MIAMI — Reactions from Cubans ranged from skepticism to cautious optimism over whether the island nation can actually implement the sweeping economic reforms its National Assembly voted to approve.
The reforms include unprecedented free-market measures aimed at opening up the struggling island’s economy as pressure from the U.S. and the European Union heightens.
“We are at a moment when what we have is not working, and if new measures come, even if they are capitalist, but the population can improve, eat better and stay afloat, then the measures are welcome,” state sector worker Omara Oliva said.
Havana resident Olian Valdes said, “First: let’s see if they are implemented. Second: let’s see if it is a principle, but they have something behind it, as usual when they say it is blue and then they tell you ‘No, it is Prussian blue,’ so that has to be seen.
“In my opinion, the ordinary Cuban doesn’t care whether they do it or not, because they have nowhere to invest, nothing to do, and they will benefit the minimum, because more resources may enter the country, but the prices with the salary are going to be the same.”
The announcement comes after months of increasing pressure from the U.S. and high-level talks between the two countries that have included Raúl Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who told an international audience that the country poses no threat to the U.S.
The U.S. has levied numerous sanctions against Cuba and has indicted Raúl Castro in connection with the 1996 downing of two civilian planes operated by Miami exiles.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the emergency plan and the policy document prepared by the Communist Party’s Central Committee were shaped by the experiences of China and Vietnam, two communist countries that have introduced market-oriented economic reforms while maintaining one-party rule.
Count Local 10 Cuba analyst Andy Gomez among the skeptics of the recent move.
“This is like reshuffling the chairs on the Titanic after hitting the iceberg,” he said. “These reforms are probably 60 years too late.”
Gomez said in his view, the communist island doesn’t have the infrastructure in place to actually execute on the more than 175 reform proposals that would ― for the first time since 1959 ― privatize large sectors of its socialist economy.
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That includes opening the door to private banks to private real estate development.
“I don’t see in any of the stuff that I have read in the reforms that they introduced (Thursday) that gives the foreign investor the confidence of investigating Cuba, making sure that their money is safe,” he said. “So we have to wait and see.”
It all comes as the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for human rights sanctions in a move Gomez said “further isolates Cuba.”
“The humanitarian emergency is not the product of any external embargo,” the resolution states, “But the direct consequences of the regime’s own model and failures.
Embodied, it goes on to say, by GAESA — a Cuban military conglomerate the resolution describes as corrupt.
“The only step that they can take is to take some of the money that GAESA, the military economic conglomerate, has assets and begin to implement them and help the Cuban people,” Gomez said. “I don’t think they will.”
He added, “People need to understand (that) this is no longer a Marxist ideology. This is a mafia. This is a group of people that have taken the monies that they have made through GAESA. And we see it from their kids and grandkids living all over the world like millionaires.”
As for when political change may come to the island, Gomez said “it’s going to take time.”
“Here we are in the United States celebrating this year 250 years of democracy,” he said. “And I would say that our civil society in the United States right now has some serious cracks in the system.”
That, he said, underscores the idea that building an open, plural democracy in the country is far from a quick endeavor.
Associated Press reporter Andrea Rodriguez contributed to this report.
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