Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2007 > June > 19
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Only embargo’s end can kick off Cuba revolution
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Old Havana may be the most beautiful old city in the world. Or could be with a heavy dose of capitalism.
As it stands now, capitalism’s not coming to the rescue — and may not, even after the deaths of the old Communist revolutionaries who, like Fidel Castro, 80, and his 75-year-old brother, Raul, are now on the cusp of the great beyond.
Old Havana, with its narrow streets and baroque and neoclassic buildings, is one of three distinct districts in Havana, and easily the most enchanting. Dating to the 16th century, Old Havana contains about 3,000 buildings, a thousand of them lining the narrow streets of the historic district. About 350 have been restored, an effort that started in 1978 when the Cuban government declared the district a protected national monument. The United Nations designated it a World Heritage Site in 1982.
The revolution has, in one sense, protected a treasure while in another it has contributed to the deterioration of irreplaceable treasures. On a stroll through a neighborhood leading into Old Havana, one elegant three-story mansion that a century ago may have been the residence of a wealthy trading family is today divided into apartments. Half the roof is gone, walls are crumbled to midway on the third story and yet families live on the second, as revealed through the doors opened onto one of the ubiquitous balconies.
The seizure of all private homes and businesses by the Castro revolutionaries in 1959, and the government’s primary interest in rural development, kept Old Havana intact. Once the U.S. embargo and travel restrictions are lifted in the post-Castro years, Old Havana and the stunning white beaches of Varadero two hours away will swarm with American tourists.
But for now, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, its artificial price support for Cuban sugar and its subsidized oil, Cuba is desperate to build a tourist economy. Its primary market is Canada and Europe, but distance limits tourism from those markets and from Russia.
Cuban officials look to the day that a million or more tourists will flood this nation of 11 million people, about 2.5 million of whom live in Havana, 65,000 of them in the 1.5 square miles of Old Havana.
“At that moment, I move back to Washington,” chuckles a government escort who spent four years in D.C.
The government has not surrendered any ground to capitalism, but it has invited foreign companies to manage hotels and resorts with leases of up to 25 years. One example is the 404-room Sandals Royal Hicacos resort at Varadero, where the Cuban government has sought to develop a resort community. Varadero now has 17,000 hotel rooms, local officials say, and will top out at 26,000.
Cubans, no matter their resources, cannot stay at Sandals or at the national hotel they own in Havana. A Dutch company manages Sandals, which was opened in 2002. Many tourists come via charter flights to a new airport built near the city as part of its tourism development effort.
In Old Havana, tourism revenues from restored hotels are spent on social programs, with about a third plowed back into restoration and preservation of other buildings in the historic district.
Residents don’t own their apartments. During restoration they are moved to temporary quarters near the district until restoration is complete. Afterward, most are allowed back, depending on how long they occupied the restored buildings.
Comes now the post-Castro trick. At the rate now visible, post-Castro Cuba will not restore Old Havana for generations to come. Capitalists could do it in five years. A million tourists would swamp the city and Varadero.
Cuban officials believe they can manage, parceling out liberties and private initiative while avoiding capitalism.
“The ‘c’ word is bad,” said one American official. “They would not allow private initiative if it gets close to the ‘c’ word.”
Cuba is, in many ways, a place stuck in time, isolated by the embargo and by the withdrawal of Soviet support. It’s not desperate and it could survive for years to come with the embargo intact.
But once it’s loosened, once people who have known nothing but Communism taste the fruits of a freer market, government cannot possibly control the parceling of liberties and free enterprise for more than a brief spell.
Now the embargo is the bogeyman blamed for every ill. When the day comes that it is lifted, the next revolution starts.
Permalink | Comments (96) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Services »
