DOCSLIB.ORG

“Si Tienes Un Amigo, Tienes Un Central”

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
“Si Tienes Un Amigo, Tienes Un Central” “Si tienes un amigo, tienes un central” A Field Study of the act of informal gift exchanges and social networks between patients and medical staff, in Cuba’s public healthcare system. By: Julia Spaton Goppers Author: Julia Spaton Goppers Word Count: 13.491 Supervisor: Hans Blomkvist Uppsala University, Department of Government Bachelor Thesis, 15 ECTS Political Science, Spring Semester of 2019 Abstract This thesis explores the act of informal reciprocal exchanges and relationships - sometimes referred to as bribes or corruption - within the Cuban healthcare system. The research was conducted in Havana during the autumn of 2018 and was funded by a Minor Field Study scholarship from SIDA. The theoretical framework of Institutionalism is used to answer the research question: For what reasons do patients informally pay for healthcare services, that formally are meant to be free? The study shows through qualitative interview methods, that the perception of informal gift giving varies between the respondents; some consider it to be a way of showing gratitude, while others claim it to be corruption. There was however consensus among the respondents, and also according to previous research, that one’s personal connections within the healthcare system can impact the quality of the services and grant better access to medical resources. The study concludes that gifts can function as a factor creating or strengthening friendships, which may provide better access to healthcare. Resumen Esta tesis explora la acción de intercambios y relaciones recíprocas e informales — a veces llamadas soborno, o corrupción — al interior del sistema de salud en Cuba. La investigación fue desarrollada en La Havana durante el otoño de 2018 y fue financiada mediante una beca del programa de Breves Estudios de Campo de la Agencia Sueca de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (Asdi). El estudio hace uso del esquema teórico del institucionalismo para responder a la siguiente pregunta: ¿por qué razón los pacientes están dispuestos a pagar informalmente por servicios de salud supuestamente gratuitos? El estudio muestra, mediante el método de entrevistas, que la percepción del presente informal varía entre los entrevistados; algunos lo consideran una manera de mostrar gratitud, mientras que otros lo consideran una forma de corrupción. Sin embargo, existe consenso entre los entrevistados, y también de acuerdo a investigaciones anteriores, en que el acceso a relaciones personales dentro del sistema de salud puede influenciar la calidad del servicio, y asegurar mejor acceso a recursos médicos. El estudio concluye que los obsequios pueden funcionar como una manera de crear o fortalecer amistades — una función importante en la vida de los cubanos — lo que puede resultar en un mejor acceso al servicio de salud. 1 Acknowledgements This Field Study would not have been possible without the cooperation of the Cuban patients, medical employees, and medical students who participated in the interviews. I especially thank my local contact person Sylvia for welcoming me to Havana and assisting me with valuable help, as well as many kind people in Sweden who gave me useful advice and provided me with contacts on Cuba prior to departure. For the generous financial support, I want to thank SIDA for the Minor Field Study Scholarship I was awarded, as well as the preparatory course in Härnösand with dedicated staff where valuable information was provided. Lastly I want to thank my supervisor Hans Blomkvist at the department of government at Uppsala University, for the guidance and support throughout the process. Gracias. Key words: Cuba, Field Study, Healthcare, Gifts, Institutionalism, Sociolismo 2 Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 5 1.1. AIM AND RESEARCH QUESTION ..................................................................................................................... 6 1.2. DISPOSITION ................................................................................................................................................. 6 1.3. BACKGROUND AND COUNTRY INFORMATION .............................................................................................. 6 1.3.1. THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM OF CUBA ......................................................................................................... 7 1.4. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION ................................................................................................................................. 9 2. PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .......................................................... 10 2.1. PREVIOUS RESEARCH .................................................................................................................................. 10 2.1.1. SOCIOLISMO ............................................................................................................................................. 10 2.2. INSTITUTIONALISM ..................................................................................................................................... 11 2.3. ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK - IDEAL TYPES ................................................................................................. 12 3. DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................ 14 3.1. DESIGN AND MATERIAL .............................................................................................................................. 