Doubts about Cuba’s New Provinces

Dmitri Prieto

A while back, I wrote about how the people of Santa Cruz (the town where I live east of Havana) — through the normal democratically carried out neighborhood assembly process — prevented the specialized medical services at our hospital from being relocated to another town.

That doesn’t mean, however, that our concerns have been eliminated.

On TV they continue talking about the “regionalization, centralization and rationalization” of health care services.  I beg forgiveness if I’m not completely accurate with these terms (which are also quite similar to those used by neoliberals in Latin America).

But it’s not only that.

Some months ago the decision was made to divide our province (Havana) in two.  Currently the province consists of the area that surrounds the country’s capital, which since 1976 has been a separate province in itself.

Over those years we’ve gotten used to the fact that the Province of Havana (or “Havana Countryside,” as it’s sometimes called) doesn’t have a capital; or rather that it’s located outside of the province, since the City of Havana is the capital of Havana.  This all seems like a tongue twister, but that’s the way it is.

So, “it was decided” that Havana Province would be divided in two provinces, called “Artemisa” and “Mayabeque.”  The first will have Artemisa as its capital city, and the second province’s capital will be…San Jose (they gave the second province an “indigenous” name so as not to reproduce that of a Catholic saint).

The administrative bureaucracies and policies will have to be cloned in the same way – even the sports teams.  Where previously there was one department or team, now there will be two.

I should say that we Santa Cruz residents don’t like the name “Mayabeque.”  I’ve still not been able to find a single person who supports the idea.

But the most difficult thing — and maybe someone can explain it to me — is how the self-cloning of the bureaucracy fits in with the current struggle against “inflated payrolls?”

I’ll be waiting for any explanations.