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10 Facts About Corruption in Cuba

Corruption in Cuba
Ever since the small Caribbean nation of Cuba became a nation in 1902, corruption at all levels of its society has plagued it. From the face of the nation to the small-time citizen, corruption impacts almost every person in Cuba.

Cuba has suffered over a century of corrupt government officials, businessmen and everyday citizens taking advantage of the already impoverished nation. Cuba has formed policies in an attempt to stop the trends that so many are familiar with, but the country needs to do more. Here are 10 facts about corruption in Cuba including its history and what the country is doing to combat it.

10 Facts About Corruption in Cuba

  1. It was not until the presidency of Jose Miguel Gomes in 1909 that Cuba experienced major public corruption. He earned the nickname of The Shark because of his involvement in several government corruption scandals that became public. The second president of Cuba and his supporters were guilty of embezzlement of funds.
  2. In 1952, Fulgencio Batista and the army led a military coup on the sitting president, Carlos Prio Socarras. Batista subsequently became president and led a corrupt dictatorship that would make millions off of profiteering from foreign investors’ illegal gambling and even criminal organizations. Batista received 30 percent of profits from Cuban casinos and hotels owned by the gangster, Meyer Lansky, alone.
  3. After six years of corruption and exploitation under the dictatorship of Batista, the Cuban people had enough. Fidel Castro led his revolutionary forces to depose Batista from power on January 1, 1959. The style of government that Castro installed did not fix the problem of corruption; it only changed those in charge.
  4. Corrupt officials take bribes from the few foreign companies in Cuba in exchange for lucrative contracts. An incident like this led to the arrest of the Canadian CEO of the Tokmakjian Group in 2011. Cy Tokmakjian was guilty of giving gifts to Cuban officials in exchange for government contracts for his Ontario, Canada-based transportation company.
  5. The police in Cuba often search the vehicles and homes of the Cuban people, and instead of charging individuals with a particular crime, they seek bribes to gain profit for their time. The police have the power to stop and question any citizen and carry out search and seizure operations without a warrant. Officially, in order to search someone’s home, police need a warrant, however, they still confiscate goods without these warrants.
  6.  State employees steal and sell state goods on the black market. As much as 20 percent of goods are stolen and distributed around the country. The Cuban government provides most of the goods for the people; items become very scarce or not seen at all as a result of the overwhelming theft. For example, people have a difficult time locating construction materials, such as paint wood and cement, because people steal them frequently.
  7. The practice of sociolisomo is widespread in the Cuban government and top positions of power. Sociolisomo translates to partner-ism and is the reciprocal exchange of favors by individuals. Those in power and control of the state-run resources often let people gain access to these resources via bribes or some other form of material compensation. For example, hospitals give people preferential treatment if they can supply the hospital with scarce material items, such as pens and paper, or provide other services to the hospital.
  8. Today, Cuba is progressing in the right direction when it comes to corruption. Transparency International has ranked Cuba at 47 out of 100; this is up from the country’s lowest of 35 in 2006. One hundred means that a country is completely free of corruption and zero means the country is very corrupt. Transparency International has ranked Cuba 61 on the list of 180 countries.
  9. When Raul Castro took power in 2008, he promised to crack down on corruption in all of Cuba. In 2009, he created the Office of the Comptroller General, which was tasked with auditing companies and state-run institutions. This was meant to bring to light and put in check the levels of corruption that have run rampant in the highest levels of government for decades. Recently, the office discovered in 2018 Cuba’s economy suffered millions of dollars worth of damage. Investigations found that 369 public enterprises were to blame for corruption including a lack of control of accounts and breach of payments. The office determined that 1,427 people were responsible.
  10. In 2001, the government of Cuba created the Ministry for Auditing and Control to help combat corruption in Cuba. Through auditing and inspections of the Cuban Civil Aviation Institute in 2011, the Cuban government was able to discover millions of dollars in the home of Rogelio Acevedo. The investigation found that Acevedo was leasing state airplanes off the official books and keeping the money for himself.

Despite a long history of corruption in Cuba, the new leadership is taking steps to combat corruption on the island nation. Corruption in Cuba still exists today but data shows that the country is heading in the right direction. Only time will tell if the newly implemented policies will have a positive impact on the Cuban people.

– Sam Bostwick
Photo: Flickr

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8 Shocking Facts About Fidel Castro

10 Shocking Facts About Fidel Castro

As the political leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008,  Fidel Castro, nicknamed El Comandante, was the “face of left-wing totalitarianism”. Though Castro’s educational reforms significantly improved the system of education in Cuba, they often came at the hand of communist policies that left its citizens impoverished as well. While most of Castro’s reforms proved harmful, a few paved the way for advances in Cuban health and education. Here are eight shocking facts about Fidel Castro.

