Cuba and China to Sign Joint Venture for Golf Resort/Villa
HAVANA TIMES — Cuba and China will sign an agreement today on a joint venture involving the construction of a large building complex to accompany an 18-hole golf course east of Havana, the government’s ACN news reported.
The complex will rise in Bellomonte, on Cuba’s northern coast, at a cost of $462 million. It will consist of hotels, a golf course and condominiums.
José Raúl Daniel Alonso, business director at the Ministry of Tourism (MinTur) said that the pact, between the state-run Grupo Palmares and the Chinese firm Beijing Enterprises Holdings Ltd., would be the second of its kind.
The first joint venture for the development of golf-related real estate was created in 2014 with the British company Esencia Hotels and Resorts.
The partnership will undertake the construction of a $360 million complex near Cuba’s main tourist resort, Varadero, in Matanzas province. Construction of the project, to be known as The Carbonera Club, is set to begin next year.
A third joint venture, similar in nature, is in the works and will be announced later this year, Alonso said. He did not reveal who the foreign partner would be or the location for the project.
Cuba currently has one 18-hole golf course, in Varadero. The government has said that it plans to have at least 12 golf resorts.
Golf, known as the “sport of the rich” around the world, was once criticized by Cuban leaders and prohibited following the revolution of 1959. Fidel Castro and Che Guevara publicly ridiculed the sport as “bourgeois.”
Today, Cuban leaders regard golf, marinas and exclusive tourist resorts and real estate as a good source of revenues for the socialist State.
I have no desire for absolution from the Church of Marx & Castro. It is for Castro to beg forgiveness from the Cuban people for all the harm he has cursed Cuba with.
Sorry Griff, I can’t absolve you of your sins after that confession…But maybe if go on a crusade and leave all your property to the Church, Amen.
Actually, back in college I read Marx, Trotsky, Kropotkin, Gramsci, & etc. I was even a member of the NDP (Canadian social democratic party) for a while. My journey to a more conservative liberal democratic position was gradual and involved coming to terms with reality, rather than continuing to believe in the lies and delusions of the Left.
Please show me your facts, I have shown you mine, if you can’t see them, open your eyes. What links have you shown? Are all links “the Truth” and how can you tell them apart? If I showed a link to an article in the Moscow University Digest. would you accept it? Why should I accept Griff’s Scholarly Propaganda as truthful, on his say so? Are you that naive? I don’t hide where I’m coming from and I know my Cuban History really well, I speak Portuguese fluently as well as French. Besides being myself a witness, I have talked to literally hundreds of witnesses to a lot of current History including Democratic Republic of Congo, Grenada, Angola, SA and Viet Nam in Canada, and Lebanon, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Jamaica, Mexico, Perú, Chile and Argentina in situ…I have been around, dude, you have not seen anything or been anywhere, like Griff, but inside your imagination!
Talky-talk-talk, nobody believes your account because no extreme right-wing, White-Supremacist government with Apartheid laws is going to hand over the country to the “Kaffirs and the Ters” (ANC) unless they had no choice in the matter. It was either that or, like the Boers that decided to invade southern Botswana about 6-7 years ago, get wiped out. SADF lost practically its whole air force, its best fighting units, the special howitzers built in a CIA farm straddling the Quebec/New York border, sent from Canada through Eric Gairy’s (sp?) Grenada to South Africa but exposed at the port of Halifax by a Canadian Customs inspector. Your explanations make little sense, getting bogged down in academic discussions that would put people to sleep (not you, of course) and comparing scholarly works of propaganda from both sides in this type of forum is not only ridiculous but useless. You talk like a garden variety, university-grown McCarthyist, likely the president of the Ayn Rand Club at some point, that is no insult but the direct result of the return to the concept of “fellow traveler” that you regaled us with after being buried for 60 years (it still stinks). Your cover is blown, man; I advice a very long hike, together with a lot of fasting, modern Marxist readings and a good look around you, but before you can do any of that, you must open your eyes first, then get out of the U.
He wasn’t joking. It just took him 50 years to get around to giving up power. You know how you lose track of time? I get it, he went to the store and instead of 20 min, he took 55 years….yeah sure.
You actually never post any facts, never back your assertions, only appeals to authority seems to be your thing. If you disagree with a link or some other info provide you simply say the source is biased. Yeah….we know we’re your coming from. awaiting your responses above!
