BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS AND MARTÍN KOPPEL
CIENFUEGOS, Cuba - This year's sugar harvest in Cuba fell below the 1996 production of 4.45 million tons, said Carlos Lage, executive secretary of the country's Council of Ministers, in an interview in the June 22 issue of the Cuban weekly Juventud Rebelde. The government has not yet announced the amount of the shortfall.

By the end of June, it became evident that the decline in Cuba's main export crop, which is also a principal source of much-needed hard currency, will contribute to weakening a recovery of industrial production that has been under way in the Caribbean nation for more than two years.

The government had initially set a target of slightly surpassing last year's sugar production. But already in early April, Cuban president Fidel Castro was pointing to difficulties in meeting that goal - citing among the main factors Washington's escalating economic war and the impact of last November's Hurricane Lili.

"Right now we are struggling with a difficult sugar harvest," Castro said in an April 4 speech in Havana, on the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Union of Young Communists (UJC). "There have been certain consequences stemming from U.S. measures that paralyzed or delayed financing, that hindered arrival of certain supplies, parts and resources for the harvest. There has been unfavorable weather; we had no winter this year, which has affected some crops, and may affect the sugar yield of this harvest. A hurricane swept through the center of the island and caused great damage."

Speaking to Cuban journalists on May Day, Castro made public the government's assessment that the projected goal for the harvest would not be met. In addition to the impact of U.S. sanctions and bad weather, the Cuban president said that "subjective factors" contributed to the shortfall.

According to a report on that press conference in the May 5 Trabajadores, weekly newspaper of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC), Castro also said that a number of the country's sugar mills were unproductive or were operating with excessive costs and some might have to be shut down. "Fidel noted," the Trabajadores article said, "that some mills produce with a quarter of the cost of others. The first order of battle is to make them all efficient, he clarified, and those that fail to become efficient will have to be closed."

During a visit in late April by Militant reporters to several sugarcane cooperatives in the central provinces of Cienfuegos and Villa Clara, workers there helped paint a more concrete picture of the myriad difficulties they faced due to the problems with financing from abroad. A number of them also shed light on the other points Castro made on May 1 about difficulties stemming from their own organization of the sugar industry. Little progress has been registered in raising productivity and improving the living and working conditions of agricultural workers - especially in sugarcane -through the reorganization of the country's state farms into Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC), these workers said.

Broader impact on Cuban economy
According to unofficial estimates at the end of June, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by about 1.5 percent in the first five months of this year. In 1996 the annual GDP growth rate was 7.8 percent. In addition to the deficit in the sugar yield, delays have been reported in nickel exports, another top hard-currency source.

"This has meant a much tenser start to the year than we would have liked," said Alfonso Casanova, deputy minister of the economy.

Lage and other government officials say they expect the country's GDP will still meet the projected 4 percent growth rate for 1997, citing upward trends in production of nickel and tobacco, in fishing, in some manufacturing industries, and in tourism.

At the opening of this decade, the sudden end of development aid and favorable trade relations with the countries of the former Soviet bloc set off a virtual collapse of production in Cuba, initiating what Cubans refer to as the "special period."

At the same time, the Cuban government's efforts to find new trading partners, obtain credits, and attract investment continued to be undercut by an even tighter U.S. trade embargo. As shortages of fuel, fertilizer, pesticides, and spare parts mounted, sugar production plunged from 8.4 million tons in 1990 to a 50-year low of 3.3 million tons in the 1994-95 harvest. The rapid drop in industrial and agricultural production bottomed out by early 1995.

In 1996 sugar production increased by 33 percent over the previous harvest. This was due in part to a year-long effort by sugar and other workers to increase productivity, cut waste, and reduce costs. Their success boosted the self- confidence and morale of the working class. In addition, the government managed to secure credits for needed imports, even though at high interest rates.

Helms-Burton law augments hardships
In March 1996, U.S. president William Clinton signed into law the misnamed "Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act," also referred to as Helms-Burton law. The legislation mandates sanctions against foreign companies that invest in Cuba in properties expropriated by workers and peasants after the 1959 revolution. Washington's aggressive use of the Helms-Burton act has undercut the Cuban government's ability to secure loans and investments.