8 Shocking Facts about Fidel Castro

  1. Castro eradicated Cuban illiteracy. Through the implementation of the Cuba Literacy Campaign of 1961, Cuba met the Millennium Development Goals set forth by the United Nations and the country’s literacy rate rose from 60 to 100 percent. In one day, the program opened 10,000 classrooms, guaranteeing education for all Cuban citizens. Overall, more than 700,000 Cubans became literate in just one year. Castro’s relentless fight for universal education brought the issue to the forefront of Cuban challenges and successfully improved literacy among its people.
  2. Castro established Cuba’s universal health care system. By nationalizing Cuban health care, Castro’s policies not only expanded public health care but improved it. With the establishment of the Rural Medical Service and the Declaration of Alma-Ata, Castro brought medical services to rural locations, opened family clinics and made free medical care accessible for all. Cuba’s health care successes also include completely blocking the transfer of HIV and syphilis from mother to child and providing the first vaccine for meningitis B, which is still the only available vaccine for the disease today. Castro not only provided health care for the Cuban people by improving prevention, equal coverage and access but his policies also advanced the quality of care as well.
  3. Castro punished those who thought differently than himself. By jailing political opponents and closing down newspapers with alternative political perspectives, those who thought differently than Castro were not safe during his reign. The native-born Cuban leader limited his citizens’ free speech and punished those who valued their voice more than their safety. Castro did not limit his punishments to speech; he also legalized physically abusive tactics on politically divergent individuals. Those who questioned or criticized the way Castro ran his government were often imprisoned, denied access to medical care, suffered beatings and entered solitary confinement. In 2003, Castro executed his methods on a larger scale when 75 people, human rights activists, journalists and trade unionists, received his abusive tactics following their outspoken criticism of the Cuban government.
  4. Castro limited economic freedom. Life under Castro’s rule was economically suffocating. With the creation of The First Agrarian Reform in 1959, Castro intended to improve the economy by redistributing land among the classes. The law, however, was more prohibitive than inclusive. It placed limits on the amount of land individuals could own, abolished private business and nationalized foreign land ownership. With The Second Agrarian Reform of 1963, these limits only became more restrictive. The new law gave Cuba ownership over two-thirds of national farmland, and by 1998, the country owned 82 percent of it. With such limited freedom over their own economic choices, hundreds of thousands of middle-class Cubans fled their homes for a better life in the U.S.
  5. Castro plunged Cuba into an economic downfall. During his rule, Castro made sugar Cuba’s main source of income. The growing of Cuban sugarcane relied on imports of fertilizers, pesticides and technology from the Soviet Union. So when the USSR fell in 1989, Cuba was no longer able to produce its main source of income, and its economy consequently collapsed. As a result, the country’s GDP fell by 35 percent, which propelled Cuba into a time of economic struggle known as the Special Period. Marked by food and housing shortages, increased unemployment and reduced public services, Castro’s economic decisions resulted in the impoverishment of his own people.
  6. Castro did not let human rights organizations enter Cuba. Castro treated many people inhumanely and he refused human rights organizations entry into the country. Without access to the country, organizations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, were unable to work toward improving the harsh realities of the Cuban people and inhumane practices went on without consequence.
  7. Castro refused to hold elections while in office. Castro remained in power for almost five decades and this was partly due to his refusal to leave power. Nobody was legally able to run against Castro unless they shared his political perspective because he placed a ban on multiparty elections after self-proclaiming himself a socialist. This meant that he was able to enforce his inhumane policies for decades and the economic strain was long-lasting.
  8. The Cuban government still uses Castro’s abusive methods. Abusive tactics introduced during Castro’s reign, such as arbitrary arrest and detention, beating, acts of repudiation and government surveillance, are still used in Cuba today according to the Human Rights Watch. While Raul Castro, Castro’s brother and Cuba’s current leader, has hinted towards reconsidering the country’s abusive methods, he has taken no real action, and the country’s citizens continue to suffer abuse. For example, in 2016, the arrests of 9,940 Cuban citizens led to harassments, beatings and the subjection to acts of repudiation.

These eight shocking facts about Fidel Castro cannot encapsulate 49 years of supremacy, though they can provide a glimpse into Cuban life under his rule. While Castro passed away in 2016, his death cannot erase the influence his policies had on Cuba. However, organizations, such as CARE and the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC) are implementing programs to increase living conditions in Cuba.

Organizations Working to Rebuild Castro’s Cuba

CARE, an organization that began working in Cuba during the Special Period, is doing great work to reinstate the food security Cuba lost during the fall of the Soviet Union. With projects such as the Strengthening Dairy Value Chain Project (SDVC) and the Co-Innovation Project, CARE is working with Cuban farmers to improve agricultural practices. CARE made Cuban food security a national priority by providing rural farmers with access to new farming technologies, helping them in diversifying their food supply and figuring out ways to make food products more accessible at the local level. While Castro’s rule limited non-governmental farmland ownership to 18 percent, Cuba now allows its citizens 66.29 percent of farmland ownership, meaning that Cuba now has the ability and freedom to achieve its food security goals.

