Significant Cuban Changes

Facing New Realities!!
{Thursday, December 20th, 2018}

     Cuba has a new Twitter-friendly, television-friendly, non-Castro, and non-revolutionary President in former Education Minister Miguel Diaz-Canel. And early in 2019 Cuba will have its first new Constitution since the 1970s. The new Constitution omits the word Communism to stress a fresher Socialist-style Chinese and Vietnamese market-oriented economy. All this week President Diaz-Canel is feeling some heat from the Cuban parliament...its National Assembly...that appears more attuned to a population of 11.4 million Cubans who are impatient with the economy. Earlier this week Diaz-Canel predicted a 1% growth for 2018 and about the same for 2019, blaming the U. S. embargo for at least an additional "$4.3 billion" loss in revenue for 2018 because of added sanctions imposed by the USA Trump administration.

    All this week at the National Assembly session, President Diaz-Canel has been pressured about the economy by the parliament's Economic Affairs Committee. He replied, "We have our own structural and operational problems but those things, too, relate to the criminal blockade imposed by the United States that prohibits us from dealing with financial institutions and having access to material that we need, even from friendly nations that are afraid of U. S. power."

    When reminded by the dominant female members of the Economic Affairs Committee about the impatience of the Cuban people regarding improved housing, President Diaz-Canel said, "The fundamental issue is the local production of material, and I am already seeing that the problem is urgently addressed, even as I reach out to such friends as a powerful Vietnamese company that is now constructing a major facility in the Economic Zone at our ultra-modern and important Mariel Port."

     At center stage during this week's parliamentary session is Cuba's Secretary of the Council of State Homero Acosta. He reported on the island-wide discussions at 24,000 sites leading up to the final implementation of the new Constitution early in 2019. He said, "Between Aug. 15-Nov. 15 we had 133,681 discussions of the new Constitution. 8,945,521 Cubans participated. 2,125 proposals were considered. 3% of the proposals were opposed and have been omitted. 62% were favored and are included. The rest are still being debated across the island."

  As President Diaz-Canel listened, Homero Acosta explained that the new Constitution will guarantee sexual freedom for everyone, the right to legal assistance for all, the right to decent housing, increases in remuneration for workers, and more direct emphasis on direct elections.

     As Homero Acosta out-lined the tenets of the new Constitution, the National Assembly deputies, now younger and more female-oriented than in the past, followed along and often formulated questions.

     President Diaz-Canel not only accepts a more powerful role for the entire National Assembly in Cuba, he orchestrated such things as younger deputies, more black Cubans, and more females.

     The image above, taken at the National Assembly session on December 18-2018, also reflects another dictate of President Diaz-Canel. He has insisted that his Ministers explain themselves regularly in "our outstanding broadcast media." This photo shows Bruno Rodriguez, Cuba's Foreign Minister, being quizzed by Leticia Martinez Hernandez, one of the outstanding broadcast journalists on the island. She asked, "If the Trump administration has reversed all of the positive advantages we had with the Obama administration, how are you dealing with that situation?" Bruno replied, "I have told my counterpart in the United States, Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that Cuba is willing and ready at anytime to sit down and discuss our differences and our cooperative measures. We only insist on being treated with respect and equally as a sovereign nation." Cuba also is trying harder to present its side of the U.S.-Cuban equation by, for example, putting videos this week on YouTube for all to see that includes the comments of Bruno Rodriguez, President Diaz-Canel, and Homero Acosta pertaining to this week's important parliamentary session in Havana.

    For example, on several YouTube videos emerging from this week's National Assembly session in Havana, Cuba is reminding the world to ask this question: "Is there any other small nation other than Cuba that could have survived the U. S. 'Criminal Blockade' since 1962? For example, what about Canada and what about Mexico. They are major allies and trade partners of the United States. But what if they had been the victims of the Blockade for six decades, the victim of military, terrorist, and assassination attacks for all those decades? If Canada and Mexico had been subjected to all those things for six decades, do you think their economies, and indeed their governments, would have survived all these years since 1959, which is the year our Revolution triumphed and the year the United States and the Counter Revolutionary factions began trying to regain control of our island? Answer that question and then let's have sane and honest discussions, because just pretending that the Superpower is always right and that Cuba is always wrong is merely a capitulation to the strength of the world Superpower." 

     Meanwhile, as of this week Cuba's FCB -- the Federation of Cuban Baseball -- has reached an important and sane agreement with Major League Baseball in the USA. Now all 30 MLB teams can sign Cuban players in the same manner players from Japan, Taiwan, etc., are signed. Also, like the pro leagues in Japan, Taiwan, etc., the FCB will now get the payment of a reasonable release fee. Prior to this agreement, much-coveted Cuban players were often victims of unsavory agents, human traffickers, etc., when they opted to play with MLB teams. So now, even in the age of Trump, this FCB-MLB agreement is both important and very sane, and something that the officials in baseball-mad Cuba have long sought to protect their players from both danger and discrimination. Also, baseball seasons in U. S. and Cuba are in different months, so, if overlapping contracts allow it, some MLB Cuban players may now also play some FCB games, something their adoring fans on the island would love to see and something they richly deserve.

     Los Angeles Dodgers' outfielder Yasiel Puig, like all of the many Cuban players now in the U. S. Major Leagues, had to defect from Cuba. He was kidnapped, held for millions of ransom dollars, tortured, and threatened with death. With the new FCB-MLB agreement, Cuban players would no longer have to defect and, for the first time, they would be treated like Major League prospects from all other countries. There is, however, one possible problem: President Trump can block it or sharply amend it. Puig, who was back home in Cuba this month, has loudly urged the U. S. Major Leagues to treat Cubans like all others.

    Baseball in Cuba, from Little League fields on up to the island's powerful professional teams, is played with a religious-like fervor.

  Cuban boys fiercely love baseball.

       One of Cuba's most popular television news anchors, Rosy Amaro Perez, is shown above being interviewed herself while she was on an important journalistic assignment in Nicaragua earlier this month.

    Being Cuban, Rosy Amaro Perez is passionate about baseball. Although very busy as a journalist in Nicaragua for a week this month, Rosy spent every possible night watching baseball {above} at Dennis Martinez Stadium, named for a Nicaraguan pitcher who spend 19 years in the U. S. Major Leagues. This week on Cuban television and on social media pages, Rosy has heralded the FCB-MLB agreement.

*&***********************&*