Soon after the passage of this law, Redpath Sugar, the Canadian subsidiary of Tate & Lyle, announced it was ceasing to refine Cuban sugar. In addition, two European companies that sell Cuban sugar stopped doing business with Havana.

Media reports said late last year that two large banks - the Dutch bank ING and Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya - have discontinued contracts to finance credits for the sugarcane harvest in five Cuban provinces. Nelson Torres, the Cuban sugar minister, said these companies had not backed out but had simply restructured their operations. He also indicated that the Helms-Burton law meant some new lenders had to be found, causing delays in imported supplies.

Since then, financial institutions that do business in Cuba have come under increased scrutiny and attack by Washington. One example is ED&F Man, a London-based commodities group that controls 16 percent of world cross- border trade in sugar. According to the monthly publication Cuba Business, about 55 percent of Man's 1996 profits originated from trade with Cuba. London's Independent on Sunday published an article in its April 6 issue charging that the company has tried to mask its continuing involvement in Cuba by spinning its Cuba business off into a separate firm called Pacol. The next day, the company's stock fell by 4 percent. Man then issued a statement saying the group took action last year to "comply fully with the terms of the Helms-Burton Act. It continues to do so." The company did not comment on the accusations in the Independent.

The application of the Helms-Burton law has had an adverse impact on other investments in Cuba. The June 30 New York Times reported that Grupo Domos, a Mexican conglomerate that has been the largest foreign investor in Cuba, has withdrawn from the island. Domos was a minority partner, along with the Italian telecommunications company Stet S.p.A., in a $750 million joint venture with the Cuban telephone company to modernize the country's antiquated telecommunications system. The Cuban telephone company was owned by the U.S. ITT before the 1959 revolution.

Last summer, Washington barred Domos executives, shareholders, and their families from getting visas to travel to the United States, using provisions of the Helms- Burton law. The New York Times article quoted an unnamed European banker saying Domos was "having trouble getting financing even before Helms-Burton came along, but potential lenders became even more gun shy after that went into effect."

Visit to Villa Clara, Cienfuegos
During the visit by Militant reporters to Villa Clara and Cienfuegos, many workers described the concrete impact of the U.S. economic assault on the Cuban people.

"Out of nine tractors our cooperative has, only six were operational during this harvest," said José Luis Ortiz, 33, a tractor driver at the José Arcadio García UBPC. "We've had a harder time this year getting spare parts." The farm is located in Cifuentes municipality, 30 miles north of Santa Clara, the capital of Villa Clara province. About half of the 20 sugarcane harvesters in Cifuentes were operational for the entire harvest, said Julio César Castañeda, municipal secretary of the UJC. Forty tractor trailers, out of 80 in the area, were also idled this year because of lack of parts.

Orelvis Hernández, 30, who works at the nearby El Vaquerito sugar refinery, said Washington has blocked oil shipments from Mexico and Venezuela over the last year. "And it's more expensive to import oil from Europe and other countries now." Oil prices in the world market rose from $17 per barrel in November 1995 to about $23 a year later. The rising prices and extra shipping costs have added hundreds of millions of dollars to Cuba's fuel import bill.

Hernández explained that the mill where he works is named after Roberto Rodríguez whose nickname was El Vaquerito (little cowboy). Vaquerito was a captain of the Rebel Army who headed what became known as the Suicide Squad in Column 8 commanded by Ernesto Che Guevara, one of the central leaders of the Cuban revolution. The squad was made up of young fighters who volunteered for the most dangerous assignments during the 1956-58 revolutionary war to overthrow the U.S.-backed tyranny of Fulgencio Batista. Rodríguez was killed at age 23 in the battle to liberate Santa Clara - half an hour drive from this mill -on Dec. 30, 1958, a day before Batista's army crumbled and the dictator fled the country. In explaining their determination to resist Washington's aggression today, many workers in the area, like Hernández, point with pride to the example of courage and combativity Vaquerito set.

Leonel Castro Gutiérrez, 29, director of the José Arcadio García UBPC, said delays in financing from abroad meant shipments of fertilizers and pesticides were late or did not arrive at all this year. "That means more weeding of the fields by hand."

Cane cutters and other cooperative members at that farm, and at La Esperanza UBPC in Cienfuegos, showed us the torn work boots they were wearing.

