Current state of Cuba - article from the Sunday Times

[Ken Gargett]

perhaps the most depressing thing i have read in a while.

why on earth do the people still have to live with this pernicious, imbecilic embargo? six decades ago, it was put in place to force castro and his regime out of power. how is that working out? has anyone in US politics (don't care what side) bothered to take a look? it might occur to them, finally, that just maybe, it has been one of the most monumental fails in history. all it has done is cause innocent people untold pain and suffering. 

so, it is supposed to incite the people to rise up and force the government out? who is left to do that? basically people who are weak, ill, elderly or as the piece says, extremely patriotic (so probably not them). insanity. frankly, the United States should hang its head in shame over this. 

Inside hungry crumbling Cuba where one in ten people have fled.pdf

[ha_banos]

The pdf isn't working. I saw this but couldn't read it as I'm not a subscriber. 

https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd

 

 

[BoliDan]

2 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

perhaps the most depressing thing i have read in a while.

why on earth do the people still have to live with this pernicious, imbecilic embargo? six decades ago, it was put in place to force castro and his regime out of power. how is that working out? has anyone in US politics (don't care what side) bothered to take a look? it might occur to them, finally, that just maybe, it has been one of the most monumental fails in history. all it has done is cause innocent people untold pain and suffering. 

so, it is supposed to incite the people to rise up and force the government out? who is left to do that? basically people who are weak, ill, elderly or as the piece says, extremely patriotic (so probably not them). insanity. frankly, the United States should hang its head in shame over this. 

Inside hungry crumbling Cuba where one in ten people have fled.pdf

We tried to lift it, but the Florida lobby was ruthless in ensuring it did not happen. Florida being home to the HQs of almost all famous non-cuban cigars and other Caribbean rums(if not HQ they still have a major presence). Rubio's logic in killing it was flawed, he just reiterated the same talking points of a policy that has clearly failed over the past 70 years, but his true interests were known to all of us.

[SCgarman]

35 minutes ago, BoliDan said:

We tried to lift it, but the Florida lobby was ruthless in ensuring it did not happen. Florida being home to the HQs of almost all famous non-cuban cigars and other Caribbean rums(if not HQ they still have a major presence). Rubio's logic in killing it was flawed, he just reiterated the same talking points of a policy that has clearly failed over the past 70 years, but his true interests were known to all of us.

Don't make Rubio the scapegoat here. This whole embargo thing has been going on since before I was born(1966). I don't worry about things I cannot control, and that certainly includes Cuba and their dire situation, which has been an ongoing thing way before I tried their cigars. For perspective, if this forum didn't exist and members here did not have an interest in Cuban made cigars, would you really even care? For news media here in the US, the country of Cuba is never in the headline news stories. So what does that tell you? 

[garbandz]

It is not the fault of the US that Cuba is failing. The rest of the world can trade there and prop them up, and is not doing so. The huge increase in cigar prices is only going to further restrict funds going to Cuba ,and I will not support the increase. Until Cuba starts to try to pull itself up, they are going to suffer.

[LizardGizmo]

11 hours ago, ha_banos said:

The pdf isn't working. I saw this but couldn't read it as I'm not a subscriber. 

https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd

Here's an archive link paywall-free: https://archive.is/8Em6I

[BrightonCorgi]

Floridians of Cuban decent have a really strong lobby. Florida carries a lot of weight in politics. I'd like to see American business steamroll through Cuba and the regime wouldn't be able to stop the flurry. If it doesn't work, go back the embargo.

[SCgarman]

9 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Floridians of Cuban decent have a really strong lobby. Florida carries a lot of weight in politics.I'd like to see American business steamroll through Cuba and the regime wouldn't be able to stop the flurry. If it doesn't work, go back the embargo.

