With six month's left on President's term, Cubans reflect on 58 years of Castro rule

Record ID: 907502

  • Title: With six month's left on President's term, Cubans reflect on 58 years of Castro rule
  • Date: 23rd August 2017
  • Summary: HAVANA, CUBA (FILE) (REUTERS) FACADE OF PRIVATE RESTAURANT, 'MEDITERRANEAN-HAVANA' INTERIOR OF RESTAURANT FULL OF CLIENTS
  • Embargoed: 6th September 2017 20:35
  • Keywords: Cuba Cuban Revolution Communism Raul Castro Fidel Castro six months
  • Location: HAVANA, ARTEMISA AND SANTIAGO, CUBA
  • City: HAVANA, ARTEMISA AND SANTIAGO, CUBA
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA00B6VDL2DJ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: ***NOTE: INCLUDES FOOTAGE ORIGINALLY 4:3***
    With just six months to go before Raul Castro steps down as Cuban President, his legacy looks uncertain as recently thawed relations with the United States are back on ice and the growth of the private sector has stalled.
    Castro took Cuba in a new direction upon taking over the reins from his older brother Fidel in 2008, opening up space in the centralized economy for the private sector, introducing freedoms like internet access and starting to normalize relations with long-time enemy the United States.
    Those changes were most acutely reflected in downtown Havana: renovations of its historic buildings sped up, fancy restaurants, hip tattoo parlours and bars opened up, millennials set up digital magazines and tourist dollars came flooding in.
    More Cubans returned to live in the island in 2016 than in the previous three years, buoyed by a sense of optimism about the country's trajectory. Yet those high expectations have made the current situation an even more bitter pill to swallow.
    The pace of change has slowed in recent years and there has been backtracking, pleasing some older Cubans and hard-liners who mistrusted Castro's opening and the creeping inequality it triggered yet dashing the hopes of younger generations.
    U.S. President Donald Trump said in June he was rolling back U.S.-Cuban relations and Trump has promised to restrict U.S. travel to Cuba. Although he has yet to publish new regulations, they will likely damp the tourism boom that had been the one bright spot in Cuba's beleaguered economy.
    Analysts critical of Castro argue that had he implemented more wide-reaching reforms, there might be fewer irregularities in the private sector.
    One of the stated reasons for the current freeze on licenses for restaurants, bed and breakfasts and others is that they use goods from the black market. The self employed say they would not need to do so if the government created wholesale stores.
    But resistance to change in Cuba is strong among party hard-liners who rail against the nouveau rich in a country founded on equality.
    The reforms and greater remittances allowed from the United States have created a new segment of Cubans who run successful businesses and can afford to travel abroad, get their pet dog a fancy haircut and party at fancy night-clubs.
    Meanwhile many Cubans rely on the ration book and salaries as low as 10 dollars a month, even as public services that were the cornerstone of the Castros' 1959 revolution worsen in view of a struggling economy.
    But economists like Omar Everleny say the focus should not be on persecuting prosperity but creating prosperity for all.
    That lofty aim looks tricky though. Even if the government does decide to continue letting its private sector evolve, Cuba faces other, immediate daunting economic challenges.
    The economic crisis in Cuba's key ally Venezuela and subsequent reduction in shipments of cheap oil as well as lower exports across the board means the island has ever less financial room to manoeuvre.
    That makes it hard for it to import basic necessities - there have been shortages of medicines of late - let alone tackle big structural problems like the dual currency system.
    Castro is set to step down as president in February next year, at the end of his second term, but he will stay on as party chief. Perhaps those few extra years will give him the time he needs to get momentum moving back in the right direction.
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