Raul Castro, just like his brother Fidel and all of their cronies, are communist pigs. These sons of bitches (and I mean that literally) have ruined Cuba forever. And like all other communist leaders, they preach that capitalism is a failed system, yet they own the entire country and all of its wealth; what hypocrisy! TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press
HAVANA (AP) — President Raul Castro issued a stern warning to entrepreneurs pushing the boundaries of Cuba’s economic reform, telling parliament on Saturday that “those pressuring us to move faster are moving us toward failure.”
Castro has legalized small-scale private business in nearly 200 fields since 2010 but has issued tighter regulations on businesses seeing as going too far or competing excessively with state enterprises. In recent months the government has banned the resale of imported hardware and clothes and cracked down on unlicensed private video game and movie salons.
Castro threw his full weight behind such measures in an address to the biannual meeting of the communist legislature, saying “every step we take must be accompanied by the establishment of a sense of order.”
“Inadequate controls by government institutions in the face of illegal activities by private businesspeople weren’t resolved in a timely fashion, creating an environment of impunity and stimulating the accelerated growth of activities that were never authorized for certain occupations,” Castro said.
He told lawmakers that Cuba wanted better relations with the U.S. but would never give in to demands for changes in Cuba’s government and economy, saying “we don’t demand that the U.S. change its political or social system and we don’t accept negotiations over ours.”
“If we really want to move our bilateral relations forward, we’ll have to learn to respect our differences,” Castro said. “If not, we’re ready to take another 55 years in the same situation.”
Cuba blames a half-century old U.S. embargo for strangling its economy but Castro’s government has also acknowledged that it must reform the state-run economy with a gradual opening to private enterprise. Many Cubans have enthusiastically seized opportunities to make more money with their own businesses, but new entrepreneurs and outside experts alike complain that the government has been sending mixed messages about its openness to private enterprise.
The conflicting signals were perhaps most apparent in Cuba’s handling of the dozens of private home cinemas and video game salons that sprung up around the country this year, drawing crowds of young people willing to spend a few dollars for access to the latest home entertainment technology imported by hand, purported for private use, by Cubans returning from the U.S., Canada or other countries.
The government denounced the cinemas as spreading uncultured drivel to the young, and ordered them closed last month for stretching the boundaries on the kinds of private businesses allowed under reforms instituted by Castro. Then came the backlash, with entrepreneurs bemoaning thousands of dollars in lost investment and moviegoers saying they were exasperated by heavy-handedness toward a harmless diversion. The official reaction was swift, and unprecedented.
An article in the Communist Party newspaper Granma last month acknowledged there was wide disapproval of the ban, and hinted it was being rethought. The same Granma article also offered a full-throated defense of the ban on the reselling of imported hardware and clothes.
Castro appeared to justify all of the recent moves to clamp down on private enterprise.
“We’re not ignorant of the fact that those pressuring to move faster are moving us toward failure, toward disunity, and are damaging the people’s confidence and support for the construction of socialism and the independence and sovereignty of Cuba.”
If problems emerge, he said, “We have to act immediately and without hesitation when they’re small and isolated, which will always be preferable to paying the political cost involved in enforcing the law,” when problems have taken root.
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Anne-Marie Garcia contributed to this report.
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Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mweissenstein
Andrea Rodriguez on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARodriguezAP
