April
1, 2008
Cubans
line up at imported goods shops
By Will Weissert, Miami Herald
HAVANA
-- Cubans snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers
for the first time Tuesday as Raul Castro's new government loosened
controls on consumer goods and invited private farmers to plant
tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused state land.
Combined with other reforms announced in recent days, the measures
suggest real changes are being driven by the new president, who
vowed when he took over from his brother Fidel to remove some
of the more irksome limitations on the daily lives of Cubans.
Analysts wondered how far the communist government is willing
to go.
''Cuban people can't survive on the salaries people are paying
them. Average men and women have been screaming that at the top
of their lungs for many years,'' said Felix Masud-Piloto, director
of the Center for Latino Research at DePaul University. "Now
after many years, the government is listening.''
Many of the shoppers filling stores Tuesday lamented the fact
that the goods are unaffordable on the government salaries they
earn. But that didn't stop them from lining up to see electronic
gadgets previously available only to foreigners and companies.
''They should have done this a long time ago,'' one man said as
he left a store with a red and silver electric motorbike that
cost $814. The Chinese-made bikes can be charged with an electric
cord and had been barred for general sale because officials feared
a strain on the power grid.
On Monday, the Tourism Ministry announced that any Cuban with
enough money can now stay in luxury hotels and rent cars, doing
away with restrictions that made ordinary people feel like second-class
citizens. And last week, Cuba said citizens will be able to get
cell phones legally in their own names, a luxury long reserved
for the lucky few.
The land initiative, however, potentially could put more food
on the table of all Cubans and bring in hard currency from exports
of tobacco, coffee and other products, providing the cash inflows
needed to spur a new consumer economy.
Government television said 51 percent of arable land is underused
or fallow, and officials are transferring some of it to individual
farmers and associations representing small, private producers.
According to official figures, cooperatives already control 35
percent of arable land -- and produce 60 percent of the island's
agricultural output.
''Everyone who wants to produce tobacco will be given land to
produce tobacco, and it will be the same with coffee,'' said Orlando
Lugo, president of Cuba's national farmers association.
The change is a sharp contrast to the early days of Cuba's revolution,
when the government forced or encouraged private farmers to turn
their land over to the state or form government-controlled collective
farms. But without more details, it was difficult to tell the
significance of program, which began last year but was announced
only this week.
''If this means all land that's not being used, like for private
farmers, cooperatives and state farms, is available, that's positive,''
said Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a Cuba economics expert at the University
of Pittsburgh. "Assuming, of course, they have the freedom
to sow and sell whatever they want.''
Lines formed before the doors opened at the Galerias Paseos shopping
center on Havana's famed seaside Malecon boulevard, and shoppers
wasted little time once inside. But there was no sign yet of computers
and microwaves, highly anticipated items that clerks across Havana
insisted would appear soon on store shelves, with desktop computers
retailing for around $650.
Cuba's communist system was founded on promoting social and economic
equality, but that doesn't mean Cubans can't have DVD players,
said Mercedes Orta, who rushed to gawk at the new products.
''Socialism has nothing to do with living comfortably,'' she said.
Lines outside electronics boutiques and specialty shops are common
in Cuba because guards limit how many people can be inside at
a time. But waits were longer and aisles more packed than usual
at Havana's best-known stores.
''DVDs are over there, down that aisle,'' an employee in a white
short-sleeved shirt repeated over and over as shoppers wandered
into La Copa, an electronics and grocery store across from the
Copacabana Hotel.
''Very good! DVD players on sale for everybody,'' exclaimed Clara,
an elderly woman peering at a black JVC console. ''Of course nobody
has the money to buy them.'' Like many Cubans, Clara chatted freely
but wouldn't give her full name to a foreign reporter.
Government stores offered all products in convertible pesos --
hard currency worth 24 times the regular pesos state employees
get paid. The government controls well over 90 percent of the
economy and the average state salary is just 408 regular pesos
a month, about $19.50.
Still, most Cubans have access to at least some convertible pesos
thanks to jobs with foreign firms or in tourism, or cash sent
by relatives living in the United States.
Graciela Jaime, a 68-year-old retired clothes factory employee,
complained that widespread corruption and greed has created a
class of rich Cubans.
''Everyone wants to spend money and that is what's happening,''
she said. ``If everything they earned went to the state like it
should, there wouldn't be as much corruption as there is.''
Associated Press writer Katherine Corcoran in Mexico City contributed
to this report.
Copyright
2008. The Miami Herald. All rights reserved.
