Cuba: 55 Reasons for a New Anniversary

55th Anniversary of the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution

Reblogged from La Santa Mambisa (Google translation)

By: Omar Perez Solomon

When it comes to Cuba,-as well as Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, the great capitalist press deploys its machinery so that everything that is disclosed and perceived by the public is what suits the imperialist interests.  As stated by the Doctor Political Science and Sociology, and Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, LA Diez, “Journalists have hidden the positive indicators, and disseminated only, with magnification, the negative”. As sociologists often say if you torture the data enough they eventually confess what you want. ”

Despite the tightening of the U.S. blockade, the global economic crisis and the systematic distortion of the Cuban reality in capitalist media, Cuba advances in updating its economic and social model, and it’s prestige is increasing internationally..

Among the positive indicators that the imperial magnifying glass fails to see, I call the attention of 55 facts that show the strength of the Cuban Revolution on the eve of its anniversary.

1.    The 2013 Human Development Report of the United Nations Program for Development (UNDP), which considers the index of life expectancy, access to education and standard of living, ranks Cuba 59th in 187 countries, with high human development.

2.    Economic Plan 2014 ensures the necessary resources for the exports of goods and services, and preserves programs for investors designed to generate new and growing revenue.

3.    Cuba is working based on projections for Social and Economic Development until 2030, with the purpose of creating the foundation for a prosperous and sustainable society.

An international benchmark of participatory democracy in the workplace

4.    The National People’s Assembly approved the new Labour Code, which was previously discussed by more than 2 million 800 thousand workers in all occupational groups in the country, generating 171 000 680 approaches which significantly modified the initial version, which is today an international benchmark of participatory democracy in the workplace.

5.    Measures are underway to provide greater autonomy to the socialist state enterprise, which will, from 2014, foster better use of their productive capacities, market access, multiply its exports, helping to lower imports and progress in implementing the socialist concept of remuneration according to work.

6.    Mariel Special Zone Development, which represents an opportunity for Cuba to attract foreign investment and modern technology experience, forms and methods of management, and the expansion of new jobs for the people has been created.

7.    Improving policy for foreign investment, which involves passing a new law next March in the National Assembly will encourage the production of goods and services to stimulate economic and social development if approved

8.    Electricity generation now meets the demand of the economy both in the state sector and residential, from a more efficient use of energy carriers.  This is expected to continue in 2014..

Expansion of the labour force

9.    There has been an expansion of the labor force which is acting as a dynamic element in the sphere of consumption and services.  There is also a growing trend in revenue earned by the State which is to be invested for the good of our people.

10. The experiment of non-agricultural cooperatives, which number more than 250, working in industry and services, and which are allowing saving in imports, have created domestic solutions and encourage creativity while rescuing local and national traditions.

11.  More than 400,000 Cubans who are self-employed, are protected by the social security system, with guarantees for retirement.

Cuba will not implement the neoliberal shock therapy for its economy

12.   In Cuba there will never be  economic adjustment packages or the neoliberal shock therapy style as currently occurs in several European countries.

13. The level of unemployment is below 5%, a figure that places it among the top 30 best performing countries in this field, over developed countries like the U.S., France and others.

14. 54 percent of the running costs of the budgeted activity – 17 thousand 191 million pesos – is allocated to social services received by Cubans for free.

15. Cuba guarantees free and universal access to public health to everyone.

Public Health a priority to the Cuban government

16. Public Health uses 22 percent of the running costs of the budgeted activity, which places Cuba among the countries with the highest state budget for this sector.

17.  Social assistance programmes will receive 341 million dollars from the state budget in the next year to protect disabled persons at work or who do not have family to provide support.

18. The Cuban government will guarantee the expenses of more than 80 million doctor visits in 2014, a figure higher than that for the previous year.

19. The Cuban government will increase financial support to ensure 22 million dentistry visits that allow a better quality of life for the Cuban population.

20. The public health budget is covered for 1,140,000 hospital admissions throughout the geography of the island in 2014.

21. Cuba continues to run the Integral Plan for the Prevention and Control of Iron Deficiency Anemia for children and pregnant women.

Cuba, among the best in the world

22. Cuba this year reached the lowest infant mortality rate of 4.2 per thousand births for decades and remains below 5, which ranks the country among the best countries in the world. According to United Nations statistics on the average infant mortality rate in Cuba in the period of 1955 to 1960 was 69.86 per thousand live births.

23. The maternal mortality rate is at 21 per hundred thousand, also the lowest among all nations.

24. The Cuban life expectancy at birth is 77.9 years figure that places Cuba among the most advanced in the world.

25. Cuba currently has over 56 600 doctors working in the country, which makes us one of the best in the world in number of physicians per capita.

26. The Immunization Program ensures the widest coverage of immunization in the world, allowing for the prevention of 13 diseases.

27. In 2013 more than one million transactions were made ​​and waiting times were reduced.

Expensive operations are free to Cubans 

28. This year there have been 300 corneal transplants, 121 kidney, 17 liver, 14 heart – at  no cost to patients.

29. “Operation Miracle” has led to more than 2 million surgery to restore vision in low-income people from 34 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.

30. The Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), located in Havana, graduated 9960 doctors from 58 countries in the 2005-2011 period.

Cuban doctors serve the poorest in the world

31. More than 40,000 Cuban health collaborators are involved in missions in more than 70 countries, bringing solidarity and humanism to places where inhabitants have  never seen a doctor.

32. Cuba is one of the few countries in the world that for half a century has banished illiteracy and despite the ongoing economic crisis and the U.S. aggression by its blockade, maintained for all its citizens free and universal access to education.

33. The Education sector uses 27% of the running costs of the budgeted activity in the country, confirming the will of the Cuban government to continue to ensure the gains of the revolution, even in the midst of a complex economic situation.

Cuba’s demonstrated commitment to education

34. The Monitoring Report Education for All UNESCO (2011), recognizes Cuba with a high educational development, and ranks 14th in the world.

35. In 2014 Cuba will have  1,763,500 students in middle childhood education, primary and guarantees, and 229,800 in higher education.

36. More than 2 thousand Cubans are assisting teachers in 43 countries.

37. The number of graduates from the  Cuban literacy program “Yes I can” is  8 million people in 29 countries and 1.3 million in the “yes I can follow.”

38. Cuba remains at the top of world sport with 15th place in the London Olympics with 14 medals, despite the theft of talent by developed countries.

Cuban culture:  artistic, caring, non-violent

39. The Cuban government implements measures to encourage artistic and literary creation, preservation of cultural heritage, the defense of our identity and community work, as ways to enrich the cultural life and meet the spiritual needs of Cubans.

40. Cuban culture has been represented at several events and international nominations.

41. Cuba is the Latin American country with the least violence in infants.

. 42 Cuba promotes a precautionary approach in education and social reintegration to prevent crime, it is one of the safer countries to live.

43. Cuba is one of the countries with the lowest rate of drug use and psychiatric drugs, existing programs for the prevention and confrontation of these vices, which further backed community through social and mass organizations based in the length and breadth of the country.

Cuban humanism

44. The Cuban prison system is characterized by its humanism and the implementation of various programs for the reintegration into society of prisoners.

45. Cuba ranks fifth among all countries in skill in the use of Information Technology and Communications (ICT), according to the 2012 report of the International Telecommunication Union and in the midst of economic difficulties in 2014 continue to advance the expansion and massification of hits across the country.

46. ​​More than 4 million Cubans have received instruction on ICT in Youth Computer Clubs for the past 26 years, most children and youth.

47. On December 14, the third anniversary of the first social network digital content Cuba was held EcuRed , which has over 112,000 encyclopedia articles and receives over 120,000 daily visits.

48. Migration began in Cuba to digital terrestrial television with a demonstration area in the Cuban capital, which gradually spread to the rest of the country. This project will run until 2022, plans to expand television programs and incorporate other services.

49. The Strategic Exercise “Bastion 2013” , was performed successfully  with the participation of the population, which allowed continuing the constant improvement of defensive capacity achieved by the country.

US isolated in its genocidal blockade

50. 188 countries in the United Nations condemned the genocidal U.S. blockade against Cuba during the UN General Assembly last November, leaving the U.S. government again isolated in this scenario.

51. Cuba was elected member in this year’s Human Rights Council, as a sign of recognition and sympathy awakens in the world the example of the Cuban people.

52. During this year Cuba has served as President Pro Tempore of the CELAC, arranging action to strengthen integration of our peoples.

53. The next January will be held in Havana Summit of Heads of State and Government of Latin America and the Caribbean, which will be another opportunity for political decision in favor of our nations.

54. More than fifteen years of unjust imprisonment in U.S. jails has not dented the conviction and courage of the Cuban heroes Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio and Fernando.

55. The Cuban people are convinced that only the unity around the Party and the Revolution will preserve the Cuban nation and the economic and social gains.

On 1 January 2014 will be held in Santiago de Cuba the 55th anniversary of the triumph of the Revolution, with many reasons to continue along the path of socialism.