3718. Cuba's Market Reforms: Who Will Govern the Market?

By Wilder Pérez Varona and Ariel Dacal Diaz, Links, July 30, 2026

Editor's note: First published at La Joven Cuba. Translation by LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal.

Despite consensus on Cuba’s economy needing reform, the measures announced on June 25 have raised more questions than answers. They come amid a crisis combining a drop in production, a collapsing energy sector and a migration exodus, worsened by the tightening US blockade. Under these circumstances, it is impossible not to ask who will be able to accumulate wealth, what will happen to workers in the least profitable sectors, how bureaucratic privileges will be stopped from mutating into oligarchic forms, and what role the market will play.

Can this package of reforms be viewed as a simple technical adjustment to get out of this distressing crisis?

To contribute to the debate, Ariel Dacal Díaz spoke with Cuban researcher Wilder Pérez Varona, a PhD in philosophy, writer and researcher, who has analysed the reshaping of the political imagination in Cuba, particularly within the digital ecosystem. He is a postdoctoral researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) from the National University of Quilmes.

Wilder examines how the reform will redefine power relations, the social structure starting to take shape behind the rhetoric of “perfecting socialism”, and whether this can be sustained without transforming the political system.

Cuba is facing the most comprehensive package of reforms in the past 30 years. Are these merely technical or economic measures?

The approved package of 176 measures contains highly technical provisions — exchange rates, joint-stock companies, bankruptcy procedures — but its nature is decidedly political. These measures will not merely change the economy, but who controls the country’s wealth for decades to come.

It is true they stem from an emergency. Cuba is facing an almost unprecedented productive, energy and demographic crisis, which has been worsened by the tightening US blockade. Today, Washington restricts trade, tries to block access to loans, discourages foreign investment and hinders fuel supply — it is a deliberate strategy to close off any scope for economic recovery.

But recognising the blockade’s impact does not mean assuming that the reforms are politically neutral. Any economic reform redistributes power. The problem is not merely how to produce more, but deciding who benefits from that wealth.

The most significant change is not more market, but the redefined relationship between ownership and power. A company can still call itself socialist while workers and citizens no longer have a real say in its affairs, thereby rendering social ownership a legal fiction.

GAESA [a Cuban conglomerate owned by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces] is the clearest example. Beyond recent news regarding the release of assets, under these reforms it could retain its management forms and convert companies it already runs into shareholdings. On paper, ownership will remain with the people; in practice it will be the same people making decisions as before the reform.

There is consensus that the bureaucratic statist model has run its course. Cuba needs more dynamic companies, greater managerial autonomy and new scope for economic initiative. But autonomy for whom and under what controls?

The measures seek to strengthen enterprises and new economic actors, but say little about democratising decisions regarding the wealth they generate. We are decentralising enterprises, but not necessarily power.

This also alters the socialist project’s logic. For decades, despite many contradictions, equality was the model’s starting point. As [Cuban president Miguel] Díaz-Canel stated, this sequence is apparently being reversed: first accumulate, then redistribute. Growth is no longer subordinate to social justice; social justice now depends on growth.

This represents a shift in economic philosophy. The market can be a useful tool for developing a socialist economy, but it cannot substitute for politics. If new opportunities for accumulation are not accompanied by transparency, democratic regulation and social control, we risk replacing an inefficient bureaucracy with a new economic elite closely linked to state power. The National Asset Valuation Program, without an independent judiciary or transparency regarding who is buying what, could turn managers and military officials into legal shareholders of the very companies they currently manage on the state’s behalf. This is, albeit with some nuances, largely what happened in the post-Soviet transition.

That is why the debate should not be reduced to a choice between the state and market. The fundamental question is whether these reforms will further socialise economic power or pave the way for a new structure of privileges.

What impacts can we anticipate on the socio-class structure that has taken shape in recent years?

These reforms, if implemented, will transform society as a whole. Above all, they will alter class relations.

For decades, Cuban socialism built a society that was far more egalitarian than what existed before 1959. That relative equality began to erode from the 1990s onwards, with remittances, tourism and an expanding private sector. Now, that social differentiation has ceased to be a consequence of the crisis and is instead becoming a stable component of the model.

There will be more entrepreneurs, larger companies and greater wealth concentration. Of course, every economy needs actors capable of investing, innovating and taking risks. The question is who these entrepreneurs will be: will they emerge as a result of productive labour and innovation, or from converting bureaucratic privileges into private property? The risk is that the line between managing public resources and appropriating opportunities generated by the reform may become increasingly blurred. The removal of the 100-worker cap for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (mipyes) and the possibility for individuals to own several companies lay the foundations for capital accumulation. The conversion of state-owned enterprises into joint-stock companies, with private individuals buying shares, is the specific mechanism driving this concentration. We do not know yet whether these shares will be bought by entrepreneurs willing to risk their own capital or by managers already running the company.

At the same time, the world of labour will also change. State employees, which until a few years ago were relatively homogeneous, will be replaced by a workforce with vastly different conditions depending on the sector, access to foreign currency, remittances or links to private and foreign companies. The so-called “muro de la divisa” (foreign currency wall) may become entrenched as the main faultline in Cuban society, this time by design.