When the average Cuban citizen makes $20/month, what products can American business sell them and still turn a profit? LOL

[BrightonCorgi]

7 hours ago, SCgarman said:

When the average Cuban citizen makes $20/month, what products can American business sell them and still turn a profit? LOL

Their whole system will fall apart when western businesses supported by the US muscle their way in. Plenty of black money on the island along with cash injections from the US. I am not saying the next regime will be any less corrupt or cruel. Just accommodating to the US.  

[SCgarman]

6 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Their whole system will fall apart when western businesses supported by the US muscle their way in. Plenty of black money on the island along with cash injections from the US. I am not saying the next regime will be any less corrupt or cruel. Just accommodating to the US.  

I can distinctly remember several years back, an American company tried to set up shop in Cuba to sell tractors for farming. If I recall, they were run out of the country by the Cuban government before they even got up and running. So what incentive? The Cuban government is it's own worst enemy when it comes to allowing any outside business in, so screw 'em! You reap what you sow.

[treberty]

Regardless of your political views, something has to change...soon. The Cuban people could really catch a break.

15-25 years ago when Russia/Venezuela were still supporting the regime, the effect of lifting the embargo would have been less noticeable. Now that the population is in a state of despair and is fully aware that the government is incredibly incompetent, any influx of goods and basic necessities may concretely increase the desire to overthrow the regime. That can only be achieved by lifting the embargo, IMO.

[Li Bai]

6 hours ago, SCgarman said:

The Cuban government is it's own worst enemy when it comes to allowing any outside business in, so screw 'em! You reap what you sow.

I'm a bit confused here, is anybody in this thread rooting for the regime?

[SCgarman]

5 hours ago, Li Bai said:

I'm a bit confused here, is anybody in this thread rooting for the regime?

Absolutely not.

[helix]

Biggest loan defaulters in the world. No country is interested in dealing with them.

[Li Bai]

42 minutes ago, SCgarman said:

Absolutely not.

I don't understand your statement then, Cuban people aren't getting what they deserve imho.

[Duxnutz]

If the new riviera in Gaza plan comes to fruition maybe they’ll look to Cuba next. 

[SCgarman]

48 minutes ago, Li Bai said:

I don't understand your statement then, Cuban people aren't getting what they deserve imho.

You misunderstood my response to BrightonCorgi. 

[Li Bai]

4 hours ago, SCgarman said:

You misunderstood my response to BrightonCorgi. 

Weren't you saying you're against lifting the embargo because the Cuban government would ruin any opportunity for its own people to live better anyway? 

[Ken Gargett]

this is the best i can do from what was sent to me. not ideal. 

 

Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled Ask the island’s rulers and they’ll say the revolutionary dream lives on. But to ordinary Cubans stricken by rocketing food prices, it has never felt further away JORGE RICARDO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES Louise Callaghan, San Felipe Saturday February 08 2025, 11.00am GMT, The Sunday Times Share Save The road turns into a dirt track entering the town of San Felipe, home to those who can’t leave. In the main square, the only people around are a woman sitting on PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 1/23 a bench in the shade of the ruined church and a group of five men hunkered down in the porch of a once-great mansion, trying to fix a bicycle with a hammer. “Everywhere is empty,” one of them says. “Cuba is empty.” Sixty-six years after rebels led by Fidel Castro overthrew the brutal government of Fulgencio Batista, many Cubans say their lives are worse than ever, and that the island’s Communist rulers are growing ever more paranoid and repressive. This time the threat to the Cuban revolution is not a US-backed invasion or the collapse of the Soviet Union, but a slow gutting of Cuba’s future as young people give up on its prospects. For decades, Cubans needed to apply for permission to leave the island, but since 2013 those restrictions have been lifted. Between 2022 and 2023, one in ten Cubans — nearly a million people — left the island, mostly for the United States. In small towns such as San Felipe, an hour and a half from Havana, with a pre-pandemic population of 2,000, the only ones left are the very poor, the infirm, the elderly and the especially patriotic. ADVERTISEMENT The railway station in San Felipe JORGE RICARDO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 2/23 The exodus is primarily due to an economic crisis that has driven prices to impossible levels — a 5lb bag of pork now costs $16, as much as a junior doctor’s monthly wage — while incomes remain incredibly low. Institutions including Cuba’s once famous health and education systems are imploding under the burden of international sanctions and endemic state mismanagement. The island’s jails hold hundreds of political prisoners. Anyone publicly criticising the government, including on social media, risks joining them. JORGE RICARDO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 3/23 “The Cuban revolution has completely failed,” said Yunior Garcia, a dissident leader who was forced to flee the country in 2021. “And the only way they can stay in power is through the use of force.” Living standards in Cuba have long lagged behind those of other countries in the region, but this is a disaster that in many ways dwarfs what came before. JORGE RICARDO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 4/23 “In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was at least hope it would all get better,” said Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, a Cuban economy professor, sitting in a café in Havana. “Now we don’t have that. We didn’t recover. There has been a crisis for years.” Cuba’s government still tries to project to the outside world a sanitised image of a socialist paradise, a place where the derelict mansions of Havana are a shabby-chic backdrop for tourists’ Instagram posts rather than a sign of desperate poverty, and where the revolutionary slogans painted on walls are inspiring, rather than the hollow exhortations of an ossified regime. ADVERTISEMENT Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva JORGE RICARDO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 5/23 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled In reality, though, this is a country where people are going hungry. Where pharmacy shelves are empty and doctors have little choice but to tell their patients to buy medicine on the black market at prices few can afford. Where surgeons work in corner shops because they make more money there than on the wards. Where retired diplomats and professors rely on their children living abroad to send money so they can eat. Pensioners who can’t survive on their monthly 1,500 pesos— just under $5 at the black market rate — sit on the street in Old Havana begging from the dwindling numbers of tourists, their empty ration books in their pockets. Children are sent home from school because there aren’t enough teachers (state wages, even for university lecturers, are about $10 a month). And at the weekend there are fewer parties than there used to be because the young are leaving. “People are thinking more about eating than having fun,” said Yasel Berroa, 34, an Afrohouse DJ, standing outside the near empty block of flats in Havana where he grew up. While almost all his friends have gone to the US, because of President Trump’s new restrictions on the border he is going to try to make it to Dubai instead. PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 6/23 https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd Unlike his parents’ generation, who were raised supporting the revolution, younger people in Cuba wanted more, he said. “It’s ironic, because so many of those who fought for and defended this [country], they have so many medals but their freezers are empty,” Berroa said. “Here even the people my age who support the government, they realise at some point that they can’t take out their girlfriends, that they have no money to do anything.” ADVERTISEMENT The economic downturn of the past few years came out of a “polycrisis” caused by inflation, the pandemic (which cut desperately needed tourist dollars) and badly thought-through attempts to reform the economy to allow some private enterprise, along with the effects of the existing US economic blockade, which prevents US businesses from engaging in commerce