By Victor Manuel
When I read it, I immediately got in touch with Norges to ask him to send me the article, to which he responded that this was just a trick for Holy Innocents’ Day (similar to April Fool’s Day in some countries). I was overtaken by sadness when I found out that this was all just a game. Whoever reads the measures announced would think that they were completely real (because of the way it was written using the typical official language).
The news item spoke about a total opening up the economy, apparently establishing that only health, education, electricity services, mining, aqueducts and sewage and communal services would be managed by the State while the rest would become private or be passed on to private national companies and that the so-called “self-employed” could open companies, import and export products.
Meanwhile, the State Council would eliminate the need for “repatriation” for nationals who want to return and it would eliminate “citizenship loss” for Cubans. Furthermore, passport prices would go down to 60 CUC on the island and to 120 USD abroad and it would be valid for an extended period of up to 10 years.
But, the most important thing about this article isn’t that I echo this false news and I don’t hope that Havana Times does the same, that isn’t my intention at all… However, I want to tell you a little bit about the other side of this announcement.
Norges tells me that the announcement even reached Cuban health volunteers in Brazil where they received it with great applause and jumped up and down with joy. Likewise, many Cuban families living in the United States called up their relatives in Cuba to tell them about the “long-awaited changes”. Hundreds of people, myself included, even got in touch with Granma newspaper to ask about these measures to which the newspaper’s editorial team responded that they had never published said annoucement.
So you have an idea of just how far this announcement went, three days after Norges published the post on his Facebook page, he had 154K views and 90K reads. There were even people who were thinking about drawing up a draft bill with these measures and to collect signatures so as to send it to the National Assembly for them to be debated… there are still people who hope.
But my dear readers… these measures are unfortunately just a hoax and the reality is that Cuba will start off 2018 the same way it ended 2017. I only hope that we can see the day when some measures as popular as these are published.
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