Inequality will also be defined by race, region and family background, because those with start-up capital, relatives abroad or better economic networks will have clear advantages over those depending exclusively on a salary paid in pesos. This is seen most starkly at the regional level, as decentralisation to municipalities lacking an industrial base or tourist appeal will mainly redistribute deficits rather than autonomy. Social differences will be reproduced from generation to generation if the state does not intervene to address them.

An equally important change is the often-announced shift from universal policies to targeted subsidies, altering the relationship between citizens and the state. A proposed new framework classifies people as “vulnerable” in order to decide who receives support. Workers in profitable companies will somehow be integrated into the new economic circuits; those in so-called “zombie” companies will be left exposed to bankruptcy or liquidation. Equality is no longer understood as a right, and “vulnerability” – that is, poverty – will be treated as a permanent reality. The risk is that the state will stop preventing inequality and instead confine itself to managing its consequences.

The problem is not merely growing inequality, but the kind of power this will generate. As is well known, when wealth becomes concentrated, the ability to influence public decisions also tends to become concentrated.

So, it is not enough to ask whether a new capitalist class will consolidate itself. The crucial question is whether Cuba will have sufficiently democratic institutions to prevent economic power from ultimately capturing political power. The reforms redistribute much more than just income; they redistribute power. This new distribution of power, rather than the economic measures themselves, will ultimately define Cuba’s future.

Why do you say that the proposed model presupposes inequality as a permanent condition of its functioning?

It is not because the government has decided inequality is an objective, but because the new model ultimately makes it a prerequisite for boosting the economy.

This is probably the most profound change these reforms introduce, which, whatever anyone says, departs from previously approved guiding documents.

We can trace, measure by measure, how the logic of organised production according to principles of egalitarian distribution is being reversed in the technical design. The setting of wages has now been decentralised and is subject to each company’s “economic and financial capacity”. This will condemn workers in less profitable sectors to precariousness while allowing for unregulated wages in the dynamic sector. Bankruptcy procedures, with severance pay of barely three to six months’ wages, will turn job insecurity into yet another mechanism of market discipline, even within the state sector. Partial dollarisation creates a stratified system of consumption, even for previously free services; those who can afford it are charged, while there is only a precarious level of protection for the rest. These mechanisms are parts of a single design that requires inequality to function, because inequality generates the market incentive that the state can no longer generate alone.

The risk that wealth may stem from privileged access to information, political connections or control over public resources exists because the reform expands opportunities for accumulation without proposing mechanisms for transparency and social control. This opening up may consolidate an oligarchy born from the state itself. Once that risk becomes real, it is very hard to return as this new capitalist class consolidates its assets — through the National Asset Valuation Program or share purchases. Reversing this concentration would entail a political cost that no actor with veto power will be willing to bear. Inequality, to put it another way, does not dissipate with growth; but tends to become entrenched.

That is why I am worried the debate is reduced to how much GDP grows or how much investment flows into the country. An economy can grow while also losing social cohesion. It can increase productivity while reducing society’s ability to exercise democratic control over the wealth produced.

The crucial question is not how much market an economy can accommodate, but who governs that market. If concentrating wealth ends up also concentrating political power, the problem will no longer be merely inequality, but the formation of a new dominant bloc.

If, in 10 years’ time, Cuba is a more prosperous country but also more oligarchic, we will have changed the economic model without resolving the historical problem of our ailing socialism.

Will these economic reforms be viable without adjustments to the political system?

I have serious doubts. Not because every economic reform automatically requires changing the political system, but because no transformation of this magnitude can be sustained without democratising power. By democratisation, I mean who controls the fundamental economic decisions and the institutions through which society oversees them.

The reform transfers enormous power to companies, banks, investors and new private actors. That may be needed to revive the economy. What is difficult to grasp is why this decentralisation is not accompanied by a corresponding expansion of public oversight.

We are creating more autonomous enterprises, but not necessarily more democratic ones.

This has, precisely, been one of Cuban socialism’s major problems. For too long, we have confused state ownership with social ownership. But a company does not truly belong to society simply because a document says so. It belongs to society when those who produce its wealth and those who depend on it understand how it operates, participate in its decision-making, and hold its managers accountable.

Economic democratization is not a luxury reserved for better times, but a prerequisite to remain socialist. This means more than just making enterprises efficient; it needs transparency over the use of public resources, accountability, institutions capable of preventing conflicts of interest, and genuine forums where workers and citizens can have a say in major economic decisions. Otherwise, company autonomy may simply mean autonomy from society.

There is another equally important aspect. If the reform creates new entrepreneurs, new labour relations and new forms of ownership, they must strengthen workers’ organising capacity. A country that profoundly transforms its economy without expanding labour’s participation risks further unbalancing the relationship between capital and society.

All this is even more important given the exceptional conditions imposed by the US blockade. Precisely because Cuba faces extraordinary external pressure, it needs to strengthen internal cohesion. Sherritt [a major Canadian mining and energy company], after more than three decades operating in Moa, withdrew due to sanctions that threatened to block its access to the international banking system. It ended up carrying out a forced sale, under liquidation terms, to a fund linked to a former Trump administration adviser. It is worth remembering that, while Cuba needs foreign currency for the private banking sector and the foreign exchange market to function, whoever controls that flow of capital makes any relief conditional on a political transformation that the government has declared off the table. The market can only be decoupled from the system in a rhetorical sense.

