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MARIO J. TORRES
The truth about Cuba
CUBA NOW
After the fall of Berlin Wall, the collapse of the USSR, and the total
destruction of the Communist countries, Castro had a natural death that he
did not want to accept. His economy was in the air. He had no more support
from his friends and old partners who were all gone, but he did not want to
change or open up to the rest of the world, or even hold elections because
he knew that would mean losing full power.
So, instead, he closed himself inside the country and intended to survive by
going back to the times of the Indians. He called this process The Special
Period.
He reduced to a minimum all first-need articles of every kind, and those had
already been scarce for more than thirty years. He created new laws of
repression and he started charging high taxes on everything. Besides, he
increased the price of all articles, he reduced salaries, he forbade every
attempt to survive by a private small business or transaction, he prepared
failed fishing plans, he attempted to have every house in Cuba cultivate,
grow, and consume their own food from the garden at their houses. He also
created insufficient agricultural markets and did crazy things in
agriculture; he stimulated foreign tourism in Cuba by legalizing the
so-called "currency of the enemy": the dollar.
He used the dollar to start selling first need- products in a country where
workers do not get paid in dollars. The initial exchange rate was around one
hundred and thirty Cuban pesos for one dollar. This meant massive murder
because the average monthly salary of a Cuban worker is around two hundred
pesos. That is ten dollars for the whole month if we take the current
twenty/thirty-pesos-equal-one-dollar rate. There couldn't be anybody who
might definitely afford the excessively high prices of the underground
market and the dollar exchange rate. No one would be able to afford food to
support his family, not to mention clothes, shoes, housewares, and other
secondary needs.
These types of brutal misery, despair, worry, need, and strong repression
are the main features of Cuba nowadays.
In the previous thirty years, food ration distribution had been controlled
by a special coupon notebook. After 1989 this situation became more serious
and in big crisis.
Before 1990, Cubans were entitled to four ounces of meat per week, a loaf of
bread daily, and some items like fish, eggs, and butter more easily
obtainable. In the 90's meat became an exclusive product for tourism and was
not distributed to the population any more. And, most of the items that
could be obtained with rations but were usually available practically
disappeared.
The current food ration distribution is as follows:
(1) Four ounces of ground soybean resembling meat bi-weekly.
(2) Some kind of awful, stinking and bad tasting ham-like stuff in ounces
twice a month.
(3) Five eggs once a month.
(4) One fish once a month.
(5) A quarter of a loaf of bread daily.
(6) One liter of milk every other day for kids
up to six years of age.
(7) One liter of soybean yogurt every four days
for kids between seven and fourteen years old.
(8) Five bottles of kitchen alcohol twice a month(9) Fuel for cookers twice
a month.
(10) Rice, beans, sugar, salt, matches, and
cigarettes in small rations the first day of each month.
(11) Coffee powder , four ounces once a week.
(12) Soap and toothpaste, every three months.
(13) Vegetables and produce must be bought
where people can get them.
(14) Cakes are only sold for one-year birthday party kids.
Rum is a mixture of kitchen alcohol, kerosene, and other unknown substances
which makes it undrinkable. Beer is low quality, and when sold brings about
long queues and quarrels among men. Shoes and clothes are never sold except
for dollars. Other products like butter, cheese, milk yogurt, cokes, malta,
ice cream, cookies, crackers, oil, beef, pork, chicken, good fish, ham,
lard, etc., practically do not exist in Cuba as supplied by the state, since
it had always been the only provider. Some of those can be found in the
dollar shops or in the clandestine or black market.
This type of ration is practically a survival food that never makes ends
meet, so usually everybody runs out of everything pretty fast. In these
cases Cubans have to turn to the clandestine market or to the dollar shops,
but first they have to make marvels to get the money to be able to afford
it.