FHRC uses non-violence to protect the rights of Cuban citizens. Through the Cuban Repressors Program, the FHRC has created a safe place for Cuban citizens to report violent Cuban government officials. The program provides Cuban activists with cameras and smartphones that allow them to record inhumane activity. It also distributes photos and pamphlets with images of repressive perpetrators to communities and posts identified repressors on the internet. Since the launch of the program, these methods have identified 93 repressors, and with the number of reported repressors decreasing each month, the FHRC is succeeding in attaining justice for the Cuban people.

U.S. Relations with Cuba

Years after Raul Castro took over presidential responsibilities from his brother, President Obama announced that the U.S. and Cuba would restore its diplomatic ties in an effort to normalize relations between the two countries. Obama began to ease U.S. trade and travel restrictions with Cuba that were upheld for decades due to Castro’s abusive policies. However, the Trump Administration is making efforts to roll back Obama’s policies and enforce new economic sanctions on Cuba. With Cuba’s newly elected president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, only time will tell how the U.S.- Cuba relationship will develop.

– Candace Fernandez
Photo: Flickr
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Three Attributes for an Improved U.S. Aid Package to Cuba

U.S. Aid Package to Cuba
“The changes in Cuba are for more socialism,” reads a sign in Havana. As relations between the United States and Cuba become warmer, this statement reflects how the U.S. aid package to Cuba should strive to protect its notable accomplishments in human development.

An improved U.S. aid package to Cuba is essential, and with it must come certain qualifications and stipulations that benefit both the U.S. and Cuba.

But what exactly should Americans look for in the next set of policy changes toward the island nation? Here are three attributes to support for an improved U.S. aid package to Cuba.

1. Lifting restrictions on U.S.-backed NGOs

It is true that Cuba boasts one of the lowest rates of extreme poverty in the world—1.5 percent in 2006. But despite this achievement, the island still suffers from food insecurity.

With an average monthly income of $20, even a typical Cuban government employee cannot afford meat daily. Milk, cheese or ice cream are reserved as weekly treats, and an aging population means that Cuba will struggle to meet more specific nutritional requirements in the future.

Yet many NGOs, especially those from Europe, must bypass subsidiaries in the United States and look elsewhere for funding. Major funding partners such as the World Bank, IMF and Inter-American Development Bank are blocked due to American veto powers in these institutions. These restrictions limit capacity-building in the agricultural sector.

In the words of one Cuban teacher, this is all too clear: “People want to leave Cuba just because they are hungry.”

2. Funding for Collective Enterprise

Cubans love to share, and one of the ways the island recovered from the fall of the Soviet Union was through its collective (public-private) business. In fact, the number of small to medium-sized firms has grown to roughly half a million since Raul Castro took office.

Raul has also implemented other changes. Private and hybrid firms can now sell services to each other and to government entities. New credit lines are being issued with unlimited ceilings, and decreases in the value of welfare and food subsidies are motivating Cubans to try entrepreneurship.

For instance, at Bella II Beauty in Havana, one esthetician is now making $42 per month instead of the $14 while under government control. Her business is one such worker cooperative.

“The inspector would come and the products that weren’t from here,” she says, “I had to hide them.”

Under the collective business model, workers can now streamline operations to increase profits, with each having say in their decision-making.

To add to this, the Cuban government is cutting back on expenses, as its banks are unable to provide more than $40 in loans to individual citizens. The Brookings Institution estimates that over 500,000 civil service jobs will be terminated in coming years to halt the bloating of public sector employment.

An improved U.S. aid package to Cuba would, therefore, support economic cooperatives with training, technical expertise, and financial resources to continue their growth.

3. Support for the Housing Sector

Every three days in Havana, at least two buildings collapse on average. This statistic sums up the state of Cuban housing: a cramped, expensive and decaying affair.

Over 85 percent of Cubans own their homes thanks to transfer measures that turned renters into owners during the revolution. But there are 11.2 million residents living in 3.9 million homes. This means that Cubans often live with not only their partners, but also their parents and grandparents.

Government estimates indicate that more than 500,000 additional housing units are required to meet demand, but construction is lagging. In order to reach that goal within eight years, the government would need to build 70,000 units per year, compared to its current yield of 16,000.

This is another opportunity for NGOs to offer properly trained labor and grants, especially since mortgages are illegal in Cuba to prevent real-estate speculation. In the words of prize-winning jurist Rodolfo Fernandez, “Housing is for living in, not for making a living from.”

