‘We are entering a new stage’
Published Mar 30, 2005 10:08 AM
Following are excerpts from “The convertible peso appreciates 8
percent against the U.S. dollar and other hard currencies,” published
March 25 in the Cuban daily, Granma.
President Fidel Castro
announced last night that the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of
Cuba has adopted an agreement to increase the exchange rate of the convertible
peso in relation to the U.S. dollar and other hard currencies from next April 9.
This revaluation will stand at 8 percent for the moment.
Besides this, an
exchange rate for the purchase and sale of U.S. dollars is to be fixed, as well
as for other hard currencies. Following the Revolution’s policy of
providing full guarantees for funds deposited in the banks, the agreement states
that bank accounts in U.S. dollars—both existing accounts and those opened
between now and April 9—will not be affected by this
measure.
Holders of accounts in convertible pesos will benefit from the
revaluation of this currency from that date. Likewise, the Cuban
peso—which will maintain its rate of exchange with respect to the
convertible peso—will similarly increase its value in relation to the U.S.
dollar.
“Last week we revalued the peso,” said Fidel,
“this week we’re going to revalue the convertible peso,” and
he underlined that the value achieved “by our modest little peso”
will be conserved in its totality.
He explained that each time the
convertible peso is valued or revalued, the Cuban peso is revalued, but that the
Cuban peso can be revalued independently of the convertible peso. “There
are two mechanisms and both of them lead to Rome: all roads lead to a currency
that has value and all those who are receiving an increment in social
assistance, their pensions, or wages, will receive an increase in the revalued
currency.”
“We are entering a new stage,” Fidel stated,
“and now we will see what they’re going to do, what they can do [the
U.S. government]. The only thing I’m going to say is that we are not doing
that ‘for their money,’ because we can do without their
money.” He emphasized that this new measure seeks to strengthen our
convertible peso and is not directed at harming anyone.
“Within our
economy are the orders of the sovereign people of Cuba,” emphasized Fidel.
“We can do without the dollar,” he reiterated, “they are the
ones who cannot do without it.
“We will continue forward with our
convertible pesos and our Cuban pesos; we will continue to move forward and both
will continue to move closer, that is their destiny: they are brothers, born of
the same mother called Revolution. And the day that brings the miracle of
complete unity between the two,” he added, “we will have then scaled
to a place of honor high above the road of the Revolution towards the most just
and humane society in the world, the most socialist and almost communist that
has ever existed in the world.
“I clearly see this objective which
our people will achieve some day,” stressed Fidel, “and for this
reason we are battling today and we will not rest.”
During his
speech at the International Conference Center, he observed that he was not
against high wages, but asked what would happen to those who have less today. In
his assessment, if the formula is a socialist one, those who contribute most
according to their abilities will receive according to their
work.
“We have to strongly defend this formula within a spirit of
social justice and assistance for those that need it,” he emphasized.
“Because if anyone has a need and cannot resolve it, they should not be
left without food because of their situation; if someone has a problem from
birth, some accident or illness, or were not born blessed with special
qualities, we have to help them, because it’s for this reason we belong to
a species with the capacity to think, a sensitive species. We cannot fall into
that repugnant system or principle of ‘sort yourself out the best you
can.’
“The Revolution has to seek this equality,”
underlined Fidel. That’s what communism has always sought to do, he
recalled, even in terms of distribution, on the day that the necessary means
exist to satisfy needs.
Fidel planted the idea that he increasingly feels
attracted by the ideas of Marx, Lenin and Engels, because they teach us a great
deal, they have opened up the road to thought. We are not going to say that
those ideas are dead, he specified. “We are who we are before the
challenge that these ideas are advancing over enormous obstacles; obstacles that
perhaps were not imagined by the very creators of the doctrines of Marxism and
Leninism.
“This is what has brought us to this point,” he
specified, “and from now on we will see how it is going to help us better
because we are now enjoying all the benefits and possibilities of having a
socialist regime, not measured in terms of automobiles,” he clarified,
“but through real possibilities of doing things for the wellbeing of our
people, for wellbeing in all senses of the word, and in part also, for the
wellbeing of humanity.
“Our success is something helpful,” he
continued. “Our battle against this powerful and seemingly unstoppable
empire is showing many peoples that ‘They Can Do It!’ as the slogan
for the literacy campaign in Venezuela goes. And we can also say: ‘We can
do it, and we’re demonstrating that we can do
it!’”
Fidel announced that, in four months time, starting from
April, all refrigerators lacking seals will have been repaired. Also, before
Dec. 31, some 12.5 million items of cookware will have been distributed amongst
Cuban families, including new pressure cookers, rice cookers, electric pressure
cookers and electric hotplates with a variable power of 1,200, 900 and 600
watts.
He commented that only a war, a great international conflict, could
prevent those objectives from being fulfilled. And it is possible that before
the year ends, four out of every five families that have electricity but cook
with kerosene will cease using this costly, inefficient and harmful fuel; and
that no less than 50 percent of those who today consume liquefied gas will also
be cooking using electricity.
The president described as “a black
hole of electricity” the range of breakdowns, irregularities and
inefficiencies in the functioning of electrical equipment (such as
refrigerators), electricity plants, connections and transformers, amongst
others. The cost of this lost electricity is equivalent to $100 million,
“but we are going to convert this “hole” into a great reserve
at minimum cost,” he stated.
“We are short of dollars to pay
for soap, sanitary towels and toothpaste and we are going to make up the
shortfall using government savings, that’s what we’re doing in this
context,” he added.
He noted that the country is making a great
effort to carry out what he called “an economic and social countercoup of
the Cuban Revolution,” in the face of attempts to strangle and liquidate
us. He likewise emphasized that it is necessary to give information to the
population to help to clarify problems, reflect and understand, and
“fight, fight and fight!”
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