Some cadres are square: A reply to Granma

By Roberto G. Peralo

From La Joven Cuba (The Young Cuba)

For some time now, the blog La Joven Cuba has been publishing replies to articles and opinions that appear in the media. As part of the changes we are making in this blog, we’re considering turning these replies into a permanent section.

To spice up the debate, we turn to the newspaper Granma, which on June 20 (Pg. 8) published an article titled “A Fleet in Trouble,” written by Ronald Suárez Rivas.

The journalist reports that a fishing company that exports about 24 million dollars a year – 40 percent of Cuba’s revenues for fish exports – has most of its fleet in dry dock and is not meeting its production plans. The reason given for the problem is that the company has no resources – cement, metallic mesh, steel bars and wood – to provide the necessary maintenance to the ships.

Reading the article, I wished I could learn the real cause of the problem. The article mentions the director of the unit in charge of repairing the ships. The only thing this cadre does is to say that he hasn’t been given the resources to repair the ships.

[Author’s Note: Cadre comes from the Latin quadrum, i.e., square. It describes a person involved in the command of a company or public administration who disguises himself as a revolutionary leader to conceal his incapacity, ineptitude and opportunism.]

I’m struck by the fact that the company has, in addition to a director of repairs, a “specialist” in naval maintenance. According to him, he “did his job”; the necessary resources were requested in mid-2011, he says. Is that his only job? (I like it already: asking for things to be given to him.)

The article also mentions a director of fishing operations, who evaluates the problem by confirming that the production plans will be foiled by the delay in maintenance. According to her, this will affect the economic results of the company. Her conclusions are profound and hard to arrive at: “Technic is technic, and without technic there’s no technic.”

By the time I got to the final paragraphs, I thought they might name the responsible people and identify the cause of the problem, but the article only quoted the director of the company that was supposed to furnish the necessary materials, saying that he “recognizes the harm that was caused, but the situation derives from various causes that will be evaluated during the legal process.” Why didn’t the reporter ask what those various causes are?

So much for the article, the denunciation and the investigation. A good opportunity was wasted to evaluate the competence and capabilities of a group of managers who had to solve a problem. That could have been done by asking two or three uncomfortable questions and publishing – verbatim – their answers or their refusal to answer.

Another thing that should have been done (and wasn’t) was to expose all the legal obstacles and bureaucratic mechanisms that thwart and halt the development of the productive forces. One doesn’t have to be an expert on this subject; the guidelines of the Party Congress have broached it. This was an ideal opportunity to evaluate the industries’ compliance with the guidelines and to objectively tackle the causes that are delaying their implementation.

Objective No. 71 of the Party Conference states: “To guarantee that the mass media rely on scientific criteria and studies, that they be an effective platform of expression for culture and debate and open a path to knowledge, analysis and the permanent exercise of opinion. To demand from the press and the information sources that they fulfill their respective responsibilities, so as to ensure the development of an investigative journalism that is newsier and more objective.”

While I’m not trying to justify the author of the article, I acknowledge that most times journalists don’t have timely access to information, or influence or support to question the cadres and specialists in charge of the issues at hand. The result is boring and superficial articles.

When we journalists put a label on the problem and try to get into its essence, these cadres consider themselves challenged. They pound their desks and make our lives miserable by denying us knowledge of cause.

But, as Raúl Castro said, “We must be ready to get into trouble by defending our ideas and firmly confronting any wrongdoing.” He clearly knows the reality.

I close with some questions for the newspaper Granma: Will we ever learn he results of the judicial process? Will these cadres indemnify the Cuban state for the losses created by their mismanagement? Will they still hold management posts? Might other problems – greater and worse – be hiding behind these problems? Will you follow this story to its final outcome and will you inform our people?