Caribbean & Central America - 17 February 2004

President Fidel Castro has moved to get a tighter rein on the all-important tourism industry. On 11 February he dismissed tourism minister Ibrahí­m Ferradaz Garcí­a and replaced him with a military colonel, Manuel Marrero Cruz. The reshuffle was not entirely unexpected, coming two months after a major scandal at the tourism holding company Cubanacán.

Unsurprisingly, the daily mouthpiece of the Communist government, Granma, shed no light on the reasons for Ferradaz's dismissal, saying merely that he had been 'freed' from his post and would be given other responsibilities. 

In December 2003, 'irregularities' were found in Cubanacán's finances for the second time in four years. The president of Cubanacán, which is reckoned to handle about 40% of Cuba's tourist trade (which totals US$2bn a year), was arrested.

In 1999, top executives were dismissed for 'errors' and 'indiscipline'. Again, it was hushed up but it cost then-tourism minister Osmany Cienfuegos his job.

The new broom, Marrero Cruz, served as president of the profitable tourism company Grupo de Turismo Gaviota, one of the oldest military-run corporations. It controls about 20% of Cuba's 41,000 hotel rooms. He will bring practical experience to a policymaking role as Cuba pursues its elusive target of 2m foreign tourists a year. 

An estimated 1.9m tourists travelled to Cuba in 2003, a 12% increase on the previous year but still short of the perennial 2m goal. It should, however, be remembered that calendar years are bad units of measurement for an industry whose main season, that of the northern hemisphere's winter, straddles the year-end.

Tourism for oil  
It could just be that Castro is going the extra mile to push Cuba's tourism over the 2m tourist mark generating much-needed foreign exchange so that Cuba can address its debt to Venezuela. This would put Cuba in a stronger position in the event of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez losing power. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, citing 'people close to Venezuela's state oil company', maintains that over the past three years Cuba has run up a massive debt of US$752m for oil shipped from Venezuela. 

The paper goes on to argue that the shipments are a crucial subsidy that is singlehandedly 'helping keep the island's economy afloat as it struggles with the impact of endemic mismanagement, declining sugar sales and US sanctions'. It also describes Venezuela as a latter day Soviet Union (the USSR sustained the Cuban economy at the height of the Cold War by supplying more than US$3bn a year in subsidies).

Washington has made a special point of spotlighting the 'strategic alliance' between Venezuela and Cuba as a threat to democratic governments in Latin America. The Wall Street Journal cites hardliner Otto Reich, the White House special envoy for the Western Hemisphere, as saying 'We certainly see a Venezuela-Cuba axis which is broadening and deepening and which is not conducive to the promotion of democracy and human rights'.

The renowned leader of the Cuban opposition Oswaldo Payá says that he feels constantly threatened and deems it likely that he will shortly be assassinated. In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro in his Havana house, Payá said that the arrest of 75 political dissidents last April - '50 of them artists who backed the Varela Project' - was a sure sign that Castro would stop at nothing to ensure that his grip on power remained absolute. 

Last October, Payá submitted to the national assembly a petition signed by 14,384 people requesting a referendum on a new electoral law, legislation liberalising economic activity, and an amnesty for political prisoners - the main aims of the Varela project.