Cuba's public "privatization" debate

Cuba's public "privatization" debate

Cuba's Communist Party newspaper has been publishing unusually frank
criticisms of Cuban socialism.
By Nick Miroff
Published: February 9, 2010 06:29 ET

HAVANA, Cuba — Something unusual has been stirring lately in the pages
of Granma, this country's largest newspaper and the official mouthpiece
of the Cuban Communist Party.

Lacking commercial advertising and printed entirely in red and black
ink, Granma typically carries eight tabloid-style pages devoted to
fawning coverage of Cuba's top officials and the latest iniquities of
Yankee imperialism. Its primary function is to promote the Cuban
government, rather than cover it, offering an Orwellian chronicle of
life on the island as a never-ending series of socialist triumphs.

But in recent months, Granma has become an unlikely forum for a debate
that seems to portend much-expected reforms to Cuba's state-run economy.

A flurry of op-ed columns have appeared lately in the paper's "letters
to the editor" section, staking out positions for and against something
Cubans are calling "privatization" — small-scale liberalization measures
that might allow more entrepreneurship and private business. At its
roots, it is an argument over how to revive Cuba's anemic economy, which
was already woefully inefficient and unproductive before the global
recession hit.

Most surprising, at least for the pages of Granma, is that many of the
editorials contain rather frank criticisms of Cuba's economic ills,
which include petty corruption, the widespread theft of state goods and
a low-wage system that pushes Cubans into black-market activity to make
ends meet.

"What would it mean for the State to eliminate the ongoing farce of
state-owned property?" asked one letter, signed by D. Gonzalez de la
Cruz. Pilfering is so rife at state-run businesses that they're already
being privatized, he argued.

"In our current situation, privatization is already happening" Gonzalez
wrote. "Only instead of a rational and well-thought-out process, it's
chaotic and perverse. What kind of social benefits do we get from
state-run business and restaurants where the State pays the bills but
the profits — obtained fraudulently and illegally — go into the pockets
of the those who prey off the people and the State?"

The letters in Granma appear to be part of a broader re-examination of
Cuban socialism called for in speeches by President Raul Castro, raising
hopes and expectations among Cubans who struggle with constant shortages
and a system that officially bans most forms of private commerce. Of
course, the debates are bound by certain unspoken parameters, and do not
contain calls for free-market capitalism nor any direct political
criticism of Cuba's leaders.

Rather, they are framed as a discussion about the best way to save Cuban
socialism and its vaunted social safety net from an underachieving
economy choked by excessive centralization and bureaucracy.

"I'm concerned about the future of my country, and it worries me that
some still blindly believe that the old economic model we have is
perfect," wrote J. Gonzalez Fernandez in another Granma editorial,
saying that he is a 28-year-old whose views are shared by "almost all
young people."

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"We can't keep living in the past. We have to think about the present
and future of our country," he wrote, adding that he believed
"adjusting" socialism was needed to ensure its survival.

What's not clear is when economic reforms may be enacted, nor how
extensive they may be. With frustrations running high, many insist
changes can't wait. Even Cuba's Catholic Church weighed in last week,
publishing an editorial written by priest and economist P. Boris Moreno,
who warned of "socioeconomic collapse" if reforms aren't made.

And yet, if "privatization" is being floated in Granma and other
official newspapers, does it indicate some package of liberalization
measures have already been decided upon by the Castro government?

"I think these are changes that almost everyone supports, including many
Communist Party militants, but I don't know when they may occur" said
dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, who said he has been followed
the debates "with great interest."

"Raul Castro raised a lot of expectations, and people are growing
frustrated he hasn't done anything," he said.

Since Raul Castro officially took over Cuba's presidency from his elder
brother in 2008, his government has enacted modest reforms to Cuba's
agricultural sector, putting unproductive state land in the hands of
private farmers and cooperatives. But many services and small businesses
— from watch repair to fast-food restaurants to bakeries — remain in
state hands.

And not everyone seems eager for that to change, as other editorials
appearing in Granma have urged "not to give capitalism an inch."

"Now is not the time to create the conditions for the reintroduction of
clever and treacherous capitalism into our homeland," wrote J.L. Valdes
Carrasco, exhorting readers to work harder, produce more food, and
"place absolute trust in the leaders of the Revolution," while calling
on young people to "lead in the decisive stage of the Revolution," the
term used on the island to refer to the Castros' socialist system.

One interesting feature of the Granma debates is that many of those who
have submitted letters for and against economic reforms try to bolster
their arguments by borrowing quotes from Fidel Castro's speeches.
Gonzalez, the 28-year-old, cited Castro's words from a 2000 May Day
speech in making his case: "Revolution is everything that should be
changed."

That partisans on both sides would quote Castro may be a preview of the
political debates likely to ensue once he, Raul, and their generation of
Cuban leaders is gone, and younger Cubans are left to sort out the
island's problems.

Granma | Cuba newspaper | Privatization (9 February 2010)
http://mobile.globalpost.com/dispatch/cuba/100205/privatization-granma-liberalization