14 3.2. METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................................................................... 14 3.2.1. RESPONDENT SELECTION ......................................................................................................................... 15 3.2.2. OBSERVATIONS AND HOSPITAL VISITS ..................................................................................................... 16 3.3. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ......................................................................................................................... 16 3.4. DELIMITATIONS .......................................................................................................................................... 17 3.5 SOURCE CRITICISM ...................................................................................................................................... 18 4. RESULT AND ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................ 20 4.1. GENERAL PERCEPTION OF THE FUNCTIONING OF THE CUBAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM ................................. 20 4.1.1. PERCEPTION OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE GIFTS ......................................................................................... 22 4.2. GRATITUDE ................................................................................................................................................. 23 4.3. CORRUPTION ............................................................................................................................................... 25 4.4. FRIENDSHIPS ............................................................................................................................................... 27 4.5. OVERLAPPING ............................................................................................................................................. 29 4.6. SANCTIONS ................................................................................................................................................. 31 4.7. DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................................ 32 5. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................ 34 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................................... 36 7. APPENDIX ...................................................................................................................................................... 40 3 List of Figures and Tables Figure 1: Life expectancy in Cuba and Latin America……………………………….…….....8 Figure 2: Life expectancy in Cuba and High-income countries…………………………...…..8 Figure 3: Illustration suggesting potential effects of the gift………………………….……..33 Table 1: Health Statistics from the World Health Organization ……………………..………8 Table 2: Helmke’s and Levitsky’s typology of informal institutions……………………......12 Table 3: Ideal types and operationalization of gratitude and corruption………………...…...13 Table 4: Ethical requirements………………………………………………………………...17 Table 5: Information about the respondents.…………………………………………….…...20 4 1. Introduction Healthcare policies and their outcomes are shaped differently over the world, and countries have various means and strategies to reach the United Nations’ sustainability goal of ensuring good health and well-being for all at all ages (UN, 2016). Cuba, one of the last communist societies in the world, has since the revolution in 1959 when Fidel Castro seized power, invested in creating a public healthcare system - free and equal for all Cuban citizens, which has continuously
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Políticas Sociales Y Reforma Institucional En La Cuba Pos-COVID
    Políticas sociales y reforma institucional en la Cuba pos-COVID Bert Hoffmann (ed.) Políticas sociales y reforma institucional en la Cuba pos-COVID Verlag Barbara Budrich Opladen • Berlin • Toronto 2021 © 2021 Esta obra está bajo una licencia Creative Commons Atribución 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0), que permite su uso, duplicación, adaptación, distribución y reproducción en cualquier medio o formato, siempre que se otorgue el crédito apropiado al autor o autores origi- nales y la fuente, se proporcione un enlace a la licencia Creative Commons, y se indique si se han realizado cambios. Para ver una copia de esta licencia, visite https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/. Esta obra puede descargarse de manera gratuita en www.budrich.eu (https://doi.org/10.3224/84741695). © 2021 Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH, Opladen, Berlín y Toronto www.budrich.eu eISBN 978-3-8474-1695-1 DOI 10.3224/84741695 Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH Stauffenbergstr. 7. D-51379 Leverkusen Opladen, Alemania 86 Delma Drive. Toronto, ON M8W 4P6, Canadá www.budrich.eu El registro CIP de esta obra está disponible en Die Deutsche Bibliothek (La Biblioteca Alemana) (http://dnb.d-nb.de) (http://dnb.d-nb.de) Ilustración de la sobrecubierta: Bettina Lehfeldt, Kleinmachnow – www.lehfeldtgraphic.de Créditos de la imagen: shutterstock.com Composición tipográfica: Ulrike Weingärtner, Gründau – [email protected] 5 Contenido Bert Hoffmann Políticas sociales y reforma institucional en la Cuba pos-COVID: una agenda necesaria . 7 Parte I: Políticas sociales Laurence Whitehead Los retos de la gobernanza en la Cuba contemporánea: las políticas sociales y los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de las Naciones Unidas .