A number of these workers in Cifuentes were cutting cane under the hot sun on April 24, kicking up a cloud of dust in the process. "Look at how dry the soil is," said Castro Gutiérrez. "The drought this winter lowered sugarcane yields and has meant we have to wait for rain before we can start planting for the next harvest." He also noted that Hurricane Lili, which swept through Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, and parts of Matanzas provinces last fall caused considerable damage, "resulting in losses of about 200,000 tons of sugar nationwide."

Villa Clara, which was by far the number one province in sugar production until 1996, came in second to Holguín this year, falling well short of its target of half a million tons.

As with other working people interviewed in factories and fields, many of the UBPC members there expressed their outrage at the Helms-Burton law and talked about meetings they had held on the farm to discuss its contents. Several described with pride their participation in demonstrations this spring to condemn Washington's aggression, particularly Clinton's attempts to buy off the Cuban people and divide them from their revolutionary leadership.

A January 28 report by U.S. president William Clinton drew particular scorn here. In it, Clinton offered $4-8 billion in "aid" if the Cuban people removed Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro, minister of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, from the government and began a "transition" to capitalism, as demanded in the Helms-Burton act. "They want Fidel's head," said Eladio Díaz Martínez at La Esperanza UBPC. "But we're not going to let them do that. Today they would have to cut off too many heads."

`Other challenges to be addressed'
Several workers pointed to other challenges the Cuban people face, in addition to the U.S. embargo and bad weather. "Many people blame all the problems on Helms-Burton and the hurricane," noted Orelvis Hernández. "But there are other reasons that have to be addressed too."

The reorganization of the country's state farms into cooperatives has not resulted yet in the hoped-for increase in productivity, especially in sugarcane, said Alexis Rodríguez, 29, a mechanic at the Arcadio García UBPC.

The process of subdividing the state farms into these smaller cooperative units began in September 1993 with a decree issued by the government. The decision was ratified by the country's National Assembly in December of that year.

Unlike the former state farms, the cooperatives own their harvest and sell it to the state at prices established by the government. The co-op owns the machinery (bought from the former state farm with low interest loans) and purchases needed supplies - including seeds, fuel, and fertilizer - out of its revenues. The income of co-op members depends on their job and their individual and collective productivity.

Besides producing crops for domestic consumption and for export, the UBPCs strive to be self-sufficient in food and build housing for members.

By the end of 1995, UBPC members tilled 80 percent of Cuba's arable land. Before this reorganization of the agricultural workforce, which is the most far-reaching change since Cuba's second agrarian reform in 1963, state farms accounted for 80 percent of the island's arable land.

The land UBPCs use remains nationalized and cannot be sold, rented, inherited, mortgaged, or used as collateral for loans.

Greater progress on non-cane farms
In the non-sugarcane sector of agriculture, palpable progress has been registered in production of fruits and vegetables with annual increases of 25-30 percent in the last two years. Of the 1,579 UBPCs producing citrus, tobacco, vegetables and other food crops, and livestock, nearly 45 percent had become profitable by the end of 1996. As a result, state subsidies for this sector of agriculture dropped from 1.8 billion pesos in 1994 to 280 million pesos a year later.

These cooperatives can sell produce at the agricultural markets, once they fulfill their quota of sales to the state. Prices at these markets are not regulated by the government, providing an incentive for increasing production. Since the opening of the agricultural markets nearly three years ago, food has become more readily available throughout the country, although prices there are high for most Cubans.

The average pay of UBPC members on non-cane co-ops has increased from 175 pesos per month in 1993 to 205 pesos per month last year. These cooperatives have also made substantial progress in providing food for their members and families -one of their central goals.

The sugarcane cooperatives face greater challenges. Of the 1,126 sugarcane-producing UBPCs, only 76 were profitable in 1996, a mere 7 percent.

Sugarcane workers assemblies
The José Arcadio García UBPC is one of the cooperatives that has experienced losses since its founding. It is one of four UBPCs that used to belong to the El Vaquerito Agro-Industrial Complex (CAI) prior to 1993. The complex included the sugar mill by the same name and three state farms, which were initially subdivided into seven cooperatives.

"About a year ago we consolidated from seven to four UBPCs," said co-op director Leonel Castro Gutiérrez, "to better utilize the machinery, land, and other resources."

