Castro daughter says Cuba communists exclude gays

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Cuban President Raul Castro's daughter accused the ruling Communist Party on Tuesday of discrimination against gays and said she will write a letter to its "top leadership" demanding that it end.

Her uncle, Fidel Castro, heads the party, while her father is No. 2.

Mariela Castro, a sexologist who advocates for gay rights, said the party excludes gays who want to become members.

"It is not spelled out in any statute, but implicitly they are rejected," she told reporters at the opening of a conference on sex education and therapy.

"Your ideological and party definition have nothing to do with your sexual orientation," said Castro, who is head of Cuba's National Center of Sex Education. "It's absurd, it's laughable."

She said her letter -- to be sent "as soon as possible" -- would demand that a no-discrimination policy be clearly spelled out in party bylaws.

Fidel Castro, 83, ceded the presidency to his brother Raul, 78, two years ago, but still officially heads the Communist Party.

The Cuban government, which Fidel Castro led for 49 years after taking power in a 1959 revolution, once sent gays to labor camps but ended the policy in the 1970s.

Castro, 47 and married, has led gay rights parades in Havana, and urged the government to approve gay marriage, which has not yet happened.

"We continue to confront strong prejudices," she said.


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Cuba slams book by Castro's sister

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) -- Cuba's state-run media on Monday condemned a just-published book in which Fidel Castro's sister admits she spied for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The country's media added that the expose proves that the former Cuban leader was a "victim" of decades of US targeting.

"The truth is in full view: Fidel Castro is the victim, the offended person, the individual against whom they conspired," wrote the government-run La Jiribilla magazine, saying the relentless effort to target the Cuban leader was in "bad taste" and "low moral standing."

In acknowledging the cloak-and-dagger story, "the enemies of the revolution for once were casting a spotlight on their misdeeds," the periodical said.

The condemnation by the Havana government follows the admission by Juanita Castro, 76, in her Spanish-language book "Fidel and Raul, My Brothers. The Secret History" that she worked with the US spy agency.

In the book, which went on sale last week, Juanita, the fifth of seven Castro siblings, writes that she aided the CIA during the 1960s, at a time when the United States was plotting to assassinate her brother and replace his Communist regime.

Now a resident of Miami, Juanita Castro wrote that she was contacted in 1964 after she broke with Fidel and Raul, the current president of Cuba, and collaborated with the CIA both inside Cuba and when she went into exile later that year.

November 3, 2009

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No more free lunch in Raul Castro's Cuba

By Isabel Sanchez:


HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) -- President Raul Castro is taking a bold gamble to ease communist Cuba's cash crunch by eliminating a costly government lunch program that feeds almost a third of the nation's population every workday.

The Americas' only one-party communist government, held afloat largely by support from its key ally Venezuela, is desperate to improve its budget outlook; the global economy is slack, and Havana is very hard pressed to secure international financing.

Raul Castro, 76, officially took over as Cuba's president in February 2008 after his brother, revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, stepped aside with health problems.

Though some wondered if Raul Castro would try to move Cuba's centralized economy toward more market elements, so far he has sought to boost efficiency and cut corruption and waste without reshaping the economic system.

And so far it has been an uphill battle, something akin to treading water.

But now, Raul Castro has moved to set in motion what will likely be the biggest rollback of an entitlement since Cuba's 1959 revolution -- starting to put an end to the daily lunch program for state workers, as announced Friday in Granma, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper.

In a country where workers earn the average of 17 dollars a month, and state subsidized monthly food baskets are not enough for families, more than 3.5 million Cuban government employees -- out of a total population of 11.2 million -- benefit from the nutritionally significant free meal.

The pricetag is a cool 350 million dollars a year, not counting energy costs or facilities maintenance, Granma said.

But that will come to a halt in four ministries experimentally from October 1, Granma said. As workers stream to the 24,700 state lunchrooms, the government "is faced with extremely high state spending due to extremely high international market prices, infinite subsidies and freebies," Granma explained.

Parallel to the cutback, workers will see their salaries boosted by 15 pesos a workday (.60 dollar US) to cover their lunch.

It is a dramatic shift in Cuba, where the government workers' lunchroom has been among the longest-standing subsidies, though even authorities have called it paternalistic.

And more troubling, especially for authorities, is the fact that the lunchrooms' kitchens have become a source of economic hemorrhaging, from which workers unabashedly make off with tonnes of rice, beans, chicken and cooking oil to make ends meet.