But that internal cohesion, which used to rest on the historical legitimacy of our social project, needs to be built on new forms of participation, transparency and public trust. The margin for error has become very narrow. If, when universal subsidies are phased out, there is no Social Protection Fund already operating, the gap between austerity and direct aid could fuel the same social unrest that erupted in July 2021.

The reform will only bring stability if the majority feels that they not only share in their benefits, but also in making the decisions.

Once again, the challenge lies in preventing the economy’s modernisation from leading to a renewed concentration of power, this time under market-based forms. If socialism remains the long-term goal — despite being virtually absent from the measures announced — then political and economic democratisation cannot come after the reform. They must be part of the reform from day one.

What models, formulas or concepts do you think should have been considered?

The debate has been framed incorrectly from the start. We have been led to believe that there are only two paths: either preserve a failed bureaucratic statism or move to an economy increasingly governed by the market. But the problem has never been a choice between the state and market; it is a question of deciding who exercises power over the economy.

If the Cuban experience has demonstrated anything, it is that state ownership, in itself, does not guarantee socialism. A company can be formally state-owned yet operate with its back turned to society. Similarly, allowing for markets does not necessarily mean abandoning a socialist vision. What matters is whether wealth is subject to democratic control or ends up becoming the property of a minority, whether bureaucratic or private.

For example, if state-owned enterprises are granted autonomy, they should also secure worker participation and effective mechanisms for accountability. If the private sector grows, the state must prevent economic success from turning into political power through progressive taxation, anti-monopoly regulations and strict rules against conflicts of interest. If foreign investment plays a greater role, society has the right to know which national priorities that investment intends to serve.

In other words, without democratic checks and balances, the market ceases to be a tool for the country’s development and becomes a mechanism for concentrating wealth and influence.

I would also have placed far greater emphasis on genuinely social forms of ownership, such as cooperatives, worker-managed enterprises, local development initiatives and spaces where communities have a say over the wealth they generate. I am thinking, specifically, of networks of cooperative banks and locally managed municipal development funds, capable of channeling remittances and reinvesting them in the community, rather than channeling them towards private wealth accumulated by a handful of actors. Not because these initiatives replace the state or market, but because they distribute power. Ultimately, that is what socialism is all about: stopping economic power being concentrated in a few hands.

There is also a lesson that Cuba should not lose sight of. All economic transitions give rise to new social classes. While this may be unavoidable, steps should be taken to prevent a new economic elite gradually taking over the state. That risk is even greater in a country where a significant part of the economy has historically been managed by highly concentrated state and corporate structures. Transparency, oversight of government institutions at all levels, a free media and citizen participation are mechanisms for safeguarding the public nature of the nation’s wealth.

Of course, none of these discussions can take place while ignoring the US blockade. Cuba needs to grow under extraordinarily adverse conditions and has the right to seek the economic tools it needs to survive. But precisely because it faces this external pressure, it is even more important to preserve what historically distinguishes the socialist project: the idea that development should serve the majority and not a new privileged minority.

Ultimately, I believe that the real debate is not whether Cuba should resemble China, Vietnam or any other model. The task at hand is how to build an economy capable of generating wealth without abandoning the democratisation of power.

The future of Cuban socialism will not depend solely on how much the economy grows. It will depend on whether those who produce wealth also have a say in decisions about its use. If reforms merely modernise mechanisms of accumulation, but leave existing power relations intact or even reinforce them, they will have changed the economy without transforming what, from a socialist perspective, really matters: who governs the collective wealth and on whose behalf.

2741. Cuba Will Persevere: Cuba's Foreign Minister's Speech at the United Nations

By Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Granma, November 2, 2017

Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla speaking at the United Nations

Editorial note: Full text of speech by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, on the "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba," in United Nations headquarters, New York, November 1, 2017

*     *     *

Mr. President;

Your Excellencies permanent representatives;

Distinguished delegates;

U.S. citizens and Cubans resident in the United States who are present in this hall:

I would like to express to the people and government of the United States; Mayor Bill De Blasio; Governor Andrew Cuomo; and other authorities in New York; as well as its citizens and especially families of the victims, our most heartfelt condolences, in the name of the Cuban people and government, for the terrorist attack which occurred yesterday afternoon.

I also express our sincere condolences to the peoples and government of Argentina and Belgium.

Mr. President:

I express the most energetic condemnation of the disrespectful, offensive, and interventionist statements made by the United States Ambassador to the United Nations against Cuba and against the Cuban government, a few minutes ago.

I recall that the United States, where flagrant violations of human rights are committed, of deep concern to the international community, does not have the slightest moral authority to criticize Cuba, a small, solidary country, with an extensive, recognized international record; an honorable, hard-working, and friendly people.

She spoke in the name of the head of an empire that is responsible for most of the wars in progress on the planet today, and which murders innocent people, and is the decisive factor in instability worldwide and the very serious threats to peace and international security, trampling international law and the United Nations Charter, which she has just cynically evoked.

It has not been 55 years, Madam Ambassador, you erred in your first sentence; it has been 26 of these sessions, and more than half a century since the events being discussed today originated.

