Surviving 12 Presidents of the United States, all with ravenous appetites and a claim to eat the little alligator for lunch, is one of the greatest acts of heroism by any people on earth.
It is impossible to refer to advances, to development, without mentioning the blockade, that suffocating fence around Cuba as one of the most shameless forms of intervention. Blockers have known this well for 64 years.
After several generations of governments devoted to US interests, on January 1, 1959, the unredeemed Island was born, which, led by a group of young revolutionaries, refused to believe in the duty of obedience.
In addition, that same luck of remaining and daring, for more than six decades! It is transformed into decisive energy, the same that made it possible to turn the colony into a homeland, with the last war of liberation.
Although they have tried to label it as a prohibited country, Cuba stands as a nation of political dignity and an independent island on which dreamy people travel who are building their own future, with multiple clairvoyance and moral authority.
Under the guidance of the historical leader, Fidel Castro, and his followers, his brother Raúl and Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, always together with his people, the proposals for surrender were undone long ago and they trusted once again in that capacity to resilience of Cubans to stay afloat. "Creative resistance", has been called by President Díaz-Canel.
When the historical enemy of the Revolution denied all kinds of help in the most difficult stage of Covid-19, even preventing the arrival of lung ventilators a little over two years ago, Cuba responded by manufacturing its own and high effectiveness dose vaccines. A European newspaper was forced to admit it and displayed headlines: Cuba achieves the first Latin American vaccine with effectiveness data at the level of Pfizer and Moderna.
Nevertheless, Cuba and its successes continue to hurt the usual. This is demonstrated by the words of Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla: “Rather, obstacles have been placed to the collection efforts and efforts of solidarity groups, Cubans, and American civil society organizations, which have indeed sent humanitarian aid whose moral value is immense for our town".
2022 was also a year plagued by difficult situations, but despite this, Cuba continued determined not only to resist, but also to advance.
A CODE, NEW LAWS AND ELECTIONS
In the vote for the new Family Code, 6.25 million Cubans participated (74.01% of the census), and 3.93 million (66.87%) voted in favor, a reality that gave life to a Code tempered to its time.
In addition to this, new laws strengthen the Cuban legal system: Penal Code, Penal Enforcement Law and Constitutional Rights Protection Law, and the Laws of Companies, Public Health and Protection of Consumer Rights, State Patrimony, of Transparency and Access to Information, of the Attorney General of the Republic, of the Comptroller General of the Republic, of the Central State Administration, of Public Health and the Law of Associative Forms, of Food Security and Nutritional Sovereignty, of Protection of Personal Data, Protection of Constitutional Rights, the System of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Housing Law, the Promotion and Development of Livestock, among others.
Some could make a difference in the short and medium term: the Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Security Law; that of Personal Data, which responds to the need to protect the personal information of citizens; and the new Law of the Penal Code, which, within the novel aspects, includes the infractions and illegal acts that affect the radio spectrum, the environment and the natural heritage, and the increase in the rigor of the sanctions for acts related to the economic or administrative corruption.
About to say goodbye to 2022, Cuba was submerged in hectic months, perhaps like no other year (excluding those of the pandemic).
The elections last November were born on the right foot, when 12,422 Cubans were elected as delegates of the municipal assemblies of Popular Power; the heroes of our neighborhoods, as Esteban Lazo Hernández, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the National Assembly of People's Power, said.
The attendance at the polls of 5,728,220 Cubans of voting age – 68.58% of those registered in the updated lists of voters: 5,478 are women, for 44.10%; 1,579 are young people between 16 and 35 years old, 12.71%, and almost half of those elected by popular will (6,082 people, 48.96%) were re-elected in office – it was a sign of calm, organization, discipline and compliance with the law.
INVESTMENTS: COUNTRY STRATEGY
Trained in the art of not being overcome by difficulties, Cuba continued in 2022 with the development of investments in important areas, such as the use of renewable energy sources: the existing wind farms in Holguín, Ciego de Ávila and Isla de la Juventud and the bioelectric plant next to the Ciro Redondo plant, in the start-up phase; in addition to the repair and modernization of the Thermoelectric Power Plants and the arrival of floating plants, coming from Turkey.
To achieve energy sovereignty, the country should reach 100% of the generation with renewable energy sources, while today it only covers 5% of the matrix. We are a long way from reaching that figure, for which at least 11,000 MW will be required installed in photovoltaic solar parks, some 2,000 MW in wind energy, as well as producing a potential of close to 800 MW in sugarcane biomass, and all this does not exclude what may be possible in homes, through the installation of small solar panels and wind turbines.
The bioelectric plant restarts the generation of current (about 60 MW at full capacity), with the entry into action of the neighboring plant, which has undergone an investment process in its modernization.
The floating plants contracted by Cuba to Turkey are a fast alternative for the generation of current, since the assembly of a Thermoelectric Plant can take up to five years.
“For this reason, in the last two years, mobile power generation plants have been used as an alternative, a business in which we rent the patana and immediately have the generation. It is not an investment that takes time," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said last June.
The struggle for survival today bears the marks of the gradual updating of the Cuban economic model in the continuation of many other works, among which are three large transfer systems: East-West (water supply to the city of Holguín, the tourist hub in the north-eastern zone, irrigation and mitigation of the effects of flooding in the face of heavy rains), Center-East (Sancti Spíritus, Ciego de Ávila) and North-South (Guantánamo), which benefits thousands of hectares destined to food production.
The colossal effort of the country to not let itself be defeated, to which is also added the need to increase –and accelerate– foreign direct investment flows and increase the participation of foreign capital in the Gross Domestic Product.
For all this, the formation of human capital has been essential, of a people that has also made it possible to strengthen the tourist infrastructure, the development of the biotechnological industry, the export of services and creative resistance, silent weapons and dignity, against everyone who intends to have lunch at the small alligator settled –crossed for some– in the middle of the Caribbean.