with Cuba. It was magnified by geopolitics. For decades after the revolution, Cuba’s economy was kept afloat by aid from USSR aligned countries. In the early 2000s, Castro cut a deal with socialist Venezuela to import its oil in exchange for Cuban doctors (whose wages would largely go to state coffers). Now Venezuela is in its own economic crisis, Russia is at war in Ukraine and Cuba has been left essentially alone. Yasel Berroa outside the block of flats in Havana where he grew up JORGE RICARDO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 7/23 Blackouts plague the country: last year the entire country was plunged into darkness over several days after Cuba’s largest power plant went offline. Queues for petrol stretch for hours. Buses, already wildly unreliable due to a lack of spare parts, have become an increasingly rare sight. A few years ago, it was sometimes almost impossible to find certain types of food — eggs, milk, flour — even if you had money. Now, shops opened as part of a recent loosening of restrictions on private enterprise stock basic products, but the prices are out of reach for most Cubans. At one shop in Old Havana last week, a bar of chocolate cost 700 pesos ($2), half the monthly pension for someone who has worked for the state for decades. Energy gap Cuba consumes more energy than it produces, leading to a growing reliance on imports Energy data in quad Btu Chart: The Times and The Sunday Times Source: US Energy Information Administration Production Consumption 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 • PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 8/23 As a result, Cuba has been divided into two classes. One is composed of people who receive money from abroad or who have successful businesses on the island (lobby groups in the US say some have links to the regime). These people can afford to buy food at vastly inflated prices. ADVERTISEMENT Cuba inflation rate Hover over the line for more information Chart: The Times and The Sunday Times Source: Trading Economics Jan 2022 Apr Jul Oct Jan 2023 Apr Jul Oct Jan 2024 A 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0% All-time high 77% • PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 9/23 Then there are those who work for the state and try to live on ration books, sticking to the socialist ideals of the revolution they were raised with. They can’t afford to eat. Ten years ago it was different. Amid a wave of hope, the presidents of the US and Cuba, Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, Fidel’s brother, announced plans to restore diplomatic relations. Soon, the US had loosened decades-old restrictions on its own citizens travelling to Cuba and US companies doing business there (although Congress prevented Obama from ending the 1962 US economic embargo). American tourists flocked to Havana, lavishing dollar tips for overpriced daiquiris at the Floridita, a bar where Ernest Hemingway once drank. Europeans came even faster, spurred by a fear that hulking US hotel conglomerates would soon colonise the island, robbing it of its “character”. Then, in 2017, Trump came to power, backed by Cuban American anti-Castro voters in Florida. He reinstated travel and trade restrictions — later labelling Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism — and limited the amount of money that could be sent to the island, in what officials said was an effort to stop money flowing into state coffers. PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 10/23 Joe Biden removed some of these restrictions when he won the White House, though he repealed the terrorism designation only in his last week in office. Having returned to power for a second term in January, Trump immediately reinstated it, and is seeking to roll back the protections given to Cubans seeking asylum in the US. ADVERTISEMENT A no-growth zone Cuba's GDP annual growth rates Chart: The Times and The Sunday Times Source: World Bank 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 −15.0 −10.0 −5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0% • PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 11/23 Now, “character” is about the only thing Cuba has left. For months, powerful Cuban-American lobbyists have petitioned Trump and his allies to stop daily commercial flights to the island and to further reduce the remittances that can be sent from the US to Cuba. This would cut off a lifeline for Cuban families, leaving untold thousands destitute. The island’s regime might denounce the US as an imperialist force, but American money — sent from Miami or New York to grandparents, mothers and cousins on the island — is keeping the country on life support. About 2.3 million people of Cuban origin live in the US and at least a third of people in Cuba have close family living abroad. Overseas remittances regularly hit $3 billion a year, and are thought to be among the country’s biggest earners of foreign currency after tourism. María Antonio Martínez, 70, says she is one of the lucky ones. Her son in the US sends her money to supplement her meagre pension. Without that, she would have no money for food. Turned back at the border Total US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), fiscal year 2024 Mexico Venezuela Haiti Cuba Guatemala Honduras Colombia                 668,088 313,496 220,798 217,615 206,971 144,373 134,676 124023 PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 12/23 “Of course younger people are having a really tough time here, and they want to leave,” she said. “And I understand them. I know people who don’t have the money to eat anything in the morning. They just make a kind of infusion from leaves. Cubans are overwhelmed by the need to survive, there’s nothing else.” For those who don’t have family money coming