When the Castros die, sooner rather than later, and the USA lifts restrictions are lifted, that may very well be the case!
I don’t hate your country, I hate the Castro dictatorship which has ruined Cuba.
Your account of the Cuban intervention in Angola is direct from the official Cuban government version. I encourage you to read the history I linked to above. First of all, you will learn that the author, Edward George, is British, not American. He wrote the history as his PhD thesis, so he did not get paid for it by shadowy CIA agents as you suggest. He spent several years working on it, travelling to Angola, South Africa and Cuba. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. The author is quite critical of the US role in the conflict, and especially harsh on the South Africans. He praises many aspects of the Cuban involvement, in particular the medical teams sent to care for the Angolan people.
Most importantly, the author provides quotations from from the people involved as to what happened and when. Very often these facts contradict the official public notices from Havana, Pretoria, Moscow and Washington.
By the way, the South African Defence Forces were never “defeated by the ANC nor did the government of SA “surrender to the ANC” as you claimed. The dismantling of apartheid came about through a series of negotiations with Mandela and reforms introduced by de Klerk. Thanks to the courage and wisdom of the two leaders, Mandela & de Klerk, South Africa transformed itself from a racist apartheid state into a multi-racial democracy.
When these negotiations between Mandela and de Klerk began the military threat from Cuban soldiers in Angola was gone, so it is absurd to suggest that Cuba forced the end of apartheid in South Africa. The economic sanctions from Europe & Canada pressured Pretoria into concessions and the dismantling of apartheid. The white South Africans, and especially the Afrikaans, had a profound fear of communist encirclement. So long as there were active communist guerrillas in Angola and Mozambique, the South African government was opposed to any concessions to the ANC, whom the Afrikaans considered communist. But once the Cuban soldier left and peace treaties were signed, South Africa felt safe enough to reform it’s political system. It has been argued that far from hastening the demise of apartheid, the Cuban intervention prolonged it by making manifest the white South African fear of communist encirclement.
http://www.cabinda.net/The-Cuban-Intervention-in-Angola.pdf
Your words to insult me: shameless, time-warped McCarthyist, troll, angry, lies, self-blinded and farts.
I don’t insult other reads. I offer facts, links to evidence and rational discourse. If you don’t agree with my point of view, fine. That’s your prerogative. It is well worth noting that I am continuously subjected to personal insults by the leftist defenders of the Castro regime, often they even claim I am insulting them. I really don’t care what you think of me, but I do urge you to keep on insulting people you disagree with. Your comments reveal, better than anything I can write, just how intellectually bankrupt Marxism is as an ideology and what sort of person continues to embrace it.
Bray on.
You must see a different part of the interior from the city where we live! The schools are crumbling and there is an increasing lack of support materials (my wife teaches),
the streets run with water from leaking pipes. Road repairs done with concrete crumble because there is insufficient cement in the mix (Cubans have to filch to feed their families). The City Office proudly displays a banner on the ground floor declaring the Prosperity and Success of the Revolution directly below the broken and cracked windows of the floor above. Attending the birth at 2.00 a.m. of a new member of la familia, one finds that excellent nursing and medical staff have to work in a hospital with broken windows, missing door handles and holes in walls. As I daily walk through the city doing the shopping (CUCs in the GAESA controlled shops now also accepting pesos) but with no cheese, no coffee for three months, no Bucanero or Cristal, but imported Heinekin, I talk to people – working in the GAESA controlled shops or selling fruit, vegetables and eggs on the street. Much of their time is spent upon discussing how to live tomorrow and for example for a married niece and nephew with two young children it is very difficult – strangely they would prefer to experience an alternative form of system than the one that is imposed upon them, they would like a home of their own and the right to have open free discussion, access to information through free media. Such is my experience in the interior of Cuba. Yes, I get periods in Canada where I am able to participate in discussion like this, but more than half my time is spent at home in Cuba, a country and people for which I have much affection. For the regime I am unable to find reasons for even respect.
