The New York Times publica un reportaje sobre el negocio de las
mulas, la contribución del "éxodo" cubano a los negocios del incipiente
sector privado tras las
reformas del Castrato y algunos datos en torno a la política de la administración Obama que, según algunos cálculos, habrían impulsado que a lo largo de este año 400.000 pasajeros viajaran de Estados Unidos a Cuba, cuatro veces más que en 2008. Estas medidas generan el rechazo de algunos políticos, como el del senador Marco Rubio -citado por el periódico-, al considerar que los cambios de Obama suponen dar una bomba de oxígeno a la dictadura de los hermanos Castro. El periódico americano cita una fuente anónima del Departamento de Estado que opina que la llegada de dinero y la independencia económica, por el contrario, erosionan al régimen:
Economists and travel agents estimate that 400,000 passengers will fly to Cuba from the United States this year, nearly four times the number in 2008 — and more than at any time since the United States cut ties with the island some 50 years ago, they say. The visitors bring cash and huge bundles stuffed with goods that the embargo and Cuba’s economic woes have put beyond reach, from basics like milk powder, bouillon cubes and vitamins to luxuries like BlackBerrys and flat-screen televisions. Much of it goes into the living rooms and pantries of relatives, or to retailers who operate Cuba’s voracious informal market.
But the money and goods also feed Cuba’s budding private sector, the frail backbone of President Raúl Castro’s plan to reinvigorate the country’s feeble economy. Many entrepreneurs say they get capital and supplies from relatives abroad — colored beads from Miami for religious trinkets, pepper mills for restaurant tables, beautician’s wax.
Opponents of greater contact with Cuba say such openings simply help to keep the Castro government afloat. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida whose parents are Cuban exiles, has called remittances and travel by Cuban-Americans “perhaps the single largest source of revenue to the most repressive government in the region.”
A State Department official, who requested anonymity because the policy is politically delicate, said that “additional people-to-people contact and enhanced economic independence from the state” helped to “undermine repression.” In an e-mail responding to questions, the official said such benefits outweighed concerns about “the Cuban government profiting indirectly.”