The Castro government is keen to reduce the 2.5 billion dollars a year it spends on food imports, which it has to buy on the international market in hard currency.

"Nobody can go on indefinitely spending more than they earn. Two and two are four, never five. In our imperfect socialism, too often two plus two turn out to be three," Raul Castro said in an August 1 address alluding to corruption problems.

Some Cubans were aghast at the idea of losing a free lunch.

"What am I going to buy with 15 pesos," asked a bank worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I cannot even make anything, even something horrible, at home for that little."

But Roberto Reyes, a construction employee, said sometimes the state lunch is so bad, he would rather not eat it -- and pocket the small monthly raise.

The president has said health care and education were not cuts he would willingly make.

But Cubans wonder how long it will be until the legendary monthly ration books with which Cubans receive limited basic food goods, such as rice and beans, for free, come under the budget axe.

September 28, 2009

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Raul Castro pushes Cubans to rethink socialism

By Marc Frank

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Cubans began taking a hard look this week at entrenched customs like food rationing, pilfering on the job, cradle-to-grave subsidies and black market trading in a national debate called by President Raul Castro.

Authorities have circulated a ten-point agenda for thousands of open-ended meetings over the next month at work places, universities and community organizations to rethink Cuban socialism, focused on the economic themes highlighted by Castro in a speech to the National Assembly in August.

The discussion guide, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, makes clear that questioning the communist-ruled island's one-party political system established after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, or calling for a restoration of capitalism, are off limits.

But the guide said: "It is important that the meetings are characterized by absolute freedom of criteria, the sincerity of participants and respect for differing opinions".

The possibility of eliminating one of the world's longest-standing food ration systems, heavily subsidized utilities, transportation and meals at work and universities, among other items, would be debated at the meetings.

Alicia, a communist party militant who will lead the debate in her Havana work place next week but who asked that her last name not be used, said the purpose was "to call on everyone to do what they have to do and stop looking up into the sky and screaming that there are problems."

"Of course there are problems, lots of them, what's needed is that everyone begins taking care of their own," she said.

A similar round of meetings was held in 2007, during which Cubans were asked to air their complaints and what they wanted from the government.

Cuban President Raul Castro. AFP PHOTO

At this round of discussions, the guide says participants were being asked to look in the mirror and apply Castro's speech to their own "radius of action," identify problems in the context of his words and come up with a list of proposals to solve them.

"Nobody, no individual nor country, can indefinitely spend more than she or he earns. Two plus two always adds up to four, never five," Castro said in his August speech. "Within the conditions of our imperfect socialism, due to our own shortcomings, two plus two often adds up to three," he added.

Cubans have mixed feelings about the debate. Some say it is a sincere effort to involve them in changing their lives, while others suspect it is a maneuver to get them to buy into austerity measures that have already been decided on.

"The monthly ration lasts about 15 days and now it won't last 10," Jorge, a construction worker, glumly predicted.

Castro, in his August speech, said a foreign currency shortage had forced drastic cuts in imports and budgets and postponement of payments to foreign creditors and suppliers.

He said egalitarianism had no place under socialism, except in the area of opportunity, and more resources should flow to those who produce and less to those who do not. He has often expressed this refrain since taking over the presidency from his elder brother, Fidel Castro, 18 months ago.

The discussion guide includes excerpts of an earlier Castro speech in which he said reversing the country's dependence on food imports was "not a question of yelling 'fatherland or death, down with imperialism, the blockade is hurting us ...'", but working hard and overcoming poor organization.

Cuban leaders routinely call the 47-year-old US economic embargo against the island a "blockade" and frequently blame it for Cuba's economic woes.

Castro called for decentralization of the state-dominated economy, new forms of property ownership and an end to all government gratuities and subsidies except in health care, education and social security, though these also had to had to cut waste and inessential services.

The president also said in his speech to the National Assembly that Cuba recognized a change in tone from US President Barack Obama's administration and was open to trying to solve the standoff with the United States.

"We are ready to talk about everything, I repeat everything, but in terms of here in Cuba and over there in the United States, and not to negotiate our political and social system," he said.

Obama has eased some slight aspects of the longstanding embargo on Cuba, and initiated talks with the Cuban government on immigration and postal services. But he has called on Cuban leaders to respond by becoming more democratic, freeing detained dissidents and improving human rights.




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