She lies, uses the same style that predominates in U.S. politics today. This all began before the Cuban nation even existed. When the Cuban people, for the first time rose up in arms in 1868, the appetite for annexation and domination, of what was and is today U.S. imperialism, had already been unleashed.

In 1898, using a pretext - as is characteristic of the modern history of the United States: the explosion of the ship, the Maine, in a Cuban port, they entered as allies of Cuban independence forces and then occupied the country as invaders, and imposed the Platt Amendment, cutting short the independence and sovereignty of Cuba; they conducted three military occupations, imposed 60 years of total domination that ended January 1, 1859, with the entry of the Rebel Army to Havana and the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, that continues to this day carrying on the same struggles that have inspired our people for over 100 years. (Applause)

She lies, she used a phrase, attributing a statement on the so-called October or Missile Crisis to a supposedly Cuban source. I invite her to state the source, to state its author, to present evidence. It sounds like one of the tweets proliferating in this country, in these times of hate, division, and dirty politics. (Applause)

When the Cuban Revolution triumphed, the United States set regime change as its objective. The policy announced by President Trump on June 16 is not new; it is the same policy, it is an old policy anchored in the past.

She mentioned the illustrious U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson. She forgot to say that he was the person who, deceived by his own government, had the unfortunate duty during a session of the Security Council, to show photos of supposed Cuban aircraft, actually of U.S. origin, bearing the emblem of the Cuban Air Force, that on April 15 bombed the city of Havana, caused numerous casualties, and was the prelude to the attack, the invasion, at Playa Girón or the Bay of Pigs.

These bombings and the involuntary lie of Ambassador Stevenson, who had been deceived by his government, occurred even before the declaration of the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution. These bombings took place prior to the declaration of the socialist character of our Revolution.

She has spoken of the October Crisis.

She has spoken of the days of President Kennedy's assassination, and the declassification of documents. They have really been hidden from the U.S. people too long. Declassify them all.

But if she wants to talk about these issues, I suggest she read the book

Trained to Kill: The Inside Story of CIA Plots against Castro, Kennedy, and Che, by CIA agent Veciana, in which he recounts his meeting with CIA agent David Phillips and with Lee Harvey Oswald, in Dallas, during the third week of September, 1963.

It has been a history of lies and aggression: Operation Northwoods, Operation Mongoose. Information was just declassified showing that at that time the United States had prepared 261,000 soldiers, ready for a direct invasion of Cuba. Functioning in Florida was the CIA's largest base in history, until that time, with more than 700 agents, until the creation of the even bigger CIA base in Saigon.

She uses a style reminiscent of the trial of Alice in Wonderland: sentence first, trial later.

I speak for my people, and I also speak for those who cannot call President Trump or the U.S. Ambassador by their name, but feel and think like me.

At least she has recognized the total isolation of the United States in this hall and in the world. You are alone on the issue of the blockade of Cuba! (Applause) She ignores the power of the truth, underestimates the strength of an idea at the bottom of a cave, which is more powerful than an army, as José Martí said, who wrote, carrying it on his chest, in an unfinished letter with the following phrase: "Everyday I am in danger of giving my life for my country, for my duty… to prevent in time, with the independence of Cuba, that the United States extends itself into the Antilles and falls, with this added strength, upon the lands of our America."

Ambassador, everything began much more than 26 years ago, much more than 55 years ago. Along with the military aggression, the fabrication of pretexts, plans for a direct invasion, measures taken to strangle our economy, state terrorism, destabilization, and subversion, they proposed - and I quote the infamous letter by Undersecretary of State Lester Mallory, signed April 6, 1960

- promoting "… disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship… all possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba … denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages…"

The blockade of Cuba was created "to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

Nonetheless, when President Raúl Castro Ruz and President Barack Obama made those surprising, hopeful announcements, December 17, 2014, President Obama described the blockade as failed and obsolete, ineffective in achieving its objectives, causing harm to the Cuban people and the isolation of the U.S. government. Later he described it as useless in advancing U.S. interests, failed, senseless, not viable, and a burden for citizens.

But the blockade was never recognized as a flagrant, massive, and systematic violation of the human rights of Cubans, which the United States Ambassador cynically omitted a few hours ago, nor was it recognized as inconsistent with international law or as an act of genocide, as defined by the Geneva Convention, nor was its goal of subjugating our people renounced.

Nonetheless, the President of the United States at that time repeatedly stated his intention to use his executive powers, and work with Congress, to lift the blockade.

A concrete reflection of this intention was the U.S abstention, in 2016, during the vote on this resolution, which the United States Ambassador has just mocked.

During this period, substantive progress was made in terms of diplomatic relations, dialogue, and cooperation in areas of mutual interest and benefit; but during these last two years, the blockade was maintained, in all fundamental aspects, although some executive decisions were made to modify its implementation in a very limited fashion, but moving in a positive direction. The way in which the use of travel licenses was expanded was significant, given the legislative prohibition on travel to Cuba, that constitutes a violation of the rights and civil liberties of U.S. citizens, which she also failed to mention. Tangible results were also achieved in bilateral cooperation, to our mutual benefit, in such important arenas as confronting terrorism, drug trafficking, and digital crime.

Mr. President:

This past June16, President Donald Trump proclaimed the blockade the fundamental axis of his anti-Cuban policy, and announced a series of measures meant to reinforce it.