To you Monseigneur Gomezz, I have to explain that the world does not have only two alternatives – Castro control type system or that of the good ‘ole USA. Other countries have systems much preferable to either. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and their ilk are dead – as are their ideas. The outside world has moved on from Batista, by far the majority of Cubans never knew him. Other countries have arisen from the ashes of evil dictatorships – Germany and Japan being two examples
My wish is to see my Cuban God-daughter have the opportunity to experience freedom of the individual rather than being daily subjected to the controls of the Castro family regime type described by Fidel Castro Ruz himself as “Socialismo”.
I well remember the revolution in Cuba as I was a mature adult at the time having done military service in occupied Germany and I can tell you that I was in favour of the revolution. But, I along with others, mistakenly thought that its purpose was for the liberation and freedom of the Cuban people, not to exchange one dictatorship for another. To close.
“I do not seek power and I will not accept it.”
Fidel Castro Ruz January 1960
Was he joking or just not telling the truth?
The pot calling the kettle black! Never had the idiomatic phrase been so well illustrated by you. Monsieur Gomezz has just exposed your shameless, time-warped McCarthyist characterization of Cuba as “fascist”. Your occupational troll writings against Cuba are all so angry, over-brimming with insults, and above all well-propagated lies that, in your self-blinded view, pass for facts. Farts would be a better word!
Your “Revolutionary Government” is actually the Castro family regime. El Poder “The Power” is held by a one family dictatorship. GAESA is controlled by Raul’s son-in-law and it controls more than 80% of Cuba’s economy. Security both internal and external is controlled by Raul’s son, ETECSA the monopoly telephonic system is 27% owned by RAFIN SA (Raul & Fidel Castro). Even Labiofam SA the proud producer of the men’s perfumes ‘Ernesto’ and ‘Hugo’ is operated by Raul’s nephew. The Communist Party of Cuba “Revolutionary Government” is but a sinecure. Does this cause one to wrinkle the nose and pooh-pooh the regime? YES!
But it does not cause one to criticise the poor people of Cuba who are powerless to change the system having freedom denied them.
Other countries received these same benefits without having to exist on an average of $20.68 per month. How’s that Sunshine?
Wrong again Monseigneur. Few describe the Chinese model as communism anymore, not the rulling Chinese communist party, not it’s wealthy functionaries, and especially not Jack Ma, billionaire founder and executive chairman of Alibaba, a 25 billion dollar tec company. And you can be assured that Jack Ma is not sharing his money with “the people”. China can probably best be described as a robber-baron style economy, where power is handed down by consensus of the ruling elite with no input from the common Chinese.
Monseigneur, I bemoan what Cuba has become, with precious few accomplishments. You need only walk the Malecon to see the sad state of Cuba. ….And there is no hiding here, I have to log in with my email to post as a guest. Circles, editor of this site, knows how to reach me, but I don’t see any reason to share that with you, or ad some pretend avatar for your benefit!
You always seem to base your defense of the Castro dictatorship by using personal attacks against those with whom you disagree. You even stoop to school-yard name-calling. Your other flaccid tactic is to proudly claim that Cuba is better than (insert poor country). However, whenever possible you tout Castro statistics that favorably compare to first-world countries. You want it both ways. The fact is that Castro-style socialism, like the Castros themselves are not long for this world. You would do well to do what Griffin suggests and open your eyes.
B.S. If you can’t see all the facts in my mail is because you have your eyes shut, I’ve offered plenty of facts and logic which you refuse to accept. I’ve offered a first-hand account of our victory over SA and you don’t accept it. I’ve denounced you for your hatred of my country, the Left and revolution, as a McCarthyist, you are using that rhetoric. I’m not a fellow traveler, I’m right on the red saddle and on the red horse!
Cuba will be a model country when all restrictions are lifted, the Chinese are interested and are starting to invest, which means that Cuba is the focus of the two largest economies in the world the government of Cuba for the first time in its history has the chance to implement a plan of development that will created one of the biggest economy in the hemisphere, up to 6 to 7 millions American turist each year plus 3 to 4 million chinese and another 3 millions European and Canadian, there are reports from the new York times that up to 200 billion dollars in investment from the USA along after the embargo is lifted Cuba was and still is the most beautiful land human eyes have ever seen “Cristobal colon “
I’ve noticed how your posts never actually deal with the facts and issues. You insult & attack people you disagree with, without offering a shred of fact or logic or rational argument.
Open your eyes and look at how Raul is transforming Cuba.
