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Cuba – Europe Dialogues No CUBA – EUROPE DIALOGUES No. 4 / 2007 QUARTERLY BULLETIN ON RELATIONS BETWEEN CUBANS AND EUROPEANS TRADE, TOURISM Are Cooperation and Investment Fidel Castro Inc. and AND INVESTMENT ISSUE Means of Collaborating Regime Survival in Cuba with Cuban Dictatorship? MARIA C. WERLAU 6 MATÍAS JOVE 2 Cuba Is Never Alone PAVEL RES 11 Fidel Castro Not Paying His Bills Trade Relations between Cuba Etecsa – Telecom LUIS LOSADA PESCADOR 15 and the Czech Republic A Marriage of Convenience Will Oil Bring Democracy DR. TRAIAN URBAN 21 JUAN GONZÁLEZ FEBLES 26 to Cuba? Cuba and Spain – Relations Michael Moore’s Documentary LEOPOLDO FORNÉS-BONAVÍA DOLZ 18 and Contradictions to be Censored in Cuba OSCAR ESPINOSA CHEPE 24 DR. DARSI FERRER 28 Cooperation between Cuban Cuban Workers in ihe People that Read, and Slovakian Experts Shipyard of Curacao Can’t do Wrong IVANA KULLOVÁ 29 CLARA OLIVIA OcAmpO DE ÁLVAREZ ELLEN WEBER AND FOLKJE LIPS 36 Excerpts from the Book DE LA CAmpA 33 Cuba, Tourism and Solidarity “Cuban Economy” 31 RICARDO CARRERAS LARIO 37 photo by photo L. Kotek ARE COOPERATION And InVESTMenT MeANS OF COLLABORATING WITH CUBAN DICTATORSHIP? Matías Jove hen the Spanish government Cuba has been receiving help since the tom of the Straits of Florida and more announced that Spain and Cuba beginning of Castro’s dictatorship. than 300 prisoners of conscience con- Wwere seeking to cooperate, several tinue to waste away in jails. moral dilemmas as to the cooperation Cuba, which once used to be a boom- with the island, to the investment con- ing and prosperous country, contin- Before many of these “movers of ditions and to the application or not ues to be sunk in misery and the situ- change” were actually born, Cuba of the human rights clause appeared received subsidies from the Soviet back on the conference table. Union the amount of which was ten times higher than the Marshall Plan. Several days later, one of the Span- ... investments are Without any doubt, a big part of the ish dailies wrote that the Ministry of approved by a regime money was used to consolidate the Foreign Affairs was looking for a way power of an economically inefficient of cancelling the debt of the Cuban which systematically regime, to fund guerrillas in other regime which has reached more than violates human rights Latin American and African coun- 1.7 billion Euros. tries, and to perpetuate the misery of and which imposes rules the people on the island. Today, other The impending cooperation, which is that in the businessmen’s countries like Venezuela provide the to be launched without being connect- regime of the Castro brothers with ed to the issue of human rights, shows home countries that 90,000 barrels of oil a day at prefer- a tendency of identifying the interests would be either illegal ential prices along with other types of Spain with the interests of the busi- of help. Yet, according to official data, nessmen who have their enterprises or socially irresponsible. the Cuban people keep on struggling based on the island. Those who have to get by in pitiful conditions. an economic stake in Cuba tend to argue that changes on the island need The most questionable part of the to be carried out by encouraging aid ation of human rights, which is still issue we are discussing might be the and business relations. They say that far from improving, is unanimously character of the investments, because this approach will finally help Cuba condemned by international organi- the investments are approved by a find its way towards prosperity and zations. Currently, there is evidence regime which systematically violates will bring democratic changes. that more than 8,000 people have human rights and which imposes been shot dead, victims of extrajudi- rules that in the businessmen’s home However, the advocates of this cial assassinations, died in prisons or countries that would be either illegal approach do not usually explain the “disappeared” because of their political or socially irresponsible. Although the conditions that the Cuban government philosophy. Furthermore, the remains access of foreigners – and of Cuban requires both for investments and of around 10,000 people who have citizens – to the investments is a rela- cooperation, and are forgetting that tried to escape are resting at the bot- tively recent phenomenon, the model is well-established and if Cuba, enjoy- EDITORIAL ing a new economic spring encouraged by revenues of Venezuelan origin, does not impede it, the model will remain as it is for a long time. According to official data, in the past ten years, Cuba has accepted more than 400 eco- When discussing politics, many people say, that money talks. In this issue we nomic associations with foreign capi- offer you different views on how the economic relations between Cuba and Euro- tal, and Spain is