NEED TO KNOW

Putting a Hand Out

CUBA

In the early period of Cuba’s communist regime, the island was remarkably safe. Violent crime rates were low. Guns were scarce. Critics would counter that undue repression of Cubans’ freedoms was the reason for this security, while others argued that Cubans didn’t mind giving up their liberties to be safe.

The late leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, even once bragged that Cuba was “the safest country in the world.”

Those days are over now. While government statistics say the Caribbean country is still safe, Cubans who spoke to the BBC claimed they are mourning loved ones killed in gang wars over drug markets and that they fear walking the streets at night.

This spike in crime comes, unsurprisingly, as the island’s economy is collapsing. As Le Monde explained, more than 96 percent of Cubans surveyed said they faced challenges finding a meal. The same people said the Cuban government’s food rations – called the libreta – were not enough to feed their families.

Inflation in the wake of the pandemic coupled with American sanctions are the immediate causes of the problem. But the slow decay of the communist model eight years after the death of revolutionary dictator Fidel, and three years after his brother (and successor) Raúl stood down, is also to blame.

Cuba used to export sugar. Now the country imports it. It buys eggs from Colombia. Even those supplies are in jeopardy, however, because Cuba now lacks foreign currency. It receives milk powder from the United Nations. Rolling blackouts attest to its crumbling power system when storms like Hurricane Helene aren’t battering the island. Medicine in the much-ballyhooed Cuban health system is hard to find, too.

“The result is growing inequality, unrest and emigration,” wrote the Economist.

Around 850,000 Cubans have arrived in the US since 2022, the biggest migration between the island and the mainland in history, reported El País. In the two years through 2023, around 1.12 million Cubans fled the country in total. Experts warned of “demographic depletion” where too few people and too few offspring lead to crippling economic problems as society ages.

The situation presents the US with a problem. American officials want to see a pro-democracy, pro-free market government takeover in the Cuban capital Havana. But if that shift requires millions of Cubans to take to the sea to seek asylum in the US, noted World Politics Review, American politicians will have a crisis on their hands.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, meanwhile, is looking to China and Russia for help. If the US won’t permit American companies to invest and operate in Cuba, Newsweek reported, the Cuban government has little choice but to seek out other powerful patrons whose governments share its autocratic bent.

That’s called “doubling down” in geopolitical parlance.

To read the full edition and support independent journalism, join our community of informed readers and subscribe today!

Copyright © 2024 GlobalPost Media Corporation. All Rights Reserved.