([EMAIL PROTECTED] [130.179.16.26]) by
for <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 10:21:53 -0600 (CST)
From: Helen Osman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 10:21:51 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Cuba visit(long)
To: phillps
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 10:21:51 -0600 (CST)
This is a fairly long digest of our recent visit to Cuba. I hope
the purists on the list will find it neither too "artsy feely" no
to non-analytical to be of interest. To Jim D., I will return to
the NAIRU battleground as soon as I can recover from the blissful
contentment of sun and ocean breezes, et al.
Reflections on a Cuba Visit
by Paul Phillips
The Helms-Burton law in the US which penalizes foreign
corporations conducting business in Cuba was the final incentive for
my wife and I to take a short "sun holiday" in that beleaguered
Carribean country during the University of Manitoba's February
mid-term break. Relief from a brutal winter and exhausting work
schedules was, of course, the prime motivation for "snow birding"
to warmer climes but our choice of Cuba was also a political
statement in opposition to the extra-territoriality of America's
vindictive and punitive approach to Cuba. We had always wanted
to visit Cuba, to see for ourselves what was happening in this small
country that the US is so paranoid about and which has suffered so
much economically from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
continuing US economic embargo.
So we also combined a little business with pleasure by spending one
day at the University of Matanzas, about 35 kilometers west of the
main tourist resort strip of Varadaro which is booming with
construction of huge, grand tourist hotels, joint ventures with
Spanish, Italian and Canadian partners. While at the University, we
met with the Deans of the Physical Education Faculty and presented
them with a promotional Spanish language video of the 1999 Pan
American Games in Winnipeg. (Donna, my wife, is Manager of
Communications for the Pan American Games.) We visited the
Canadian Studies library at the University, an initiative that began at
the University of Manitoba, and donated some books that we had
brought with us; and we had an extended discussion with the head
of the economics department about the state of the Cuban economy
and its prospects. As well, as I had just finished a (co-authored)
draft of the entry on "market socialism" for the forthcoming
Encyclopaedia of Political Economy, I was interested in Cuba's
experience with market oriented reforms designed to combat the
crisis that the end of Soviet aid and the American embargo had
engendered, a subject we also talked about. Obviously, one week's
observation of daily life in Cuba and one day of conversations with
Cuban economists does not an expert make, but nevertheless, I
would like to share some observations and reflections on what I
saw and learned.
The Tourist Experience
We flew from Toronto to Varadaro and then on to Havana by
Cubana Airlines, the Cuban national carrier, in a Russian built
Ilusyian aircraft. (Interestingly enough, it was smoother and much
quieter than the DC 9 we had flown in from Winnipeg to Toronto.)
The trip took an hour more than necessary because, being a Cuban
airline, it could not fly through US airspace and had to fly east to
the Atlantic, down the Atlantic coast, and then west to Cuba. This
was just the first example of how US policy has not only added to
the cost of Cuban business, but also has contributed to global
ecological degradation by unnecessarily increasing fossil fuel
consumption. From Havana, we were transported by modern
(Japanese) minibus to Santa Maria del Mar 22 kilometers east of
Havana where our hotel was located on a very beautiful and
extensive stretch of Gulf beach. The hotel, built some 20 years ago,
had seen better days but was clean and comfortable, everything
(satellite TV, radio alarm, air conditioning, elevators) worked and
the service was friendly and efficient. The food was plentiful and of
good quality just boring.
Cuban music, art and dance may be spicy and unique, but poor
Cuba must have inherited her food genes from England, except
perhaps for the beer and bread which were quite excellent.
We stayed at Santa Maria because it was relatively close to Havana
and we are inveterate urban prowlers when on holidays. The
problem is how to get from the hotel to Havana. Public transport in
Cuba has totally broken down, again the result of the American
embargo and the lack of domestic supplies of petroleum, a
commodity that Cuba had (prior to 1989) imported from the Soviet
Union at what were, in effect, subsidized prices. Cuba, I was told,
now produces about 25% of the oil it consumes and, with help from
Canadian and European oil companies, hopes to increase domestic
production through exploration and development. This Canadian
and European assistance is, of course, one of the main targets of the
Helms-Burton legislation. In any case, as a result, public transit is
very poor. Busses, the ones that still run, are irregular and, when
they do come, are almost invariably too full to take on added
passengers. To compensate for the lack of busses, the Cubans have
introduced the "camel busses", pulled by semi-trailer tractors in the
manner of stock trailers. They can hold up to 300+ passengers, but
are (I am told) incredibly hot and uncomfortable. As a result, hitch
hiking and bicycling are the norm, the latter a tremendous challenge
to the remaining vehicle drivers.