from abroad, hunger is ever present. Arbela Ramos Gonzalez, 81, a retired accountant, and her daughter, Alegna Martínez Ramos, 59, a retired teacher, live on their combined pensions of 3,200 pesos a month — about $10. “This is the absolute worst it’s been,” said Gonzalez. “The worst.” María Antonio Martínez JORGE RICARDO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 13/23 Rations of basic goods such as rice, beans, oil and sugar are supposed to be provided at state-run bodegas on the first of every month. But it’s been years since the system worked properly. This January, according to Gonzalez’s ration book, she received only 2lb of sugar: nothing else. “There’s no rice, no protein,” she said. “We have infinite problems with the transport. It’s a good thing I can still walk or I wouldn’t be able to get around.” Like many others, she blames the US for restricting the supply of goods into Cuba. There are widespread fears that under Trump, and particularly his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who has Cuban roots and is highly critical of the regime, the US embargo that was designed to crush the revolution will now get tighter. “We’re in a very tense situation. We’re expecting that Mr Trump will be unleashed at any point against us. And we don’t know what kind of measures they’re going to take,” said Carlos Alzugaray Treto, a former diplomat and university professor who is critical of both the Cuban government and the embargo. Alegna Martínez Ramos and her mother, Arbela Ramos Gonzalez JORGE RICARDO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 14/23 “It is really very stupid to say that the measures the US government takes is only against the Cuban government. Come on, let’s be serious. You’re making life difficult for Cubans so that they overthrow their government. That’s the whole point. And of course it’s false, because we’re not stupid. Why should we overthrow the people you want us to overthrow when you’re punishing us?” Yet the general consensus, gleaned from a week of interviews in Cuba with leading economists, diplomats and historians, is that while the US trade war has for decades strangled the island’s economic development, at this point government mismanagement is at least as much to blame. Though many predict tough times ahead, no one we spoke to believes the regime will collapse: after decades of survival under isolation and pressure, the Cuban system is tenacious. As Cuba has crumbled, so have its most vaunted institutions. Cuban doctors, and the country’s medical system, were for decades considered among the best in the region. Today, some of the most basic medicines are available only on the black market (either smuggled in from abroad or stolen from hospitals and resold on social media for hugely inflated prices). Carlos Alzugaray Treto JORGE RICARDO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 15/23 People going in for major surgery must bring their own needles, suture thread, cotton and surgical masks. One doctor, who asked not to be named, started to cry as she explained how she couldn’t leave the country because of her ageing parents. She makes 5,500 pesos (about $16) a month working full-time at a clinic in Havana, and knows she cannot give her young daughter a life here. “It’s so hard,” she said. “You tell your patients that they need medicine, but that they have to find it on [the black market via] social media. And you know they can’t afford it. Even me, when I need medicine for myself, I have to buy it on social media.” Anger has boiled over. In 2021, during the pandemic, thousands of protesters took to the streets across the country, calling for better living conditions. The government response was immediate, and harsh. Hundreds were arrested and the rebellion quashed. Garcia, the dissident living in exile, said that repression had increased in recent years, partly due to the fact the regime had “lost control of information” through the late arrival of the internet on the island and the proliferation of social media, which made it easier for civil society to organise. JORGE RICARDO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES PREVIOUS ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE 09/02/2025, 08:53 Inside hungry, crumbling Cuba, where one in ten people have fled https://www.thetimes.com/world/latin-america/article/inside-hungry-crumbling-cuba-where-one-in-ten-people-have-fled-w60wc6lxd 16/23 World Latin America “The government … has been incapable of reinventing itself and sustaining a coherent narrative,” he said. “The arrival to power of a generation of bureaucrats without charisma, the increase in corruption in the highest spheres of the single party, the worsening of the economic crisis, the mass exodus of professionals, as well as the obsolescence of political discourse, demonstrate that the Cuban revolution has completely failed.” There is no free press in Cubaand the handful of independent journalists who exist are often harassed by the government. Public displays of protest against the regime are banned, all forms of political dissent suppressed. However, the government can’t hide the low quality of life here from its citizens, who are linked up via their smartphones with relatives spread from Miami to Spain. The young people of Cuba have seen what is out there and are voting with their feet: leaving on flights to Nicaragua or Uruguay, from where they begin the long journey north to the US, or waking up before dawn to take an (illegal) fast boat to Florida, 90 miles away. “I think for my parents’ generation, there was a sense of duty to the revolution,” said one young artist, who didn’t want to be named. “Like they’d been through so much, and they were committed to it. Now we don’t have that. We just want to live like everyone else.”