In an antiquated, hostile anti-Cuban speech, reminiscent of the Cold War, and before an auditorium composed, among others, of rancid Batista henchmen, annexationists, and terrorists, the U.S. government returned to worn-out allegations of supposed human rights violations in Cuba to justify the tightening of the blockade. From this podium, heard this morning was his echo, his echo chamber.

President Trump does not have the slightest moral authority to question Cuba.

He leads a government of millionaires who intend to implement brutal measures against the poor and low income families of this country, minorities and immigrants. He follows a program which encourages hate and division, and promotes a dangerous idea of exceptionalism and supremacy disguised as patriotism, and which will lead to more violence. He ignores the will of voters: two thirds of U.S. citizens and Cuban residents in the United States, as well, support an end to the blockade.

Current U.S. policies harm citizens; corruption reigns in politics which have been hijacked by so-called special interests, that is, by the interests and the money of corporations: no support for education, health, or social security; restrictions on union organizing; and terrible gender-based discrimination.

Deserving of condemnation are the use of torture; police murders of African-Americans; civilian deaths caused by its troops; the indiscriminate, racially motivated death penalty; the murders, repression, and police surveillance of immigrants; the separation of families; the detention and deportation of minors; and the brutal measures threatening the children of undocumented immigrants who grew up and were educated in the United States.

This is the government that lost the popular vote.

The United States Ambassador has expressed her dream. I prefer to repeat that of Martin Luther King, when he said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Let freedom ring. (Applause)

She has come to tell us that she recognizes that the future of the island rests in the hands of the Cuban people. She is telling an absolute lie. It was never this way, throughout history. It has been a history of domination and hegemony over Cuba.

The announced policy proposes turning back relations to a past of confrontation, to satisfy the spurious interests of extremist circles within the U.S. right and a frustrated, aging, minority of Cuban origin in Florida.The Presidential Memorandum establishing the policy toward Cuba includes, among other measures, new prohibitions on economic, commercial, and financial relations between U.S. companies and Cuban enterprises.

It additionally restricts the freedom to travel of U.S. citizens with the elimination of individual trips under the so-called category of “people-to-people” exchanges, and increased surveillance for the rest of visitors from that country.

In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has reiterated on four separate occasions, (including before this Assembly this past September), that his government will not lift the blockade on Cuba unless it makes changes to its internal order.

Today I reiterate that Cuba will never accept preconditions or impositions and we remind the President and his Ambassador that this approach, applied by a dozen of his predecessors, has never and will never work. It will be just one more example of a policy anchored in the past.

More recently, under the pretext of the health conditions of some diplomats in Havana, without the slightest evidence of their cause and origin - because they lie when they speak of attacks or incidents - or the results of ongoing investigations, the government of the United States adopted new measures of a political nature against Cuba, which intensify the blockade and affect bilateral relations in their entirety.

Among them, it suspended the issue of visas for Cuban travelers and emigrants at its consulate in Havana, which undermines the right of citizens to travel freely and visit that country for short periods, as more than 163,000 Cubans have done this year, and seriously hinders the family reunification of others, under the bilateral agreement to grant no less than 20,000 immigrant visas per year. The requirement of an in-person interview with Cuban travelers in U.S. consulates in third countries, and with emigrants in the U.S. consular section in Bogotá, will greatly increase the cost of the procedure and make them unfeasible for a large number of them. Where are their rights in the United States’ discourse?

There is no way to justify harming people and families to try to achieve political objectives against the constitutional order in Cuba.

The U.S. government, with the political purpose of limiting travel and damaging international tourism to Cuba, also issued an unfounded and utterly dishonest warning to U.S. citizens to avoid visiting our country.

Through the unjustified expulsion of personnel at our Consulate General in Washington, the only one in the United States, the capacity to provide services to U.S. travelers and especially to Cuban residents here, who have the absolute right to visit and interact normally with their nation, has been severely limited.

Equally, the U.S. arbitrarily and groundlessly reduced the personnel of our Embassy, which has caused, among other consequences, the dismantling of its Economic-Commercial Office, with the malicious political aim of eliminating dialogue with the U.S. business sector, genuinely interested in exploring existing business opportunities, even within the restrictive framework of blockade regulations.

Nor is it surprising, considering what the Ambassador has said here, or her leaders previously, that the President of the United States ignores the unanimous international support for the progress that he is now reversing, or the similar demand for an immediate, total, and unconditional end to the blockade.

Mr. President:

As President Raúl Castro Ruz expressed, on July 14, “We reaffirm that any attempt to destroy the Revolution, whether through coercion and pressure, or the use of more subtle methods, will fail… Cuba is willing to continue discussing pending bilateral issues with the United States, on the basis of equality and respect for the sovereignty and independence of our country, and to continue respectful dialogue and cooperation in issues of common interest with the U.S. government.

“Cuba and the United States can cooperate and coexist, respecting our differences and promoting everything that benefits both countries and peoples, but it should not be expected that, in order to do so, Cuba will make concessions essential to its sovereignty and independence… nor will it negotiate its principles or accept conditions of any kind, just as we have never done throughout the history of the Revolution.” End of quote. (Applause).