    [Show full text]
  • Corruption in Cuba from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
    Corruption in Cuba From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Political corruption Concepts Bribery Cronyism Kleptocracy Economics of corruption Electoral fraud Legal plunder Nepotism Slush fund Plutocracy Political scandal Corruption by country Europe Albania Armenia Austria Belgium Bosnia Denmark Finland France Germany Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Georgia Greece Iceland Ireland Italy Kosovo Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Moldova Montenegro Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Ukraine Asia Afghanistan Bahrain Bangladesh Cambodia China India Indonesia Iran Iraq Jordan Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Malaysia Myanmar North Korea Pakistan Philippines Singapore South Korea Sri Lanka Thailand Uzbekistan Vietnam Africa Angola Botswana Cameroon Congo Egypt Equatorial Guinea Ethiopia Ghana Kenya Liberia Mauritius Morocco Nigeria Senegal Somalia South Africa South Sudan Sudan Tanzania Tunisia Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe North America Canada Cuba Haiti Mexico Nicaragua United States South America Argentina Brazil Chile Colombia Paraguay Peru Venezuela Oceania and the Pacific Australia New Zealand Papua New Guinea Transcontinental countries Russia Turkey v t e The 2013 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Cuba 63rd out of 177 countries, tied with Ghana and Saudi Arabia,[1] and therefore lower than most of the other countries in the Caribbean and Central America, but higher than most of the countries in the Western world. The state ownership has contributed to rampant corruption. The book Corruption in Cuba says that "As in other former socialist countries, when given opportunity, few citizens hesitate to steal from the government. Since the bulk of the productive resources are owned and managed by the state and the vast majority of Cubans work for state-owned enterprises, these petty crimes are widespread".
    [Show full text]
  • The Social Construction of Tourism in Cuba: a Geographic Analysis of the Representations of Gender and Race During the Special Period 1995-1997
    University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2003 The Social Construction of Tourism in Cuba: A Geographic Analysis of the Representations of Gender and Race during the Special Period 1995-1997 Michael W. Cornebise University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Geography Commons Recommended Citation Cornebise, Michael W., "The Social Construction of Tourism in Cuba: A Geographic Analysis of the Representations of Gender and Race during the Special Period 1995-1997. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2003. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1987 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Michael W. Cornebise entitled "The Social Construction of Tourism in Cuba: A Geographic Analysis of the Representations of Gender and Race during the Special Period 1995-1997." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Geography. Lydia Mihelič Pulsipher, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Thomas Bell, Ronald Foresta, Todd Diakon Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Michael W.
    [Show full text]
  • Where Does Cuba Stand?
    WHERE DOES CUBA STAND? Enrique A. Baloyra January 14, 1994 ******* The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This report is approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. ******* Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013-5050. FOREWORD The crisis of the Cuban revolution has once again raised a number of security issues for the United States, along with important questions about the effectiveness and wisdom of the three- decade-old U.S. policy of containment and punishment. Many observers believe that the Castro regime is in its final hour, and that its passing may be accompanied by massive bloodshed and a new wave of refugees to southern Florida. Given the potential explosiveness of the Cuban crisis and the possibility that it might lead to U.S. military involvement, it would seem appropriate to take a closer look at the Cuban situation. In particular, we need a better understanding of those forces promoting both political stability and instability. In this report, the distinguished Latin American scholar Enrique Baloyra argues that Castro's current policy of "re-equilibration" is unlikely to succeed and that his options will increasingly boil down to two choices: One, he can deepen the process of government-led reform, or, two, he can continue the current policy, with growing chances of violence and turmoil.
    [Show full text]
  • Cuba, ¿Democracia a La Vista?