[unaslob]

A sobering statistic I read was they have one of the lowest birth rates in the western hemisphere. Coupled with an aging population and higher emigration is a recipe for demise of a nation.  
 

[Ken Gargett]

3 hours ago, helix said:

Biggest loan defaulters in the world. No country is interested in dealing with them.

i think Greece might still be a worse but it hardly matters.

there have been plenty of countries around the world at various times with crippling debt. not many get out of it without assistance, yet we seem to expect Cuba to do just that. even worse, the US seems determined to make things as tough as possible. the country and people have no chance while that continues. 

no one wants to see support for the regime of course, but in more than 60 years we have not seen the embargo work. anyone really think it is about to? it has caused such untold suffering and misery for millions. the leaders are not the ones near starvation. they are not on meagre rations and yet the embargo is still firmly in place. they want the place to up and overthrow the government yet have made it impossible for the people to do that. 

i visited the USSR before it collapsed. one of the things that i still remember clearly was talking to ordinary people. they were pretty much the same as everywhere - good, decent people - but no internet or anything in those days so they heard nothing other than what the government told them. they could not understand why US and NATO troops were massed at their borders, why the US was determined to bomb them out of existence and so on. it was all they had been told. there was no reason for them to question it. they knew no better. dump this absurd and horrendously cruel embargo and let the world into Cuba. when the people really start to see what is possible and what happens elsewhere, there might be a chance of getting rid of the government but not in these circumstances.  

both sides of politics have been culpable. blaming one side or the other is pointless and does the people of Cuba no good at all. 

[El Presidente]

The most depressing thing is that Ken just found out about the embargo. 

[Ken Gargett]

Just now, El Presidente said:

The most depressing thing is that Ken just found out about the embargo. 

nice. you think you can get away with that because it is your birthday! mind you, who has four-day birthdays? your six-day wedding nearly killed me. 

 

[SCgarman]

20 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

i think Greece might still be a worse but it hardly matters.

there have been plenty of countries around the world at various times with crippling debt. not many get out of it without assistance, yet we seem to expect Cuba to do just that. even worse, the US seems determined to make things as tough as possible. the country and people have no chance while that continues. 

no one wants to see support for the regime of course, but in more than 60 years we have not seen the embargo work. anyone really think it is about to? it has caused such untold suffering and misery for millions. the leaders are not the ones near starvation. they are not on meagre rations and yet the embargo is still firmly in place. they want the place to up and overthrow the government yet have made it impossible for the people to do that. 

i visited the USSR before it collapsed. one of the things that i still remember clearly was talking to ordinary people. they were pretty much the same as everywhere - good, decent people - but no internet or anything in those days so they heard nothing other than what the government told them. they could not understand why US and NATO troops were massed at their borders, why the US was determined to bomb them out of existence and so on. it was all they had been told. there was no reason for them to question it. they knew no better. dump this absurd and horrendously cruel embargo and let the world into Cuba. when the people really start to see what is possible and what happens elsewhere, there might be a chance of getting rid of the government but not in these circumstances.  

both sides of politics have been culpable. blaming one side or the other is pointless and does the people of Cuba no good at all. 

I don't worry about things in the world I have absolutely no control over. I just take care of what is inside my four walls and under my roof. I agree with another member here "garbandz" who stated it is not the fault of the US for the state Cuba is in. Other countries can do business and trade with them, but choose not to. Why try to do business with a crook (Cuban gov't), when you know they'll just steal your goods and not pay up like an honorable trading partner. Cuba has made their bed, they can lay in it.