Mr. President:

Cuba presents today, for the 26th consecutive time before the United Nations General Assembly, the draft resolution (entitled) “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”

In the current situation, this text acquires special relevance in the face of the setback that the actions of the new government of the United States against Cuba signal.

The blockade constitutes the greatest obstacle to the country’s economic and social development and the implementation of the National Plan, in line with the United Nations 2030 Agenda. It is the main obstacle to the development of economic, commercial. and financial relations between Cuba and the United States and the rest of the world.

According to calculations rigorously conducted by Cuban institutions, the blockade caused, in the year from April 2016 to April 2017, losses to the Cuban economy on the order of 4.305 billion dollars.

This figure is about double what would be needed as annual direct foreign investment for the Cuban economy to advance substantially toward development.

The accumulated damages reached the enormous figure of 822.280 billion dollars, calculated considering the devaluation of the U.S. dollar vis-à-vis the price of gold. At current prices, this is the equivalent of 130.178 billion dollars.

Dozens of banks in third countries have been affected in the last period by the extreme and tenacious persecution of Cuban financial transactions.

The blockade is contrary to International Law and its aggressively extraterritorial application damages the sovereignty of all states. It also harms economic and business interests in all latitudes.

Mr. President:

The Ambassador of the United States failed to mention that the blockade is a flagrant, massive, and systematic violation of the human rights of Cubans, and constitutes an act of genocide under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is also an obstacle to the international cooperation that Cuba provides in humanitarian areas to 81 countries of the South.

The human damages caused by the application of this policy are incalculable. There is not a Cuban family or social service in Cuba that does not suffer the deprivations and consequences of the blockade. Cuban émigrés also suffer discrimination and prejudices.

Over the last year, the Cuban importer and exporter of medical products,

Medicuba S.A., made requests to purchase supplies from 18 U.S. companies that refused or never responded.

Others, such as the U.S. corporation Promega, recognized for the production of diagnostic kits to determine viral load in patients with HIV-AIDS, hepatitis C, or kidney diseases, refused in June 2017 to sell its products to Medicuba S.A., alleging that the Treasury Department maintains commercial sanctions that prohibit the sale of its products to the island.

On that same date, and with the same argument, the refusal to supply to Cuba was received from the company New England Biolabs Inc., which markets a wide range of enzymes, such as Proteinase K, which is a reagent that permits diagnosis of viral diseases such as dengue, zika, and chikungunya, as well as other enzymes with multiple uses for the diagnosis of congenital malformations of fetuses. and to determine compatibility between organ donors and patients who are to undergo kidney, bone marrow, or liver transplants, among others.

Using the same argument, this company refused to provide supplies of a totally humanitarian nature to Cuba.

In April 2017, the German supplier Eckert & Ziegler Radiopharma Gmbh, refused to supply to the same Cuban medical enterprise the Ge-68/Ga-68 Generator, or its components, which is a device used to diagnose prostate cancer. According to the company, it was not possible to directly supply the product to Cuba, or through a third country, because the blockade prevented it from doing so.

The cardiology service of the Hermanos Ameijeiras Clinical and Surgical Hospital urgently requires a circulatory assist device to treat cardiogenic shock, for interventional cardiology and electrophysiology, allowing for the recovery of patients suffering from heart failure and prolonging their lives.

The U.S. company Abiomed, global leader in this market, supplies the Impella system, ideal for treating these conditions. In September 2016 and February 2017, Medicuba S.A. contacted the company in order to study the possibility of incorporating the product into the Cuban health system, which to date has refused to respond.

Mr. President:

We are deeply grateful to all the governments and peoples, parliaments, political forces and social movements, civil society representatives, international and regional organizations that have contributed with their voice and their vote, year after year, to support the justice and urgency of the abolition of the blockade.

We also extend our gratitude to the vast majority of the American people for their support of this commendable goal.

It offends humanity’s conscience that the Ambassador of the United States has referred to the Bolivarian government of Venezuela in an unacceptable and interventionist way. She offends the heroic Venezuelan people, their civic-military union, and the Bolivarian Chavista government, led by President Nicolás Maduro Moros.

The government of the United States lies when it declares Venezuela a threat to its national security, which has, curiously, the largest certified hydrocarbon reserves on the planet.

As the Liberator Simón Bolívar wrote, “… the United States appear destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.” I respond to the Ambassador with Bolívar’s words.

We are in the midst of a clean, constitutional electoral process in Cuba, where seats are not bought, nor do special interests prevail, where there are no deceptive campaigns where money rules; elections in which the will of voters is not manipulated; elections in which division and hatred are not incited.

Mr. President:

We especially commend all those who have expressed concern and their rejection of the coercive measures announced by the current U.S. government.

The Cuban people will never give up building a sovereign, independent, socialist, democratic, prosperous and sustainable nation. (Applause).

We will persevere, with the consensus of our people and especially the patriotic commitment of the youngest Cubans, in the anti-imperialist struggle and in defense of our independence, for which tens of thousands of Cubans have already fallen and we have run the greatest risks, as we demonstrated in Playa Girón and in the face of all threats.

We will maintain eternal loyalty to the legacy of José Martí and Fidel Castro Ruz. (Applause).