This process has taken place throughout the country. The number of cane-producing cooperatives has been reduced from nearly 1,600 in 1993 to just over 1,100 at the beginning of this year. The average size of these UBPCs has increased from 2,300 acres to more than 2,900 acres.

This consolidation, and other measures to confront the challenges facing sugarcane workers, were discussed at assemblies of sugarcane cooperative members around the country last fall, Castro Gutiérrez said. These meetings culminated in a national assembly of representatives of sugarcane co-ops in December 1996. Some 1,200 local assemblies involving 150,000 workers took place, at the initiative of the CTC. The overwhelming majority of UBPC members came from the former state farms and remain members of the sugar workers union.

As a result of the merger, the Arcadio García cooperative has reduced costs by not having to rent machinery from other UBPCs, Gutiérrez said. This is a largely book-keeping adjustment, though. The co-op's cost of production still exceeds the state price of 16 pesos for 100 arrobas (2,500 pounds) of sugarcane and the cooperative cannot break even until it achieves a higher yield. Improving labor discipline and increasing pay and other incentives for those who set an example in following agreed- to work norms were other measures discussed at the assemblies, Castro Gutiérrez said.

After these meetings, the government set up a state commission to examine the financial status of the sugarcane UBPCs on a case-by-case basis. The three-year grace period in paying back past loans will be extended in most cases.

Today the UBPCs remain associated with the sugar mill and the CAI administration. In practice, several workers said, the mill management retains too much decision-making power over the timing, varieties of planting, and other matters that co-op members thought should be in their hands.

Autonomy from sugar mills
Members of the Arcadio García UBPC argued that improving their collective control on how to run the farm, and ending a bureaucratic overcentralization that's a hangover from the old methods of organization could help increase productivity.

"We need more autonomy from the CAI in making decisions on planting," said Alexis Rodríguez. "We know better where and when to plant different cane varieties. We know better if a given variety is more likely to be affected by a plague on certain soil. There are times when the CAI administration asks us to plant a fixed quantity of a certain variety on a piece of land and it's not the right decision. When there is disagreement, the assembly of UBPC members should have the final say."

Rodríguez added, "Now they tell us we can make such decisions when the UBPC is profitable. But we may never become profitable unless we take more responsibility for all decisions and their implications."

This was one of the issues discussed at the national sugarcane assembly. In his report to the gathering, CTC general secretary Pedro Ross said the union must lead so that UBPC members can exercise fully the independence they are supposed to have from the management of the sugar mills.

"What's the purpose of autonomy?" Ross asked. "To make sure that the rules are followed; that the executive board functions; that the assembly meets periodically to take up all necessary questions; that the most capable members are elected for the administrative personnel and the executive council and those who do not respond to the just expectations of the collective are replaced."

In an interview with the Militant at the national CTC headquarters in Havana on April 29, Ross elaborated a little more on this point. "When cooperative members make more decisions themselves," he said, "they have more interest in the results of their work. Many UBPCs need more autonomy from the sugar mills. At the same time we need the consolidation into larger cooperative units to achieve more centralization and lessen competition between small co-ops that are next to each other."

Some cooperatives, for instance, have a better chance of surviving financially because their land is more fertile than others.

Since the founding of the UBPCs, an assembly of all members of each cooperative unit is supposed to meet once a month. The assembly elects, and can recall, an executive board, a manager, and those who do accounting and other administrative tasks. It also discusses and approves work norms. The executive council meets weekly to take up problems between assemblies and prepare agendas for the membership meetings.

In many UBPCs, we were told, elections take place infrequently and the membership assemblies have become routine.

At the José Arcadio García cooperative the executive board of five is elected once every five years, its director said. Among its 200 members, 15 are part of the full-time administrative personnel, most of whom had similar jobs before the 1993 reorganization.

A few members have joined this cooperative over the last two years, coming from jobs in the city. Raúl Herrera, 30, joined the UBPC a year ago after working in construction for seven years. "The food and the pay is better here," he said.

UBPC members make between 200 and 350 pesos per month, a considerable improvement over wages on the state farm.

Small increase in workforce
But the pace of recruitment lags behind what's needed, several workers said, especially since more tasks have to be carried out manually because of lack of fuel, spare parts for machinery, and herbicides.

The agricultural workforce on sugarcane UBPCs increased from 153,000 in 1993 to 168,000 three years later. "This growth falls below our expectations and the needs of the country," said Ross in his speech at the national sugarcane assembly.

