News from Cuba concerning a crackdown against entrenched corruption have circled the world in the last few weeks. A former food industries minister, Alejandro Roca, is serving a 15-year sentence. The president of Cubana de Aviacion was fired and 14 executives of that airline and a tourism agency were sentenced to prison terms. Officials from the …
Category Archives: Cuba
New Book Announcement
Seeing that countless booklovers in different countries, at launches or by email, ask me questions about Cuba, I felt it worthwhile to write a non-fiction book about my country of birth recounting the 20th century’s most important political, economic and social events, and the challenges that I believe Cuba will have to deal with in the future. I strove …
Entertainment and the Internet: Political Weapons?
During the previous century authoritarian regimes used radio, television, cinematography, sports and art forms such as stage plays, music and ballet, to make their subjects forget their tribulations and enslavement. Communist dictatorships excelled at this. Internet-based social media, however, has proved a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it serves as propaganda tool and invaluable source …
Wishful thinking on Cuba
When Rául Castro took over the government of Cuba on July 31, 2006, first-world experts on foreign affairs, Havana-based foreign journalists, and some overseas businessmen in search for new markets started floating the notion that the younger Castro, aged 75, was much more pragmatic than Fidel and could move Cuba towards the current Chinese economic …
The meaning of “Indication” in Communist Cuba
If at some point in the history of mankind someone writes a book on the most appalling euphemisms, he or she may want to consider including one currently employed in Cuba. The “indication” (orientación in Spanish, which literally translates as orientation or guidance) was created by the Communist party in the second half of the 20th …
The Hidden Cuba
Since the mid-1970s millions of Canadians have visited Cuba (the land of my birth and most of my life), nearly all as tourists. Unsurprisingly, most return with the impression that my country is a land of sun-drenched beach resorts, good music, fine cigars, and fragrant rum. Cuba is that and much more. Off the beaten path …
The American and the Cuban embargoes
English-speaking people all over the world have been reading about the trade embargo that the Kennedy administration put on Cuba and that successive American administrations have kept in place. Unfortunately, they know little or nothing concerning how the island’s Communist government strangled the economy with confiscations, restrictions on internal trade, bans and prohibitions that ruined …