Mr. President:

Distinguished permanent representatives;
Esteemed delegates:

Our people are following this debate with hope. On their behalf, I request that you vote in favor of draft resolution A/72/L.30, “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”

Many thanks. (Prolonged applause).

Exclamations of: "Viva Cuba!" "Cuba sí, bloqueo no!"

1889. Who Should Lead the Communist Party of Cuba

By Pedro Campos, Havana Times, July 12, 2013

During a recent meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee President Raul Castro stated that “Party leaders must be capable of recognizing the country’s problems and looking towards the future”, an article published in Granma, Cuba’s major official newspaper, reported on July 3. I will limit myself to commenting on this particular remark.

It should be the other way around, Mr. President: those who are capable of identifying today’s problems, those who look for and find solutions to these problems and are able to look towards the future, should be the ones selected to head the Party. But no: you continue to appoint those who are loyal to you, even if they’re incapable of seeing, solving or identifying anything.

The way Party leaders are appointed – on the basis of intelligence gathered or produced by various State Security organs –, a mechanism imposed on the Party by the “founding leadership” of the Cuban revolution, in violation of bottom-up democratic election principles, is what robs Cuba of leaders able to identify and solve problems.

The solution is simple: do not appoint any more leaders, do not make any more proposals for new Central Committee members, provincial or municipal officials and do not even let these different Party institutions impose the “instructors” at the grassroots level of the Party.  Let the members make these proposals and elect who they see fit.

The problem faced by the Communist Party is the same problem Cuba’s entire economy and society faces: excessive centralization, top-down decision-making processes, and a general lack of democracy. Democratic centralism has two main components, but you have neglected the second one, as you have neglected all of the proposals advanced by the socialist and democratic left you have worked to silence.

As I have expounded on elsewhere, until you acknowledge the failure of the political, economic and social conceptions that could be grouped under the “Marxist-Leninist” school of thought, or, rather, the dogmatic, Soviet-Stalinist version of Marx’s and Lenin’s main ideas, a true rectification of the mistakes made thus far, and a true renewal of socialism, will not be possible.

In the meantime, we will have more of the same, disguised with new words and impelled by old and exhausted schemes, structures, methods, slogans and the word “socialism”, ever more divested of meaning and besmirched by failure, in short: more malaise, isolation and contempt.

Those of us who try and rescue the concept of socialism will continue to climb up a slippery slope, full of promontories and, of course, plagued with dangers.

The veiled persecution of democratic socialists continues in Cuba. After the Party, Armed Forces and Ministry of the Interior were “purged” of “perestroikists and left-wingers”, in a clean-up operation which began with the trials of General Ochoa and Minister of the Interior Abrantes, our comrades continue to be “visited” and denigrating articles and comments about us continue to appear in online publications and blogs.

In recent days, I attempted to leave several comments on Cubadebate, an online publication of the PCC. Though these were written in a respectful tone and showed the utmost moderation, they were all immediately rejected.

So be it. This is the time it was our lot to live in and it is better to live with dignity, to take up the struggle, than to live on our knees before the Empire and the new masters.

We continue to struggle for true socialism, for life.

1841. Cuba Has a Lung Cancer Vaccine—And America Wants It

By Neil V. Patel, Wired, May 11, 215 

Cuba’s Center for Molecular Immunology 

CUBA HAS FOR several years had a promising therapeutic vaccine against lung cancer. The 55-year trade embargo led by the US made sure that Cuba was mostly where it stayed. Until—maybe—now.

The Obama administration has, of course, been trying to normalize relations with the island nation. And last month, during New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s visit to Havana, Roswell Park Cancer Institute finalized an agreement with Cuba’s Center for Molecular Immunology to develop a lung cancer vaccine and begin clinical trials in the US. Essentially, US researchers will bring the Cimavax vaccine stateside and get on track for approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

“The chance to evaluate a vaccine like this is a very exciting prospect,” says Candace Johnson, CEO of Roswell Park. She’s excited, most likely, because research on the vaccine so far shows that it has low toxicity, and it’s relatively cheap to produce and store. The Center for Molecular Immunology will give Roswell Park all of the documentation (how it’s produced, toxicity data, results from past trials) for an FDA drug application; Johnson says she hopes to get approval for testing Cimavax within six to eight months, and to start clinical trials in a year.

How did Cuba end up with a cutting edge immuno-oncology drug? Though the country is justly famous for cigars, rum, and baseball, it also has some of the best and most inventive biotech and medical research in the world. That’s especially notable for a country where the average worker earns $20 a month. Cuba spends a fraction of the money the US does on healthcare per individual; yet the average Cuban has a life expectancy on par with the average American. “They’ve had to do more with less,” says Johnson, “so they’ve had to be even more innovative with how they approach things. For over 40 years, they have had a preeminent immunology community.”

Despite decades of economic sanctions, Fidel and Raul Castro made biotechnology and medical research, particularly preventative medicine, a priority. After the 1981 dengue fever outbreak struck nearly 350,000 Cubans, the government established the Biological Front, an effort to focus research efforts by various agencies toward specific goals. Its first major accomplishment was the successful (and unexpected) production of interferon, a protein that plays a role in human immune response. Since then, Cuban immunologists made several other vaccination breakthroughs, including their own vaccines for meningitis B and hepatitis B, and monoclonal antibodies for kidney transplants.