An improved U.S. aid package to Cuba would preserve these unique advances by finding a middle ground between full-fledged capitalism and the more regulated (think: France) vision held by the island’s citizens.

– Alfredo Cumerma

Photo: Pixabay

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The Reemergence of Tourism in Cuba

tourism in cuba
Before the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro’s rise to power in 1959, Cuba was a popular tourist destination for Americans. Now, only those over the age of 60 can remember a time when the governments of the United States and Cuba were on speaking terms.

In recent years, the Obama Administration has made efforts to improve relations with the neighboring country, including easing the economic embargo—though not lifting it—and allowing Cuban Americans to visit and send money to their families. This has been progressed in part by Raúl Castro taking over as president of Cuba. He has expressed interest in working with the U.S., something his brother never did.

In the wake of these changes, it is also much easier for the average American citizen to travel to Cuba. In the past, it was nearly impossible to reach Cuba without going through another country first. However, it was not the Cubans attempting to keep out American tourists, but rather the American government trying to keep American tourists out of Cuba in order to prevent the spread of communism.

Even now, with the Cold War long over, tourists must travel with a tour group, which will keep them busy with a multitude of activities every day, leaving barely any time for individual exploration. Despite this restricted travel, it has been reported that a half million Americans now legally travel to Cuba every year. This number is expected to grow in the coming years. The nation’s best year for tourism to date was 2013. Tourism is once again becoming an integral part of the Cuban economy.

A typical job in Cuba pays $16 a month. Someone with a well-paying career, like a doctor, will make $30 a month. Now, with an increase in tourism, working at a hotel is a coveted position. One waitress who serves in a hotel restaurant said that on a good night she will make roughly $15 in tips, which is enough to eat three meals a day, pay the electricity bill and purchase a new pair of shoes.

While some believe that the money coming in through tourism in Cuba will trickle down and benefit all Cubans, there is concern among many that it will only serve to create an economic divide between the “haves and the have nots” similar to pre-revolution Cuba. Though the Castros have been promising for years to create a socialist society that still allows for a somewhat capitalist economy with privately owned businesses and competition, changes have been slow to come about. The typical Cuban town is a mix of old, dilapidated buildings with propaganda posters of Fidel Castro in the windows and new, nicer businesses that attract tourists and Cubans who possess more money to spend than the average citizen.

Despite the fact that change may be slow, there is no denying that it is coming. The majority of Cubans are optimistic about the future of their country and their own livelihoods. Even simple sugarcane farmers express excitement that the world is paying more attention to Cuba, citing recent investments from Canada into Cuban sugarcane. The country’s hope and optimism lies in the possible end to the Castro era and the U.S. embargo, which they feel would create the new, prosperous Cuba that is just out of reach.

– Taylor Lovett

Sources: NPR, WABE, Time
Photo: Vintage Ad Browser

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Cuban Economic Growth

Cuban Economic Growth
For decades, Cuba kept itself off the radar and rarely allowed access to the United States. However, Raul Castro, brother to the infamous Fidel Castro and current leader of Cuba, has recently allowed small changes to make an impact on Cuba.

After years of economic isolation and little internal growth, Castro faces a difficult job in making up for lost time. Small programs like the Cuban Emprende make a world of difference as community leaders learn how to grow their small businesses into larger, more modern companies, leading the way for Cuban economic growth.

The distribution of wealth in Cuba is skewed, with the poor representing a large portion of the population. The average Cuban worker earns around $20 a month, and little has changed in the past 50 years. Cuba has now opened the doors to looking into private investments, a monumental step in the direction of globalization.

In the past, Cuba was mostly affiliated with Latin and South America. By allowing other countries, such as the U.S., into the Cuban system, the people of Cuba are looking at a brighter economic future.

However, members of U.S. Congress seem tentative about whether this Cuban economic growth and reform are benefiting the labor rights as well as human rights of the population. Raul Castro has yet to make clear how the people are being affected by this change in internal government, so outsiders are weary of possible retribution. It is unclear as to how the U.S. will react to these changes and opening up foreign investment. Since the revolution of Cuba in the 1960s, the U.S. has not been allied with Cuba.

Chamber President Thomas Donahue recently visited the island for the first time in 15 years. He reports positive change in the direction of free enterprise, fewer government jobs and increased private hiring. Cubans are seeing a better daily life as companies begin to modernize and improve the impoverished neighborhoods as jobs become more readily available.

Raul Castro has recently implemented programs teaching Cubans how to successfully operate small businesses and create meaningful business relationships. Programs such as this offer the lower class an opportunity to support themselves in the realm of business and become potential business partners as foreign investors start to peer into Cuba’s economy.

Cuba is still in the early stages of change as its people adjust to the government’s new approach, but current conditions are looking promising as people find their new niches in a budding economy.

– Elena Lopez

Sources: Reuters, NY Times, TIME
Photo: InterNations