I thought we we talking about Venezuela, not Chile. Nonetheless, currency manipulation is an integral part of the foreign policy of every country. Every country’s central bank issues and purchase it’s own currency depending upon its foreign policy goals. The US is just good at it.
Sounds like you agree with me. Cuba is only a third world country. Gold medals, cheap vaccines and prima ballerinas don’t offset failing infrastructure, blackouts and cholera epidemics. You are either first world or you are not.
What flushing toilets? Are you there now and it just came to mind? The interior is where you can see a lot of the advancements, highways, schools, clinics, hospitals, universities, but first you have to open your eyes and you are not about to. I spend a lot of time in the interior of Cuba and talk to the common, every-day people about their life and I saw how it was before; you see Moses, I am old enough to remember life during the Batista era very well. Thanks to Fidel and Raúl, Cuba is a third-world country with first-world educational, health, sports and artistic accomplishments. Yes, we are both; how do you like them guanábanas?
When I was in Chile, in Allende times, the USA made the Chilean Escudo go from 50E per U$D in March of 1973 to 520E per U$D in September of the same year; this is called economic sabotage and if you look it up, you will get your answer…It’s not rocket science.
You know zero about how China runs its free-market economy. Central planning has not ended there and the Communist Party is still in complete and utter control of it all. Yes, it is authoritarian up to the ying-yang; yes it is benign if you don’t mess with them but very, very, very bad if you do; ask the Uigurs, the Tibetans or Falang Don advocates; Elitism is very present in every single place in the world, look at the Bush Abominal Complex (George, George W. and Jeb), and in China the Communist Party elite is not the same as the Capitalist elite. As I told you before, the Chinese Economy is run by the Party for the benefit of the country and not the other way around as in the USA where the Economy is in the hands of venture capitalists who finance elections, run their guys and get them elected and then control the government for their own benefit. And take a hike right off to the end of the world, I am a Cuban wherever I am and We don’t like nay-sayers, poo-pooers and sour-pussies hiding in the shadows, spewing negativity night and day about our country and its accomplishments.
Oh Griff, take a powder and have a nap, you sure sound like the voice from the high pulpit with all of these dire predictions, damnations and hell-fire for Cuba…How’s I don’t buy your trip, man, Cuba is not Fascist or going there; Cuba has survived everything you threw at Her, Invasion, Blockade, Biological Warfare and Terrorist Attacks by anti-Castro Cubans and CIA personnel plus the collapse of 80% of its international trade network in one week, just that alone was a feat beyond any other country’s capability in modern times. AND YOU REALLY DON’T LIKE IT, DON’T LIKE US AND DON’T LIKE BEING PROVEN WRONG TIME AFTER TIME BY CUBA(and me)…I love your McCarthy era rhetoric: “fellow traveler” takes me a long way back when it was used in the USA to indict innocent people who had no ties to Communism but had liberal ideas such as racial or gender equality, worker’s rights or subsidized health care. I have my own private criticisms of the Cuban Government but I will defend my country, my people, my revolution and my government from the likes of You and Moses and Uninformed Consent any time because you mean Cuba no good at all.
Not an assumption but a mandate, a Socialist/Communist government that calls itself Revolutionary must work for and be responsible for the betterment of the life of its People. I have seen the Cuban Government do much good for our People in the past, and I hope these new changes will promote that but “Let’s watch and see” is more about my expectations, what I would like the Cuban Government to do.
I hate to break these news to you but every single government of every political, religious, military or traditional stripe, form or composition tries very hard to remain in power, so what is so malevolent, weird or even noteworthy about the Cuban Government doing it? I respect your opinion because you offer constructive criticism in the case of irrigation and have a similar opinion of “Central Committees”…Between you and me, I detest party apparatchiks, commie or not, because they are creatures of the Meeting, their Mass, and they become disconnected from the People and live in fantasy worlds of doctrines, analysis and rhetoric. It’s too sad to see that happening at home; I do support local and regional planning for many things and central planning for others (pragmatism).
About golf, yes, a shepherd’s game has become trendy and expensive and this is why.
It’s played in a very large, very landscaped and very well kept field requiring a lot of initial investment (land), development and once built, much maintenance. So to pay the investment + maintenance and make a profit, clubs become very expensive and playing itself is extremely costly. The player must also buy a fairly expensive bag and clubs plus balls and other accouterments, and has to have the leisure time available to play, which takes more time than most other sports, and to become proficient at it.