A number of workers attributed this to the limited progress in improving living and working conditions on the UBPCs. The national sugarcane assembly pointed to ongoing shortages of work clothes and boots and a lag in building housing for cooperative members near the farms as problems that need to be addressed on the national level. Since 1993, co-ops have built an average of 2-3 "low consumption" houses per UBPC per year - compared to earlier projections of 10 new houses annually - constructed with substitute cement and other hard-to-get supplies. Workers attributed this to lack of construction materials.

Rainaldo Díaz, a journalist for the magazine Bohemia, also said in an interview that problems in obtaining credits from abroad have meant that special stores in rural areas - where UBPC members could purchase soap, shampoo, and other scarce goods at low prices - often had empty shelves over the last year.

La Esperanza: better results
At La Esperanza UBPC, near the town of Abréus in Cienfuegos province, the mood among the workers was more upbeat. The cooperative has paid most of its debts and has been profitable for two years in the row. Despite a lower- than-expected yield due to damage from last fall's hurricane, the cooperative members met their goal for this harvest and had started planting on several fields for next year's crop. (Militant reporters visited the same area twice before and have reported extensively on the establishment and evolution of UBPCs. Articles based on those visits appeared in the April 18, 1994, and Jan. 10, 1995, issues.)

La Esperanza was one of 16 cooperative units created by dividing the state farm connected with the Guillermo Moncada sugar mill located in Abréus. Now there are only 8 UBPCs. "This was necessary in order to consolidate leadership," said Eladio Díaz, one of the founding members and a former combine operator. He is now in charge of the co-op's herd of 100 sheep and 85 cows.

In early 1996, La Esperanza absorbed the neighboring Jivaro UBPC, which faced losses and couldn't produce enough food for its members. "The merger has been very positive," said Julian Pérez, a mechanic and tractor operator who came from Jivaro. "We now have more workers and fewer chiefs."

The cooperative maintained an executive board of five, even though the combined membership has doubled to nearly 100. Only the accountant and the director devote most of their time strictly on administrative duties, Pérez and other workers said. The leadership council is elected every six months, "and we have often recalled members of the board who are not meeting the highest standards," Pérez added.

The maintenance brigade that Pérez is part of kept all 14 tractors and 4 combines running for the entire harvest this year, workers said with pride. The mechanics order parts for replacement only when it's absolutely necessary. "We often make our own parts out of unused machinery in the area," Pérez said.

Their reputation has spread in the region. "They are quite a bit ahead of us in repairs," said Amaurí Valero, a tractor operator at the Matún UBPC a few miles away. "They have a good executive board."

Cross training in operating combines, tractors, and other machinery, as well as cane cutting has given the cooperative more flexibility in utilizing everyone's strengths to the maximum, Díaz noted.

Workers have more than doubled the amount of land used to produce food for self-consumption to 700 acres by clearing away idle lands. "We are now totally self- sufficient in food," Díaz said. In addition to a variety of vegetables, poultry, and eggs, UBPC members get one liter of milk per day. Every family on the cooperative gets 800 pounds of rice annually, or an average of 1 pound of rice per person every day.

"We can't sell on the agricultural markets but we can exchange surplus produce with other UBPCs in the area for items we lack," Díaz said. As a result, all eight co-ops around the Guillermo Moncada complex have become self- sufficient in food. Sugarcane cooperatives are not allowed to sell food they grow for their members on the agricultural markets, because, according to Díaz, "many would drastically cut cane production in that case."

Spreading the example
La Esperanza has an advantage over farms in other regions, like the Cifuentes municipality in Villa Clara, because there is more water for irrigation. "Detailed attention to organization has also helped," Díaz noted.

Díaz, 58, volunteered twice in Angola in 1976-78 and 1981-84. He was among 350,000 Cubans who fought alongside the Angolan army and Namibian liberation fighters over 15 years, decisively defeating invasions of the country by the army of the apartheid regime in South Africa. The victory resulted in the independence of Namibia and gave a boost to the struggle to bring down the apartheid regime itself.

He compared that period with today. "After Angola, it was a little easier for discipline and revolutionary enthusiasm to catch on," Díaz said. "Our challenge today is to spread examples like the one at La Esperanza around the country."  
 
 
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