Raúl Castro plans to visit Kiev this year
(Editor’s Note: With the recent upheaval and unrest in the Ukraine, and President Yanukovyich’s exit from that country, we believe that Castro’s visit may no longer be viable.)
Cuban President Raúl Castro is planning to visit Kiev, said Cuba’s ambassador to Ukraine, Ernesto Antonio Senti Darias, in an interview with the Ukrainian newspaper Sivodnya [Today].
“We delivered a note to that effect” to the government of President Viktor Yanukovych, Senti Darias is quoted as saying. “Meanwhile, we are preparing the visits of our ministers of Energy and Health and the president of the Cuban Central Bank.”
Senti Darias did not say when the visits would be made or if they would be made concurrently.
President Yanukvych paid a three-day visit to Cuba in October 2011 at Raúl Castro’s invitation.
The president’s brother, Fidel, visited Kiev almost 51 years ago, in June of 1963, when he made a month-long tour of the Soviet Union at the invitation of Prime Minister Nikita S. Khrushchev.
Cuba’s minister of Health is Roberto Morales Ojeda; the minister of Energy is Alfredo López Valdés; the head of the Central Bank is Ernesto Medina Villaveirán.
The ambassador’s disclosure of Raúl Castro’s intended visit came during a wide-ranging interview about relations between Ukraine and Cuba, including tourism, trade, industry and the economy.
Asked if Cuba’s economic updates are comparable to the Soviet Union’s perestroika reforms, Senti Darias demurred.
“Cuba has never been a closed country and socialism originated there in a natural way,” he answered. “It was not ‘imported’ from the Soviet Union. Our actions after the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party are not a transition to capitalism. Cuba is developing its own model of the economy.”
“I’m not saying that this is the best model, but it is our model, which is very important,” the diplomat explained. “All transformations make the Cuban economy more efficient,” he said, citing land-leasing to farmers and cooperative management of agriculture.
“We are faced with a huge challenge: we need to develop various sectors of our economy, we need to solve the problem of energy independence,” he said.
The ambassador mentioned the recent opening of the international Port of Mariel, near the capital, and pointed out that “the old Port of Havana will perform only tourism functions.”
“Despite the U.S. economic blockade, we gain new markets and attract investment,” he said.
