The Cuban people are plunged into a tragic paradox. His land is full of potential, but hunger persists. How could this once prosperous island, rich in natural resources and renowned for its coveted agricultural products, be reduced to the wasteland it knows today?
During the period after World War II until 1953 (the last statistics available on this subject before Castro came to power), the United Nations estimated that Cuba had a caloric intake of 2,730 calories per day per citizen , equal to that of Germany and higher than, among others, that of Austria, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Japan, Chile, Mexico, Brazil and India.
In 1958, Cuba’s industrial wages ranked eighth in the world, and agricultural wages seventh. In the 1950s, a half-day’s salary allowed a Cuban worker to obtain seven eggs, 2,600 grams of sugar, 1,500 grams of bread, 380 grams of butter and 390 grams of meat.
In 1957, the annual inflation rate was 3.1%. Today, annual inflation in Cuba is closer to 30% officially, although economists like Steve Hanke suggest it is closer to 80%. And its currency, once at par with the US dollar, has lost all value.
Currently, Cubans are suffering from hunger and can no longer bear the absurdity of the situation. The world takes Cuba’s poverty for granted, and few remember the days when the island was the economic engine of the Caribbean. How did we arrive at the collapse of the Cuban productive structure? Since 1959, Cuba has constantly suffered from the scarcity, low production and poor distribution of its natural resources.
Already in November 1959, in his book Traición: Gritan 20,000 tumbas cubanas (Treason. 20,000 Cuban Tombs), the Dr Manuel Artime Buesa courageously warned the Cuban population of what was on the horizon. A rebel army captain and one of the leaders of agrarian reform, Buesa witnessed the secret totalitarian maneuvers of the so-called National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA). He wrote to Fidel Castro about what he observed: “ […] I refuse to witness the hunger that will fall on Cuba because you want to impose this violent communization led by incompetent men, even in this area. »
Buesa’s prophetic warnings were ignored, but he was right. It was this deadly combination of malicious and ineffective doctrines and inept men that brought about the famine in Cuba. Communism conspired for the sole purpose of securing power, against the very nature of Cuba and to the detriment of the Cuban people. An island with some of the most fertile land in the world has been punished by dogmatism. Cuban peasants have been regulated to the point of losing productivity. More than 50% of Cuban land is fallow. The invasive marabú weed covers nearly 20% of the national territory and takes over the centuries-old heritage of unique agriculture on an exceptional terroir.
Shortly after raising the alarm, Buesa went into hiding. He knew then what we can all see today: to protect the health and vitality of the Cuban people, he must fight for their freedom. Buesa became one of the founders of the main Cuban resistance organization known as Movimiento de Recuperación Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Recovery Movement, MRR). He was the civilian leader of Brigade 2506 at the Bay of Pigs. And, after his release from Castro’s prisons, he founded the MRR training camps in Central America which were recognized for their tenacious resistance against Cuban tyranny. A cruel cancer took him too soon. He endured a life of struggle, sacrifice and suffering while demonstrating exemplary stoicism.
A country that produced its own food until 1960 is today entirely dependent on food imports. But this is not an anomaly. Wherever communism was imposed, food production suffered.
If reform in Cuba does not uproot communism, if sovereignty is not fully restored to the Cuban people, if an immoral hybrid system is imposed on the Cuban population, our suffering island nation will neither regain freedom nor prosperity.
Cubans will only be freed from the suffering of deprivation when the freedom they have been cruelly denied is restored.