    ISSN: 1659-2069 Cuba, ¿democracia a la vista? “Para la patria nos levantamos. Es un crimen levantarse sobre ella”. José Martí1 Roberto Bautista Díaz* Nota del Consejo Editorial Recepción: 30 de noviembre de 2015. Revisión, corrección y aprobación: 7 de diciembre de 2015. Resumen: Inicia con una reseña histórica del proceso de independencia y de la Revolución cubana, para indicar que a pesar del triunfo de la Revolución hoy en día continúa el éxodo de ciudadanos cubanos debido, según el autor, a los errores que a nombre de esa revolución se han cometido desde hace 50 años en el país. Palabras clave: Proceso político /Revolución / Historia política / Conflictos políticos / Debilitamiento de la democracia / Desarrollo de la democracia /Cuba. Abstract: It begins with a historical review of the Independence process and the Cuban revolution to indicate that, in spite of the triumph of the revolution, the exodus of Cuban citizens continues even to this date due to, according to the author, the mistakes that have been made in the country on behalf of the revolution during the last 50 years. Key Words: Political process / Revolution / Political History / Political conflicts / Weakening of democracy / Development of democracy / Cuba. 1 La página de José Martí (2015). Pensamientos de José Martí. Recuperado de: http://www.jose- marti.org/jose_marti/pensamientos/patria.htm * Cubano, dramaturgo, correo [email protected]. Licenciado en Arte Teatral por el Instituto Superior de Arte (especialidad en actuación) y la Escuela Nacional de Teatro (especialidad en docencia) de la Habana, Cuba. Ha trabajado como actor y director en diversos montajes profesionales Cuba, Perú y Costa Rica, con grupos independientes como Teatro D’dos y Havanabierta (Cuba), Cuatro Tablas (Perú), Terruño Espressivo y Compañía Nacional de Teatro (Costa Rica).
    [Show full text]
  • Press Release July 19, 2007 “Re-Examining the Cuban Health Care System” Article in UM's Cuban Affairs Journal Reveals Deta
    Press Release July 19, 2007 “Re-examining the Cuban Health Care System” Article in UM’s Cuban Affairs Journal Reveals Details Coral Gables, Fl.-Contrary to what Michael Moore’s documentary, “Sicko,” would lead you to believe, Cuba’s health care system is far from perfect. Although it has long been praised as one of the revolution successes, Cuba’s health care system works for foreigners but often fails its own citizens. That is the conclusion of an article titled “Re-examining the Cuban Health Care System” included in the latest edition of the online journal, “Cuban Affairs,” published by the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. The author, University of Oklahoma Professor Katherine Hirschfeld, spent nine months in the island living with a Cuban family and interviewing family doctors, medical specialists, social workers, nurses and patients as part of her research. The article details the realities of the health system ”where the best clinics and hospitals only serve the political elites and foreigners and scarce medical supplies are often stolen from hospitals and sold on the black market.” Through personal observations and interviews, Hirschfeld details the three levels of healthcare in Cuba. One for foreigners paying in hard currency; an excellent system with great equipment and medication. A second one for the military and high government and party officials. Again, this system is excellent. On the contrary, the one most Cubans deal with is poor; there is a shortage of equipment and medication; and now many of the physicians serving them are sent abroad for humanitarian purposes.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rise of Ifá Cults and Consumption in Postso
    Journal of Latin American Studies http://journals.cambridge.org/LAS Additional services for Journal of Latin American Studies: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Religious ‘Speculation’: The Rise of Ifá Cults and Consumption in Post­Soviet Cuba MARTIN HOLBRAAD Journal of Latin American Studies / Volume 36 / Issue 04 / November 2004, pp 643 ­ 663 DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X04008119, Published online: 17 November 2004 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0022216X04008119 How to cite this article: MARTIN HOLBRAAD (2004). Religious ‘Speculation’: The Rise of Ifá Cults and Consumption in Post­Soviet Cuba. Journal of Latin American Studies, 36, pp 643­663 doi:10.1017/S0022216X04008119 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/LAS, IP address: 144.82.107.48 on 17 Oct 2012 J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 36, 643–663 f 2004 Cambridge University Press 643 DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X04008119 Printed in the United Kingdom Religious ‘Speculation’: The Rise of Ifa´ Cults and Consumption in Post-Soviet Cuba* MARTIN HOLBRAAD Abstract. With an ethnographic focus on the prestigious cult of Ifa´, this article seeks to account for the recent effervescence of Afro-Cuban cult worship in urban Cuba. It is argued that, since worship involves a marked emphasis on ritual consumption, the cult’s rise can be related to wider transformations that have taken place in the field of everyday consumption in Havana during the economic crisis that has followed the collapse of the Soviet bloc. In particular, Ifa´ has provided an arena for what habaneros call ‘especulacio´n’, a style of conspicuous consumption that has become prevalent among so-called ‘marginal’ groups in recent years.
