Cuba - The Tricks of the Embargo

Cuba: The Tricks of the Embargo / Ivan Garcia

Posted on June 23, 2014



In Havana, the good medical specialists always have at hand two kinds of

treatment for their patients.



"If it is a person with family abroad or of high purchasing power, I

propose that he go to the international pharmacy to buy the medications

in foreign currency because they are of higher quality and more

effective. Those who cannot, then I prescribe the treatment approved by

the ministry of Public Health with medicines of low quality manufactured

in Cuban laboratories or of Chinese origin," reports Rigoberto (name

changed), an allergist with more than two decades of experience.



When you visit one of the 20 international pharmacies located in the

Cuban capital, you can find a wide range of medicines patented by

pharmaceutical companies of the United States.



From eye drops, syrups, tablets and ointments. Their prices instill

fear. Lidia, an engineer, browses the shelves meticulously in search of

Voltaren eye drops, indicated by the ophthalmologist to begin a

treatment of her mother who underwent cataract surgery.



"It costs a little more than 10 CUC (the minimum monthly wage in Cuba).

I have to buy two bottles, 20 CUC, which is my monthly salary. Thanks to

relatives living in Europe I can get it," says Lidia.



In the same pharmacy, Yamila, a housewife, waits to pay for 15 envelopes

of Inmunoferon AM3 stabilized in an inorganic matrix that doctors

usually recommend for allergic patients or to raise the body's defenses

after a prolonged treatment with antibiotics.



"It is shameless of the government to sell it so high. My sister who

lives overseas sends me the boxes with 90 envelopes and each one costs

her 18 dollars. In the international pharmacies they sell you 15

envelopes for 8 CUC. And then they fill their mouths talking about the

blockade (economic embargo) of the United States against Cuba," says Yamila.



On the island, the "blockade" is at fault for almost everything that

does not work: the dirtiness of the streets, empty warehouse shelves and

cracked buildings in danger of collapse. A perfect alibi where

lazinesss, low productivity and the lethal Creole bureaucracy are hidden.



A government never had such a powerful weapon for justifying its

impotence. "Whether lack of soap, toilet paper or condoms, the blockade

is to blame. There exists a vast catalog of jokes at the expense of the

blockade. And it has become a joke," says a newspaper vendor.



"The blockade," says a pre-university student, "affects only people who

have no access to hard currency. With hard currency everything is in the

stores. From toiletries, food, computer equipment and domestic appliances."



When you travel the stores located inside the Miramar Center complex,

you will notice the wide range of products with US patents.



In a repair shop for electronic equipment, refrigeration and home

appliances of the CIMEX chain, which is controlled by military firms, on

San Lazaro and Carmen, in the 10th of October township 30 minutes from

downtown Havana, you can see great publicity about the qualities of RCA,

Hamilton Beach, Black & Decker and other brands patented in the United

States and which sell like hotcakes in the hard currency stores.



Speaking of the embargo has become a cliche. People mechanically repeat

the official line. I asked 7 people between ages 18 and 35 about the

reasons the United States government instituted it, and they did not

know how to explain it to me.



"I believe it was because Fidel promulgated socialism in Cuba." "I don't

really know, but it is unfair, their fault that many Cuban children do

not have the medicines they need." "They should lift it immediately, so

that these people (the Castros) will not continue the same old story

(line)," were almost all the answers.



No one knew how to answer why then Coca-Cola and HP printers are sold

and the regime acquires a bus with parts and additions Made in the USA.

But the average Cuban is as tired of the embargo as of his aging rulers.



They intuit that the blockade is not at fault for the marabou weed that

overruns the countryside, the scarcity of oranges or the astronomical

prices of meats, fruits and vegetables in the farmers' markets. They

live with their backs turned to the furious anti-embargo lobby that is

happening on the other side of the pond.



Fermin, a cobbler who works in a doorway of Calzada in 10th of October,

was unaware that a delegation of the United States Chamber of Commerce

visited the island and, among its objectives, is to create mechanisms

for granting credit to small businessmen.



"You speak seriously or it's a joke. I cannot believe that I am a small

businessman. I doubt that if they someday award loans to individuals, we

will be the beneficiaries. The favored will be the same as always, the

children of ministers and retired ex-military who have businesses. We

screwed will always be screwed," vows Fermin.



What it has to do with, in this new dynamic to improve relations and

relax the embargo, is that there exist multiple legal tricks and legal

created by the olive green regime in order to control the emergence of a

class with economic power.



In the first utterances of the Economic Guidelines approved by the last

Communist Party Congress in April 2011, the government of General Raul

Castro plays its cards face up, signalling that the measures are

designed so that citizens involved in self-employed economic activities

cannot accumulate capital.



Evidently, the "fine print" has not been read by the politicians and

businessmen who in the United States are carrying out the campaign to

lift the embargo.



The cobbler Fermin is clear: "Here the private worker who makes a lot of

money is labelled as 'criminal.' And what awaits him might be jail."



Ivan Garcia



Translated by mlk.

21 June 2014



Source: Cuba: The Tricks of the Embargo / Ivan Garcia | Translating Cuba

- http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-the-tricks-of-the-embargo-ivan-garcia/