Tourist taxis do exist and are quite plentiful. By Canadian
standards, they are also quite cheap $1.00 (US) to get in, $.75 a
kilometer. This would make the trip from our hotel to Havana
about $18-20 (US), or approximately $25 Cdn a $50 round trip
expense. For one day, that is bad enough but for multiple trips, it
becomes prohibitive. Rental cars are also expensive if you can
get one. We reserved a car for our visit to the University of
Matanzas only to be told when we went to pick it up that there
were no cars available and it was impossible to reserve cars in Cuba
a totally Kafka-esque (or Monty Python) experience. ("We rent
cars but we have no cars to rent.") We finally did find a car to rent
after being told by the same person 5 minutes earlier that they had
no cars to rent, however at $152 US per day (mileage and gas
included.) We took it.
The final alternative is to take a "gypsy taxi". These are private
vehicles that the owners use as taxis. I have been unable to
understand their legal position. They are quite ubiquitous and
open, and according to our tourist guide and guide books quite
legal for us to hire and (within limits) perfectly safe, but they are
not totally legal for the driver/owners who are subject to fines.
Nevertheless, they are indispensable for the tourist trade. Rates are
negotiable but were generally $10 (US) each way to Havana
i.e. approximately
the official tourist taxi rate. The only problem
is, private cars in Cuba are either 1950s American models, or 1980s
USSR Ladas, both of which are held together by bailing wire and a
prayer. Our taxi into Havana had no muffler and questionable
brakes; our taxi from Havana (a 1953 Chevy) had steering more
flexible than Richard Nixon's political morality. Fortunately, the
driver never drove over 70 K/hr, even after he stopped on the
highway to pick up 3 of his amigos as company on our trip.
Havana itself was well worth the visit. Evidence of the economic
crisis is plentiful in the physical decay of many of the streets and
buildings, but the street markets were buoyant and well stocked
with good, and cheap, crafts and the people were ebullient and
friendly relatively few beggars whom, I understand, are
something quite recent in post-revolutionary Cuba. In this regard,
Cuba was a welcome relief from Mexico, Jamaica and some other
Carribean and Mediterranean countries we have visited where
beggars are a constant companion. I think it is fair to say that the
Cuban people are poor, but there is relatively little absolute poverty
in the sense of starvation or lack of basic medical service, at least
compared to other third world countries. As well, extensive
reconstruction is underway on some streets under the UNESCO
world heritage sites program, and the museum and historic sites we
visited were well maintained and staffed; and the service and
friendliness of the attendants was very good. We were told that
petty crime was more of a problem now than it was in the earlier
period, but that Cuba remains virtually violent-crime free so that we
could walk anywhere at anytime without fear, which we did. We
have also been told that large scale prostitution has returned to
Cuba in response to the economic crisis and the loosening of
controls but we did not see much direct evidence of this either in
daytime Havana or around our resort hotel.
Likewise, there was no obvious evidence of political repression.
Our only confrontation with the police was when they stopped us in
our rented car and asked for a ride. We obliged until they realized
that we weren't going in their direction at which point they politely
asked us to stop so they could get out. When we went to the
semi-finals of the Cuban Baseball League, our tourist guide (an avid
baseball fan) told us that his cousin who had played for one of the
Cuban professional teams, had defected to Mexico to play US
professional ball. It was obviously a sad point for him, though he
seemed willing to openly discuss the issue of defections. I saw
none of the sullenness that I saw in Hungary in the late days of the
old regime though this may merely reflect cultural differences. Such
anecdotal evidence, of course, is not very good social science. But
it is indicative of a degree of openness and of freedom of discussion
which we found equally evident in our visit to the university. And,
by comparison, the police presence was immensely less in Cuba
than when we visited Hawaii a few years ago.
