactions are self-enforcing and those which depend on the contract enforcement mechanisms or services usually associated with market augmenting government to enforce transactions.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&ved=0CCgQFjAAOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.203.6096%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&ei=rbjTTrzFEqOLsALi2PTsDg&usg=AFQjCNGxl2CI9-OmB_lGSPM8Wf1z_BEnBw&sig2=UfpPs6aTjsRLqPukxhSJxg
The key problem for Cuba is that Raul's reforms are not nearly as deep or thorough as those enacted by communist governments in China and Vietnam. In Cuba, "they are going in the right direction, but the issue is whether the reforms are profound enough or fast enough to meet the difficult crisis," says Carmelo Mesa Lago, emeritus professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh, whose new book on the Cuban economy is scheduled to be published in Spain and the U.S. in 2012.
Mesa Lago notes that in China and Vietnam, local farmers have been allowed to lease from the government the land that they work on for an indefinite time period; Chinese and Vietnamese farmers have been encouraged to care for that land as if it were their own. In Cuba, contracts to lease plots of land are valid for only 25 years. "A lot of land in Cuba has been taken over by the notorious marabou plant," says Adrian E. Tschoegl, a management lecturer and senior fellow at Wharton. It often takes two years just to clear marabou-infested land, Tschoegl adds, so a 25-year lease is effectively cut.
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE REPORT!
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/arabic/article.cfm?articleid=2744&language_id=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvbdMg-X5GQ
YOUTUBE : Hugo Chavez BBC interview part 3/3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPDAQxduxms
YOUTUBE : Interview : Hugo Chavez in 20/20 ABC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9v0sicU-5c
This petition simply asks for the Cuban government to ratify and respect international political and civil rights covenants.
For this, they were brutally arrested.
Among those arrested are 2010 Sakharov Prize winner Guillermo Farinas and former political prisoner Librado Linares.
More "reform" you can't believe in.
Occupy Chicago Arrests Freedom To Assemble
A Cook County judge moved last week to dismiss the mass arrests of 92 Occupy protesters who demonstrated in Chicago's Grant Park last October.
In his ruling, Associate Judge Thomas Donnelly called the arrests -- made on the grounds of violating the park's 11 p.m. curfew -- unconstitutional because no arrests have been made at other events previously held in the park that went late, namely President Obama's 2008 election night rally, the Chicago Tribune reports.
News of the judge's verdict was met with skepticism by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who predicted that higher courts will reverse the decision upon considering the city's appeal.
Seems like authorities everywhere hate protestors, especially protestors who call the authorities/government/system anti-democractic.