the second highest pean Union are shaping its policies and dealings with the issue of human rights. investor after Venezuela. Cuba has never been on its own, points out Pavel Res in an overview of the prob- During the first years of the commu- lem, and after the collapse of the Soviet subsidies, it saved Castro from opening nist revolution, foreign companies and reforming more of its economy. Nowadays China and Venezuela are taking were expropriated and all services over and the European companies are desperately trying to hold on to the island were nationalized. Private ownership with hopes of huge opportunities if the regime changes. As Matías Jove explains, was abolished. It was only after the this seldom goes without breaching international labor rules and rights of Cuban fall of the Soviet Bloc, which used to employees, who are being exploited by the joint ventures. According to the Span- supply Cuba economic aid that was ish journalist Luis Losada Pescador’s article, the efforts to have its foot in Cuba ten times greater than the Marshall have led Spain so far that it considers forgiving Cuba its debt. Plan, that Cuban authorities were forced to allow a certain amount of Cuba has neither been on its own, nor poor. Maria Werlau’s article documents foreign investments. During the des- the fortune that Raúl Castro will inherit if his brother dies, which includes an perate economic situation, remem- extended network of international companies as well as properties in various EU bered as the “special period”, the Gov- countries. If Cuba sells its oil reserves well, it may even become a rich country, ernment decided to legalize not only writes Leopoldo Fornés-Bonavía Dolz. the possession of convertible currency – which used to be penalized even by “Tourism, and foreign investment can be factors for progress,” writes Oscar jail – but also some sorts of private Espinosa Chepe, a Cuban economist and former political prisoner, in his article, economic activities of “self-employers”. but “when economic relations are only marked by the anxieties of profits they And in 1995, these measures were fol- become miserable exercises, leaving behind the principles accepted by govern- lowed by the legalization of regulated ments in their own countries and in international agreements.” This is the crux foreign investment established by Law of the dilemma that every country has to solve. In some cases, like the Neth- No. 77. The Government succumbed erlands or the Czech Republic, as shown by Traian Urban, trade with Cuba has to the pressure of the economic cir- continued despite the strong concerns about the human rights issue. And yet in cumstance and yet even though there some cases there are companies like Telecom Italia that not only invest in Cuba, was a need for opening, all of these but help the regime repress the people, writes independent Cuban journalists activities had to be strictly controlled Juan González Febles. by the communist regime in order to not to be distorted. In this sense, the We are also pleased to include articles from the EU-Cuba NGO network. People in Preamble of the aforementioned Law Peril from Slovakia has compiled an interesting book, which sums up the findings No. 77 was sincere: from their workshops where Cubans gave their views of possible economic reforms. The Dutch non-profit IKV Pax Cristi and the Spanish NGO Solidaridad Espanola “In today‘s world, without the existence con Cuba explain how to travel with responsibility. While, Ocampo describes in of the socialist bloc, with a globalizing another optimistic piece how Cuba Futuro and others have succeeded in ending world economy and strong hegemonis- the exploitation of Cuban workers in the Dutch Antilles. tic tendencies in the economic, political 4/2007 and military fields, Cuba, in order to UES G O preserve its accomplishments despite L DIA the fierce blockade to which it is sub- E P jected; lacking capital, certain kinds Nikola Horejs EURO Editor - of technology and often markets and A B U in need of restructuring its industry, C can benefit from foreign investment were familiar with the situation on Workers in Cuba do not have the on the basis of the strictest respect the island, this year, they were offi- right to directly choose their job. for national independence and sover- cially defined in the “Regulations Con- eignty (...)” cerning Relations with Foreign Per- The labour regime established in the sonnel in the Tourism System”. Apart aforementioned Law No. 77 on foreign The system of foreign investment was from stressing that relations with for- investments in Cuba involves “employ- established in order to avoid that eigners shall be limited to those that ing entities” that are charged with the this opening imply a loss of political are strictly necessary, this text pro- administration of labour force.
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