The problem is not simply to produce more, but how to achieve this and for whose benefit. Producing more, regardless of the way this is done, could result in returning land to those who have the money, skills and resources to expand production: US companies and property owners of the past.
Read MoreThe Death of Cuban prisoner Wilman Villar put us reporters in a dilemma that, while not new, is more dramatic: that of finding out where the truth lies in the midst of a web of political statements coming from both sides.
Read MoreI have to say that this might sound unbelievable, but I assure you that it’s 100 percent true. Some time ago, I started experiencing a strange anxiety every time I had to go to a store (one that sells goods in hard currency).
Read MoreIf you wish well for the Cuban people, especially the middle class, you have no choice but to like Raul Castro’s new economics under his revolutionary reform plan.
Read MoreWilman Villar has left us another tragic example that freedom, as Manuel Azaña once said, doesn’t simply free people – it makes them human. There is very little information available about Villar’s case, and what does exist is very confusing (as always occurs in systems where information is a privilege and not a right).
Read MoreOne consequence of the Special Period crisis in Cuba was the creation of a dual currency. For the government, this currency proxy separates the direct exchange value of the Cuban domestic peso from the US dollar.
Read MoreIt’s amazing to witness how every day in Havana, more and more private cafes are opening up. On one neighborhood street alone, I saw three and four of these – one next to the other, and usually offering all the same things (coffee, pastries, pizzas, sandwiches, soft drinks) and all at the same prices.
Read MoreAs I mentioned in a previous post, my mother told me that she had invited my 21-year-old niece to go see Fernando Perez’s film “Marti and the Eye of the Canary”. When this young woman replied, “I’m not watching that shit,” I was stunned.
Read MoreThis past weekend my daughter Tania visited Caimanera, the town here in Guantanamo Province just north of the US naval base; it was her first time. Previously she had been told about the existence of the nearby American base, when and how it arose, and what it means to most Cubans.
Read MoreI received an email from a friend in Europe who is originally from Guantanamo. In it she blasted journalists because they only mention her province in relation to the prison camp inside the US military base located there.
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