    [Show full text]
  • Downloaded from Brill.Com09/27/2021 04:33:56PM Via Free Access Early Canada and Jamaica
    Book Reviews -Alan L. Karras, Lauren A. Benton, Law and colonial cultures: Legal regimes in world history, 1400-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. xiii + 285 pp. -Sidney W. Mintz, Douglass Sullivan-González ,The South and the Caribbean. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001. xii + 208 pp., Charles Reagan Wilson (eds) -John Collins, Peter Redfield, Space in the tropics: From convicts to rockets in French Guiana. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xiii + 345 pp. -Vincent Brown, Keith Q. Warner, On location: Cinema and film in the Anglophone Caribbean. Oxford: Macmillan, 2000. xii + 194 pp. -Ann Marie Stock, Jacqueline Barnitz, Twentieth-century art of Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. 416 pp. -Ineke Phaf, J.J. Oversteegen, Herscheppingen: De wereld van José Maria Capricorne. Emmastad, Curacao: Uitgeverij ICS Nederland/Curacao, 1999. 168 pp. -Halbert Barton, Frances R. Aparicio, Listening to Salsa: Gender, latin popular music, and Puerto Rican cultures. Hanover NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1998. xxi + 290 pp. -Pedro Pérez Sarduy, John M. Kirk ,Culture and the Cuban revolution: Conversations in Havana. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. xxvi + 188 pp., Leonardo Padura Fuentes (eds) -Luis Martínez-Fernández, Damián J. Fernández, Cuba and the politics of passion. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. 192 pp. -Eli Bartra, María de Los Reyes Castillo Bueno, Reyita: The life of a black Cuban woman in the twentieth century. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2000. 182 pp. -María del Carmen Baerga, Felix V. Matos Rodríguez, Women and urban change in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1820-1868. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Download
    Essays – peer-reviewed Sociologica. V.12 N.3 (2018) https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/9089 ISSN 1971-8853 Entrepreneurship in Cuba: Returns of Party Affiliation and Mobilization of Personal Contacts in Cuba Sara Romanò December 2018 Abstract This manuscript focuses on factors — in particular, political credential and mobilization of personal contacts — associated to becoming a cuentapropista, namely a self-employed worker in the emerging private sector. Data were collected shortly before the launch of the recent reforms plan aiming at revitalizing the market-oriented reforms of the 1990s. The results suggest that being a member of the PCC is negatively associated to entering in the private sector. Older individuals and recipients of remittances have instead a higher probability to become a self-employed worker. Moreover, the results provide some support to previous findings that turning to personal ties — especially if strong — to successfully complete a job search, is a common practice in Cuba. Keywords: Social capital; political capital; social mobility; transitional economies; Cuba. Sara Romanò: Department of Culture, Politics and Society, University of Turin (Italy) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5912-7060 [email protected]; https://www.dcps.unito.it/do/docenti.pl/Show?_id=sromano Sara Romanò is currently a post-doc at the Department of Culture, Politics and Society, University of Turin (Italy). Her main research interests include social networks, transitional economies, social experiments, labor market. Her more recent publications are: “Wealth Distribution in Cuba (2006–2014): A First Assessment Using Microdata” (2018, Cambridge Journal of Economics), “Università e Lavoro. Una Misura del Mismatch tra Istruzione e Occu- pazione” (2017, Scuola Democratica).
