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26 April, 2011

Washington Post Editorial: Nothing has changed in Cuba


Washington Post Editorial: Nothing has changed in Cuba


April 25 - IT HAS NOW been five years since Raul Castro assumed control of the Cuban regime from his ailing older brother, Fidel. In that time, the younger Mr. Castro — an accurate, if strange, description for a man who will turn 80 in June — has repeatedly reflected on the economic failings of the Cuban Revolution and promised to correct them. Over the past year, in fact, Raul Castro has sounded almost apocalyptic. “Either we change course, or we sink,” he declared in December. “We have the basic duty to correct the mistakes we have made over the course of five decades of building socialism in Cuba.” Such rhetoric raised expectations that Raul would at last bring the free enterprise and political opening that Cuba so desperately needs.
But Cuba’s Communist Party congress last week, the first such meeting since 1997 and the first ever under Raul’s direction, confirmed that talk of reform in Cuba is mostly just that. Instead of liberating the economy, Raul sketched a program of limited privatization that could take “at least” five years to phase in. The most dramatic measure would authorize Cubans to buy and sell houses and cars for the first time since 1959, but Raul provided few details, except to assure Cubans that no one would be allowed to accumulate too much property. The plan calls for more licenses for small service businesses — a measure partly aimed at converting black market enterprises into taxable ones.

Even more disappointing was the lack of political reform — or even a shake-up of the Communist hierarchy.
Yes, Raul suggested choosing more non-Communists for government posts, but he offered no plan for elections or actual party competition.
Instead, Raul promoted Jose Roman Machado Ventura, a longtime crony and fellow octogenarian, to the No. 2 spot in what is still the “vanguard” Communist party.
Nor was there any indication that Cuba plans a conciliatory gesture toward the Obama administration, such as the release of Alan Gross, the 61-year-old U.S. aid worker recently sentenced to 15 years on trumped-up subversion charges. Washington Post
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The accumulation of 52 yrs. of mistakes in one hand  and , on the  other  all the schemes voewed to consolidate and secure a total control  by the Castros  ,can not be re-ddressed with the so called "reforms" and  within the timetable scheduled to that end.

Their regime and their  control of the nation   have done so much damage and  caused such a destruction, in all senses , materially and morally, that  to put Cuba back on its feet  ,as it was of before 1959 , it  would require much more than paliative  "reforms"  of the  kinds  announced by the successor to the throne of  the gulag Cuba.

The  only  solution to the economic troubles, to the misery and downgraded standards of living -- in present day Cuba --  can only  be solved by a complete  turn around of the present  political system and the total elimination of the demagoguery that has been  cheating the  cubans and the entire world for so many decades.  The charade and rethorics has not change, and that is a good signal or indication that the promised "reforms" are nothing else  but another  "chant of  mermaids " to try  gain some  more time. Yet the  younger  generations are tired, fed up and desilussioned  since several decades ago.
So if  Raul Castro wishes a real change ,he  either gives up power and convocate for a referendum to yield  the control to a new  political  regime and system  or he will  have to face the downfall of that regime rather sooner than later.
The revolutions winds  blowing all over the Middle East nations  will arrive, in time,  to Cuba too.


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