The Economic Crisis and Reforms
No one can dispute that the Cuban economy is suffering the
Cubans call it the "special period" (or economic crisis) initiated by
the Soviet demise and the American embargo. According to Dr.
Manuel Marriro, Head of the Department of Economics at the
University of Matanzas, Cuban GNP after the collapse of the USSR
fell by 50 per cent. (By comparison, this is a decline 50 % greater
than the collapse of the North American economies in the great
depression in the 1930s.) Real recovery only began in 1994 when
GNP rose 0.7 %. Since then, the growth rate was 2.5% in 1995
and 7.8 % in 1996. Still, it will take into the next millennium even
at the 1996 growth rate before Cuba will be back to where it was in
1989. One barrier remains the US embargo. For example Cuba
imports approximately half of its rice consumption. The obvious
source would be the southern US, but Cuba is forced to import its
rice from China and Vietnam, at much higher transportation cost
another cost to the Cuban economy and source of environmental
degradation attributable to the embargo..
Agriculture was one of the industries which underwent considerable
reform in response to the crisis. Private farming expanded and,
although some proportion of production must be sold to the state
for the provision of the subsidized basic food entitlement,
production in excess of this amount can be sold on the open
market. In other industries, enterprises are allowed to plan their
own investment providing they can finance it from their own
resources. Significant bank borrowing, however, requires approval
from the planning authorities.
The composition of recent growth also raises some questions. The
major components appear to be tourism and some recovery of
sugar production. On our flight back from Havana we were seated
next to a Canadian who was part of a delegation of educators on
an aid mission to Cuba to help develop a technical education
program. First, it should be pointed out that the general education
program in Cuba is excellent probably the best in the third world
and probably better than in a number of areas in the developed
countries. They advertise that the literacy rate in Cuba is 100%,
higher even than Canada. Their level of technical education,
however, is more suspect in part because they have been relying
on 1950-60's soviet technology. My technical expert argued that
industrial machinery and technical standards in Cuba are still
deteriorating, and that as a result, Cuban industry is continuing to
decline despite the turnaround in GNP since 1994. I have no
independent evidence, but I suspect he is right if one looks at the
state of the vehicles and much of the infrastructure.. If that is the
case, we have a typical case of dependent, enclave growth
tourist dependent growth at the expense of the domestic industrial
sector.
One should not label such tourist dependent growth as totally
negative. One promising variant of it is "health tourism". We had
no occasion to utilize it, but the Cuban health system is considered
very good. They have a number of health spas for foreign visitors
(e.g. one at Matanzas) and a growing pharmaceutical industry.
Indeed, they have been forced to develop their pharmaceutical
industry because of the US boycott that cut off critical medicines to
Cubans. Also, on our flight down and back, we were accompanied
by a delegation of University of Manitoba medical people who were
involved in the development of a preventative medicine
(immunology) program for Cuba in conjunction with colleagues at
the University of Santiago. Their unequivocal conclusion was that
the Cubans were dedicated to high quality, public health care.
One problem that Cuba faces in its longer term economic growth is,
paradoxically, one it shares with the United States and Canada.
The social budget, largely spent on pensions, comprises about 20
per cent of the total government budget and is financed by taxes on
the enterprises and incomes. However, Cuba's population, like that
of developed North America, is rapidly aging. The population
replacement ratio (the average number of children per family) has
fallen to around 1.5-1.7 (a figure similar to Quebec's) while it is
generally estimated that a ratio of 2.1 is required to merely maintain
the population. In short, a smaller and smaller number of workers
will be available to finance social security for a rising number of
aged. This is the same demographic pattern that led to the recent
increase in Canada Pension Plan premiums and is fueling the current
debate south of the border over the future of US Social Security.
One week in Cuba is no basis for any sophisticated analysis of the
Cuban political economy, the efficiency of its planning system, or
its longer term potential to overcome the current economic
difficulties. This is merely a record of some, perhaps superficial,
observations. The obvious gratitude of the people we talked to for
Canada's continuing support of normal economic and political
relations and for the aid in helping them through this "special
period", was encouraging. The antipathy toward the US
government was also obvious and vocal though it did not appear to
extend to the American people, a number of whom accompanied us
on the flight from Canada to Havana in order to get around
American restrictions on travel to Cuba.