Thank you. That is the answer I expected. China is not, by any definition or stretch of the imagination, communist. Central planning of the economy has ended. Capitalism, a very authoritarian feral Capitalism, reigns throughout China. China is ruled by an elite family structure that inherited power from their elite party fathers. Now it’s an authoritarian oligarchy.
But you are correct, they were pragmatic. China have up communism (except in name) and fully embraced Capitalism. Raul has been unable to do so and Cuba remains mired in poverty, a backwards country.
And stop using “we” when referring to Cuba and the Castros. They are there, you are not!
The only thing you can do to justify the failures of Castro is compare Cuba to the third world and Hati. You should aim higher. Cuba was not a third world country when the revolution occurred and hunger was not a great problem ( I didn’t say that, Fidel Castro did!).
There is a key assumption in you writing:
“Let’s watch and see how the Cuban Government can balance these 2 contradictions for the benefit of the Cuban People.”
The assumption you make is that the Cuban Government – actually the Castro family regime – is concerned primarily about the Cuban People rather than the retention of power. This reflects either innocence of reality or wilful disregard.
The constant and continuing decline of Cuba’s agricultural production has resulted in hundreds of thousands of acres of good agricultural land reverting to bush. The little irrigation being practiced is by overhead sprinklers with 40% + evaporation, rather than by trickle irrigation as widely practiced in Europe.
All those grandiose delusional plans approved by the Party and Congresses over many weary years have in reality failed.
As originally a Scot, I find it entertaining how a working man’s game, golf, has become associated with the rich. There was little if any irrigation on the Scottish links for centuries and in 1964, annual membership of the Kirriemuir Golf Club in Angus, Scotland for residents in the Parish was 5 shillings per year. (quarter of one pound stg.)
Are you nuts! The interior of Cuba is worse. Buildings don’t collapse as frequently because they are newer and typically fewer stories. Solar power arrays? Yes, there are a handful. Mostly donated by the Chinese. These projects contribute a miniscule amount of power to the grid. Castro sycophants like you want it both ways. When you are talking about child mortality rates, you are thrilled to compare the Castros self-reported statistics to first-world countries. But when it comes to flushing toilets, you ask for a free pass and hide behind the whole “I’m a third-world country” argument.
Parroting Maduro idiot-speak doesn’t help your argument. Name one act that is proven US agressión that has led to the 110% annualized inflation rate.
Yes, China, they embraced a “Free Market Economy” controlled and led by the Chinese Communist Party. They are, like me and Raúl Castro, pragmatic (learn the word, it will come in handy). What does not help Venezuela is the USA aggression and the millions of U$D given to the “opposition” by the USA.
No, these are highways, bridges, water and sewage systems and solar power arrays but mostly in the interior; Havana has had too much over the rest of the nation for too long and, as you say, they can still get by. All third-world, multi-story, apartment buildings have a rope and pulley system for convenience, say buying from street vendors or pulling up water when “the pump don’t work ’cause the vandals took the handle” or there is no electricity or they can’t afford it. Your problem is you have never been anywhere in the third world and think life in poor countries is just like Miami and everybody has electricity and running water, and everybody has a car, kids have shoes and cellphones and they go to school and they eat everyday. You just don’t get it because you don’t want to so you can keep poo-pooing Cuba and our Revolutionary Government.
Pay attention to the key word: ANYMORE
Fidel doesn’t disagree, we have made fantastic gains but now we must change because the world has changed.
And there are no “record numbers of Cubans fleeing, this is an outright lie, check the USA immigration figures for Cubans. In fact, it’s very, very few, mostly criminals evading authorities who brave the Fla Straights. Cubans leave for the same reason millions in Latin America are braving the deserts, human coyotes and migra patrols to enter the USA, they are economic migrants and they are coming to where the $ is to get some. Compare the figures of Salvadorans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, Mexicans and you will see millions trying to scape the misery of “free, democratic countries”.
Can you point to any success stories of communist central planning.. it certainly doesn’t seem to be helping Venezuela. And China became wealthy when the embraced capitalism.