The dictator then created many shops in the country that sold (and still do)
first need products in dollars even though the population is paid in pesos
and the dollar=peso rate is between 25 and 30 pesos for 1 dollar. Castro has
always wanted to prove that life before 1959 was like hell in the island and
that life standard improvement started when he took the power, trying to
confuse the people with the idea that progress is not brought by modern
times but by his revolution. If the system that prevailed up to 1959 had
continued, many more goals in technical and economical progress and advance
in all fields of life would have been achieved than the ones Castro claims
to have obtained also at the high price of his dictatorship, so here the
evil leader wisely takes advantage of a principle that many Cuban have not
realized and it is that the passing of time is proportionally direct with
mankind progress.
The following data proves that the reasons for Castro's revolution and its
acceptance by the people were, by no means by economical reasons, but were
simply due to the propitious historical stage of the nation at that moment
in which Fulgencio Batista wanted to impose his government to the people, in
a second term, with antecedents of a coup d'etat and violence for mere
political motives.
CUBA BEFORE
This is the real Cuba: In 1958, Cuba was a prosperous country with a solid
economy. It was the third country in gold reserve in Latin America and the
value of its currency equaled the American dollar at a 1 to 1 ratio. Its
inflation rate was the lowest in Latin America with 1.4%. The island was
fourth in the world in greater employees' and workers' salary payment. The
Caribbean country with 0.86 cattle heads per inhabitant, ranked 8th in Latin
America and was 3rd in meat production in the same area. As to mineral
production, Cuba was the first in the world in cobalt production, second in
nickel, eighth in manganese and eleventh in copper production. Regarding
consumption of calories, Cuba was 3rd in Latin America and first in fresh
fish consumption.
In that very year, Cuba was 3rd in Latin America with 28 inhabitants per
telephone and 27.3 inhabitants per automobile. The island was also second in
inhabitant per radio set ratio with 5.0 and first in inhabitant per TV set
ratio with 1 TV set for 18 inhabitants.
Cuba was the third country with the largest number of radio stations (160)
and television transmission stations with 23 in Latin America. In relation
to its population, Cuba was second with 60016 movie-theaters and also second
in newspaper distribution with 588.0 inhabitants per newspaper. In 1958,
there were 97 hospitals and 21,141 beds at the service of the people and
6,4231 doctors and the inhabitant=doctor ratio was 980 inhabitants per
doctor where Cuba ranked second in Latin America whereas in inhabitant per
dentist ratio Cuba ranked third with 2,978 inhabitants per dentist. Besides,
children mortality rate in the island was the lowest in Latin America at
that time with a 37.6 % deaths per thousand children born alive and the
general mortality rate was 5.8 % per thousand; being first in America and
third in the world.
The country had 13 universities at that time apart from institutes, Schools
of Commerce. Technical and Pedagogical Schools. Illiteracy rate was 25 % and
the island was fourth in illiterate per inhabitant in Latin America and it
was the country that devoted more budget expenses to Public Education with a
23% Out of 273 inhabitants, one was a college student and 45% were female
In Cuba, there was 1 km of railway line every 8.08 km2
Also, daily average salary for agricultural workers in 1958 was $3.00 (7th
in the world) and $6.00 for industrial workers where the island ranked 8th
worldwide. Cuban workers had a daily 8 hour shift system and worked 44 hours
a week. They were paid 48 hours a week and were entitled to a one-month paid
vacation yearly and in summer months many shops and stores were closed at
1PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays so that workers could enjoy the hot and
beautiful Cuban beaches, which at that time were open for everyone and not
for tourists or for the new ruling class as they are now.
This may measure how much the Cuban people lost with Castro 's revolution
and how unnecessary it really was. Castro now purposely adjudicates to his
system his contradictory "achievements" (if there was really any) which are
anyhow the result of the progress that the passing of time brings about in
countries, societies and civilizations but in the island's case, progress
was definitely stopped when he took the power and what is more, if Castro
had not existed, Cuba would now be a paradise on Earth.
MAKE YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS!
MARIO J TORRES
JANUARY 2004
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