The thing about making such great cigars is, smoking is really, really bad for you. Lung cancer is the fourth-leading cause of the death in Cuba. Medical researchers at the Center for Molecular Immunology worked on Cimavax for 25 years before the Ministry of Health made it available to the public—for free—in 2011. Each shot costs the government about $1. A Phase II trial from 2008 showed lung cancer patients who received the vaccine lived an average of four to six months longer than those who didn’t. That prompted Japan and some European countries to initiate Cimavax clinical trials as well.

To be fair, Cimavax probably won’t be a game-changing cancer drug in its current form. The vaccine doesn’t attack tumors directly, instead going after a protein that tumors produce which then circulates in the blood. That action spurs a person’s body to release antibodies against a hormone called epidermal growth factor, which typically spurs cell growth but can also, if unchecked, cause cancer. (Although most people normally think of a vaccine as something that prevents a disease, technically a vaccine is a substance that stimulates the immune system in some way.) So the point of Cimavax is to keep lung tumors from growing and metastasizing, turning a late-stage growth into something chronic but manageable.

But in the US and Europe, people with lung cancer already have treatment options with the same goal. Roswell Park researchers say they plan to explore the vaccine’s potential as a preventative intervention—making it more like a traditional vaccine. Furthermore, epidermal growth factor plays an important role in many other cancers, like prostate, breast, colon, and pancreatic cancer. “All those things are potential targets for this vaccine,” says Kelvin Lee, an immunologist at the company. Mostly for financial reasons, Cubans didn’t test Cimavax that way at all.

And that drug isn’t the only one with potential in the Cuban pharmacopeia. Thomas Rothstein, a biologist at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, has for six years worked with the Center for Molecular Immunology on another vaccine to treat lung cancer called Racotumomab, with an entirely different mechanism. (It messes with a particular lipid found in tumor cell membranes.) “Investigators from around the world are trying to crack the nut of cancer,” Rothstein says. “The Cubans are thinking in ways that are novel and clever.”

Although President Obama has used his executive power to lift some restrictions against medical and research equipment, Congress must lift the Cuban embargo before collaborative research can ramp up. Johnson hopes to see Cuba embrace more entrepreneurialism in science, and see the US soak up more creative approaches to medical research. Constrained by politics, the Cuban researchers had to innovate in ways the US and Europe did not. Now maybe they’ll be able to teach their colleagues what they learned.

1724. Cuba Slows US Lawmakers’ Plans to Visit

By Bradley Klapper, The Boston Globe, February 6, 2015

WASHINGTON— A series of trips to Cuba by US lawmakers is in doubt amid questions about the Communist government’s eagerness or ability to accommodate a surge of new interest and possible investment from the United States.

American officials said the Cuban government has pushed off all congressional visits, including one by House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, until at least mid-April. The Cuban Interests Section in Washington said some will go forward in the coming days, but others were postponed.

Several members of Congress had planned to go to the island country this month. They included Pelosi, a California Democrat, and Senator Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, who has proposed ending the US travel embargo of Cuba.

President Raul Castro’s government has been scrambling to adjust to the possibility of new US travel and investment since he and President Obama revealed in December that the two countries would repair ties after a half-century of enmity.

Obama administration officials said they were informed by their Cuban counterparts earlier this week that no congressional visits would be allowed to travel to Cuba until April 15. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

The Cuban Interests Section, however, rejected that account, saying some delegations would be arriving in the next days.

A spokesman, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly, said Cuba is receiving a large number of requests for visits. As a result, he said, the government is ‘‘arranging for the best possible dates for their visits so they get the attention they deserve in the middle of the many tasks we are facing at this moment in Cuba.’’

However, Senators Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, and Flake confirmed they wanted to visit at the end of the month but the Cubans denied the request.

Moran said the delegation was made up of GOP senators who are ‘‘open-minded about changing the relationship with Cuba’’ and wanted to get a better understanding of issues on the island.

‘‘At this point the indication is that they’re not ready for our visit,’’ said Moran, who still hoped to reschedule the trip. ‘‘We don’t know the reason. My staff has been told that the Cubans are not able to put together the necessary meetings that they would want to have for us. It could be just scheduling, but I don’t know.’’

Many of the trips aim to explore new business opportunities as part of the thaw in US-Cuban tensions. The administration last month significantly eased the 54-year economic embargo of Cuba, allowing US telecommunications exports for the first time and ending a restriction on US credit and debit card transactions on the island.

Cubans are still trying to gauge the potential effects of the changes. US companies also are still trying to make sense of the new regulations and much remains unclear.

Only Congress has the power to fully lift the embargo, a step Obama is calling for but GOP leaders in the House and Senate oppose.

The most immediate objective of US-Cuban diplomacy right now is reestablishing embassies.

The United States had been seeking to clinch an agreement before the Summit of the Americas in Panama. The meeting of Western Hemisphere nations takes place April 10-11 and could bring Obama and Castro together for a face-to-face meeting.

But the United States says Cuba must first end limits on US diplomats and on shipments to the current US Interests Section in Havana.

Cuba’s most pressing demand is an end to banking restrictions, many of which are linked to its US designation as a ‘‘state sponsor of terrorism.’’

The Obama administration probably will lift Cuba from that list in the next months.