    [Show full text]
  • The Political Economy of Acupuncture in Cuba
    Asian Medicine 6 (2010–11) 95–122 brill.nl/asme Slaves, Revolutions, Embargoes, and Needles: The Political Economy of Acupuncture in Cuba Paul Kadetz and Johann Perdomo Delgado Abstract Medical systems have travelled and influenced one another for as long as there has been trade between differing groups. The medical systems of China have been a particularly frequent travel- ler, facilitated by Chinese migration and trade throughout history. The transfer and subsequent integration of acupuncture into the Cuban health care system can be best understood in terms of various political and economic forces from the mid-nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century. This paper will demonstrate that how acupuncture was transferred to Cuba; why it was integrated into the national health care system of Cuba; and how acupuncture is currently understood and practised in the Cuban context can be best understood as a result of specific political and economic factors. Keywords Cuba, TCM, acupuncture, political economy, China Introduction The structure of a health care system, and the practices and practitioners that have been integrated into a health care system, can be examined in terms of the impact of political and economic factors, among a myriad of other factors. The examination of these political economic factors is particularly germane to an understanding of the international transfer of non-biomedical systems, such as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).1 Similarly, how a non- biomedical system such as TCM is transferred and subsequently altered
    [Show full text]
  • Defend the Cuban Revolution! the Overthrow of the Corrupt and Brutal Neo-Colonial 1991 Coup in the USSR Severed Cuba’S Economic Lifeline
    1 Smash Yankee Imperialism! Defend the Cuban Revolution! The overthrow of the corrupt and brutal neo-colonial 1991 coup in the USSR severed Cuba’s economic lifeline. regime of Fulgencio Batista in January 1959, and the The Yeltsinites lost no time announcing the cancellation subsequent expropriation of the Cuban bourgeoisie, was of the sugar subsidy and the withdrawal of Soviet mili- a victory for working people everywhere. With Soviet tary personnel from Cuba. By October 1991 Castro re- aid, Cuba consolidated a functional and relatively egali- ported that less than 40 percent of scheduled imports tarian economic system, and for three decades Fidel from the former Soviet bloc were arriving in Cuban Castro could thumb his nose at the U.S. colossus. After ports. The Cuban daily Granma noted bitterly that Mos- the ignominious collapse of the USSR, the rulers of a cow’s abandonment of the Cuban revolution gave the declining American empire are no longer compelled to ‘‘green light’’ for U.S. aggression. tolerate the continued existence of a collectivized econ- The Batistianos hailed the announcement of the Sov- omy 90 miles from Florida. The U.S. imperialists are iet pullout. The ‘‘Cuban American National Founda- cranking up a ‘‘democratic’’ propaganda offensive, tion’’ (CANF), an organization of Florida millionaires while simultaneously tightening their eco-nomic em- and veterans of the CIA’s Bay of Pigs fiasco, set up a bargo and leaning on their Latin American neo-colonies commission to plan the counterrevolution. Included in to isolate Cuba. The defense of the Cuban revolution has the CANF commission are Jeane Kirkpatrick and Ronald never been more acutely posed than it is today.
    [Show full text]
  • Víspera Del Final: Fidel Castro Y La Revolución Cubana
    CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER VÍSPERA DEL FINAL: FIDEL CASTRO Y LA REVOLUCIÓN CUBANA GLOBUS 1994 ÍNDICE I. Vaya por delante lo siguiente .......................................................... 3 II. Castro en la era del poscomunismo ................................................ 18 III. Panorama en la víspera del cambio ................................................ 31 IV. Quién es Fidel Castro y cómo tomó el poder ................................. 40 V. De por qué se creyó Castro el Napoleón del Tercer Mundo............ 50 VI. Anatomía del poder en la Cuba de Castro ...................................... 73 VII. Los beneficiados de la revolución... ............................................... 94 VIII. Una revolución en busca de una ideología ..................................... 114 IX. Los males ocultos del castrismo ................................................... 128 X. La revolución y los intelectuales .................................................. 141 XI. Libertad y represión...................................................................... 162 XII. El fracaso económico.................................................................... 183 XIII. Cuba y los USA ............................................................................ 197 XIV. El anticastrismo ............................................................................ 207 XV. Votar con los pies: los que se exilian............................................ 220 XVI. La Cuba futura .............................................................................
    [Show full text]