Yet Castro disagrees with your assessment. He says the model doesn’t work for the Cuban people anymore. Cubans are risking their lives and fleeing the island in record numbers despite your vaunted accomplishments ….Why?
Perhaps you should speak to some of these Cubans, they obviously don’t know how good they have it.
Achievements in Infrastructure? Are these the torn up streets, the broken pipes that spew sewage into the street. Or perhaps the apartments in old Havana that haul up water using a bucket and a pully system. The truth is Havana still gets by on 60 + year old plumbing and electrical system.
Yes, I do find contradiction, but I support it and we should expect more because international millionaires playing golf in Cuban clubs can provide the funds to solve such problems. The Caribbean Basin as a whole is undergoing a present drought and a drying climate trend, exacerbated by rising temperatures and rates of evaporation. The Cuban Government had built a large number of mini-dams in the 80’s to supply local demand and create a fishing industry where there was none before. This worked very well for a while but Global Warming has intervened and now fresh water has to be drilled or, as the people of Camagüey always have, stored the rain water in large containers (tinajones) or larger underground reservoirs (aljibes). But this only solves the needs for personal use, not those of agriculture and industry, tourism being one of them. Golf courses consume an incredible amount of water and Cuba is in a drought, and Cuba is a Socialist Country building facilities for vacationing millionaires…Let’s watch and see how the Cuban Government can balance these 2 contradictions for the benefit of the Cuban People.
Cuba is one of the very last Communist countries left in this planet but it operates in an international capitalist market by necessity; the choices are purist North Korea or pragmatic China if we are to stay communist. I vote for the Chinese model. After all, as the father of my South Yemeni friend Ali once said: Monseigneur, how long can one be honest when forced to live in a den of thieves?
Turning a blind eye to all the benefits Cubans have received as a result of the Cuban Revolution does not help your cause.These are undeniable achievements in Health, in Education, in Infrastructure, Social Services, in Sports and in the Arts. So squeal all you want, you just can’t block out the Sun with your thumb like you think you can.
I share your incredulity. These new ventures are intended to preserve the Castro regime, not to keep Cuba “socialist”. Raul has been steadily moving Cuba in a new direction toward an old, familiar political model: a military dominated dictatorship with an economy run by state monopolies in alliance with foreign corporations. We’ve all seen it before under it’s traditional name: Fascism.
The truly bitter irony is to read here the comments of the American, European & Canadian leftists and fellow travellers who have always championed Castro’s Cuba, and are now applauding this new direction as if it represents the victory of socialism or even the birth of democracy in Cuba.
It is neither.
Cuba was under siege for 50 years. The Cuban “model” was never allowed to “become” by the “banksters”. You know any real history?
Communism is out, state socialism to take edge of off Capitalism is in. There is very little pretense these days in former communist states of building an egalatarian social order. The Cuban state will salvage what it can of it’s communist days such as education, but many aspects of the economy will now run on an incentive model. The boss may be a military officer versus a CEO, but it is all the same to the worker.
If the state can deliver sufficient opportunity, it won’t matter what the system is called.
You are correct. There is indeed a dissonance, a contradiction, between the “stated goals” of the revolution and the new ” updated” model the Castro’s want to introduce. It’s a not so subtle acknowledgement that the revolution does not work.
What really gets me are supporters of the revolution attributing a benign interest and purpose to the Castro revolution. It only served to keep the Castros in power for almost 6 decades!!!
The regime needs the money – “Socialismo” and any form of morality ought not to be confused. There is nothing new in the politically blind finding contradiction between communist theory- of whatever name and communist practice in reality. But, change by the Castro family regime from its “Socialismo” to Chinese “communism” may well help in the introduction of capitalism and hence improved incomes for Cubans. I remind you that Fidel Castro Ruz wrote in Granma that he didn’t see any difference between communism and socialism. To borrow a line from Marie Antoinette, if there is insufficient water for the Cuban peasantry resulting from the need to pursue “green” policy for the bourgeois golfers, -let them drink wine!
Hopefully they can get it built in time for Obama’s visit next year.
Do I have this right: Golf and resort vacation homes for millonaires from China, the UK, Italy and elsewhere is going to help keep Cuba “socialist”? Does any supporter of the Cuban revolution see any contradiction here? Will golf also help resolve the serious water problems in numerous provinces of the island?