And now, for the really bad news
For weeks now, senior officials of the Castro regime have been talking down the sugar harvest.
First it was Carlos Lage, regarded as the third most important politician on the island – after the Castro brothers, of course. Then it was the powerful Minister for the Sugar Industry, General Ulises Rosales del Toro, a trusted military man now turned bureaucrat.
They all warned that the sugar harvest for 2007 may be "difficult".
Well, now we know why.
The official propaganda sheet of the regime, Granma, reveals today that this year’s sugar harvest could turn out to be the worst ever. Read that again: the worst in the island’s history.
Not that the paper puts it quite that way ...
If you believe the official figures, Cuba will be lucky to produce about half of the sugar tonnage for the previous year which in itself, was among the lowest on record at just 1.2 million tonnes.
And the reason for the shocking results?
Mismanagement? Non-existent transport infrastructure? Low wages and poor working conditions that inevitably lead to poor productivity? An economic model that quite plainly does not work? The fact that no one is allowed to point out these faults in public for fear of being branded a “mercenary” and sent to jail for 25 years?
None of the above.
According to Granma, the poor results are all due to rain. Too much rain. Truly.
First it was Carlos Lage, regarded as the third most important politician on the island – after the Castro brothers, of course. Then it was the powerful Minister for the Sugar Industry, General Ulises Rosales del Toro, a trusted military man now turned bureaucrat.
They all warned that the sugar harvest for 2007 may be "difficult".
Well, now we know why.
The official propaganda sheet of the regime, Granma, reveals today that this year’s sugar harvest could turn out to be the worst ever. Read that again: the worst in the island’s history.
Not that the paper puts it quite that way ...
If you believe the official figures, Cuba will be lucky to produce about half of the sugar tonnage for the previous year which in itself, was among the lowest on record at just 1.2 million tonnes.
And the reason for the shocking results?
Mismanagement? Non-existent transport infrastructure? Low wages and poor working conditions that inevitably lead to poor productivity? An economic model that quite plainly does not work? The fact that no one is allowed to point out these faults in public for fear of being branded a “mercenary” and sent to jail for 25 years?
None of the above.
According to Granma, the poor results are all due to rain. Too much rain. Truly.
posted by Luis M Garcia at 4:55 pm
3 Comments:
But of course. The system is never at fault. And the climate problem is bound to be related to global warming, which is obviously the fault of the "empire" and its lackey countries. However, plans are underway to develop a magic cow that produces concentrated liquid sugar, which will do away with the need to bother with sugarcane harvesting. News at eleven. Or sometime thereafter.
In order to tell a lie, one first has to believe in it. Ni ellos mismos se lo creen.
The "Reds" just don't get it. The system is corrupt,ineficient and wasteful. Potatoes used to rotten on the fields in the former USSR.
After much fanfare Khruschev after a visit to Iowa, boasted that they could produce more corn than the US, and of course that never happened. And after 65 yeras of Communism, the USSR bought from Argentina 3 million tons of wheat in 1980 after the US, Canada and Australia imposed an embargo to punish the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, even though the govt. of that country was torturing and murdering communists and leftits left and right. All this from a nation that before 1917 used to export wheat to Europe.Cuba was the biggest producer of sugar in the world and today is buying sugar from Brazil and pineapples and coffee from Colombia. Agriculture in Cuba is a disaster, but of course the fault lies with the weather, global warming etc. Never with the system which is infallible. A former KGB agent in the Middle East who later defected to the West once said: if Communism ever came here this people will have to import sand! That said it all.
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