Dissident says Castro hasn't seriously attacked bureaucrats
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@elnuevoherald.com
Cuban ruler Raul Castro had blasted bureaucrats for blocking some of his
ambitious reforms, an admission that one dissident economist said
clearly outlines the shortcomings of his campaign for change.
The biggest obstacle to his reforms is "the psychological barrier
formed by inertia, the defense of the status quo, the simulation … the
indifference or insensibility" of Cuba's bureaucracy, Castro said in a
speech to the parliament Monday.
"I warn that all bureaucratic resistance … will be useless," he
declared. "We will be patient and at the same time persevere in the face
of the resistance to change, be they conscious or unconscious."
Castro's reform plans call for an increase in private enterprise and
foreign investments, deep cuts in state subsidies, layoffs for more than
1 million public employees, fewer government controls on state
enterprises and expansions in the legal sales of houses and vehicles.
But his words rang hollow to dissident economist Oscar Espinosa
Chepe, who argued that Castro has not seriously tackled a bureaucracy
that traditionally derives special benefits from its ability to game the
system and the petty corruption prevalent in Cuba.
"He doesn't want to realize that the bureaucracy has its own
mentality, based on its own benefits," Espinosa said by phone from
Havana. "And those benefits have not been destroyed. They remain intact."
One key evidence of the bureaucracy's resistance, he noted, was a
recent official report that state-run farms have not reported all their
fallow lands — which Castro wants to lend to private farmers to increase
domestic food production and cut down on costly imports.
Another official report last month, Espinosa added, noted that in
Cuba, which has long suffered from a huge housing shortage, government
ministries, state enterprises and mass organizations own 16,000 rooms in
"guest houses" across the country reserved for visiting VIPs.
Castro's appearance Monday before the legislative National Assembly
of People's Power, which was closed to the public and the foreign news
media, was marked by some changes in the usual proceedings.
Although many of his past speeches to parliament and the ruling
Communist Party have been broadcast live — Castro usually reads from a
prepared text — a video of his speech Monday was broadcast several hours
later.
The 600-plus member Assembly also met for only one day, although its
twice-a-year sessions — summer and December — most often last three to
four days. There was no immediate explanation for the short gathering.
During his speech, Castro also announced the government would take
several steps to help Cuba's fledgling micro-enterprises by cutting
prices on raw materials and tools and allowing the businesses to obtain
bank credits and hire up to five workers without paying extra taxes.
The government also plans to repay, by the end of the year, all the
foreign funds in Cuban bank accounts that it froze starting in 2008 amid
a financial crisis. At one point, the frozen funds were estimated to
total more than $600 million.
In his speech, Castro also offered a rare apology and recognized
"excesses" by the government and Cuban churches during the early years
of the revolution. Havana expelled several hundred priests and nuns in
the 1960s, and the government was officially atheist from 1962 until 1991.
Castro mentioned the "painful" case of an unidentified government
official and Communist Party member who wrote to him to complain that
she was almost fired from her job because she had not told her
supervisors that she went to church on Sundays.
"Let's clear our heads of all these kinds of foolishness. Don't
forget that the first decade of the 21st Century has already ended," he
noted, adding, "Let these words serve as an act of moral vindication."
"It's been a lot of years since our revolution overcame the
confrontations with some religious institutions," he declared, "a stage
in which both sides committed excesses of bigger or smaller magnitude."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/02/2342255/dissident-says-castro-hasnt-seriously.html
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