[Ken Gargett]

5 hours ago, SCgarman said:

I don't worry about things in the world I have absolutely no control over. I just take care of what is inside my four walls and under my roof. I agree with another member here "garbandz" who stated it is not the fault of the US for the state Cuba is in. Other countries can do business and trade with them, but choose not to. Why try to do business with a crook (Cuban gov't), when you know they'll just steal your goods and not pay up like an honorable trading partner. Cuba has made their bed, they can lay in it.

Perhaps we should leave aside the first part of your post as it is hardly relevant, though perhaps worth noting that if everyone takes the selfish me only view then eventually the entire system collapses.

I'll also leave aside references to honourable trading partner, because at the moment, I suspect that a large chunk of the world would have a different definition to what we are seeing from the US.

For all the bluster, the US still exported more than $300 million of products, mostly agriculture, to Cuba annually. All done relatively quietly, because this suits the US. If the US genuinely believed in the embargo, would it not cover everything? Hypocrisy at its finest. Of course, the US is hardly the only country in the world to engage in hypocritical behaviour. We voted with the US to support the embargo for thirty years. Purely self interest.

For the rest of it, I could hardly disagree more. It is the most deliberately disingenuous or utterly naïve thing I have read in ages. Nobody would suggest that Cuba is completely innocent or that its leaders have not taken advantage of the embargo to help them maintain power (surely enough of a reason to dump it), but to claim the US is innocent is farcical.

Not the fault of the US? The embargo did not impose itself. It is the US who maintains it.

Why? It is nothing more than the actions of a vindictive bully – and both sides of politics are equally culpable. The reason for the embargo was to promote regime change and democracy. How is that working out? Is more than 60 years enough to decide whether it is a success or failure? Hard to find many people that believe it is a success. Most see it as one of the most monumental failures in international relations in history. Interesting that there are so many countries around the world which could benefit from the promotion of democracy and yet the US does nothing in relation to them. Not convenient? Or monumental hypocrisy?

But I may be being unfair. You may see it as a success. If so, I would genuinely love to know why you think that. If not, why maintain it, other than for petty politics.

Other countries can do business? No offence but do you know how all this works? The US has been actively pushing to prevent other countries and foreign businesses from doing business with Cuba for decades. Foreign businesses dealing with Cuba face punishment in the US. We recently, during the pandemic, saw the US crack down on a Swiss company which was trying to sell ventilators to Cuba. Made it impossible for them to do so. Did everything they could to prevent humanitarian aid to Cuba – at the same time they temporarily dropped certain sanctions on Iran, Venezuela and Syria to help them through the pandemic – but not Cuba, all of which resulted in the unnecessary deaths of many innocent people. And the US not only did not care a cracker, it promoted this. For a country that claims to be Christian, perhaps there are times it could try walking the walk, not just the talk. The embargo is truly pernicious, unnecessary, vile, degrading and disgraceful. It tears at the very fabric of human dignity. For no reason other than local US politics. These days, it says far more about the country which imposed it and maintains it than it does the victims.

What is more baffling is that the US seems keen to strengthen the embargo. In recent years, we have seen legislation to allow US nationals/citizens to sue foreigners who have benefited from certain dealings in Cuba.

Your statement could hardly have been further from the truth.

Without the embargo, surely Cuba would have been in a position to be a better trading partner. It is hard to do business with bankrupts and there are plenty of people in the US making decisions today who know well just how bankruptcy can work.

Five years ago, the UN estimate of the costs of the embargo to Cuba were approaching $150 billion. Imagine had the country been able to operate in those circumstances. Would it not have been in everyone’s interests and perhaps more importantly, would it not have made regime change far more likely?

Obviously, this discussion could go on and on, but I suspect that the one point on which most will agree is that despite the economic and human cost to Cuba, change will only come when politicians feel that removing it is to their own benefit.