When the State turns a blind eye: Castroism holds Cubans responsible for the poverty of their relatives

"Beggars are not compatible with the Cuban social project", Granma titles its most recent attempt to gloss over the misery sown by the regime for over six decades. In a shameless display of cynicism, the government seeks to shift the burden of extreme poverty onto Cuban families, demanding that uncles, nephews, siblings, and any available relative take responsibility for the beggars that the system itself has created.

According to the Family Code, Cubans are legally required to provide for the sustenance, housing, health, and even recreation of their needy relatives. In other words, if your uncle ends up on the street because the salary paid by the State is not enough for him to buy even a carton of eggs, it is your fault for not supporting him, not the regime's for condemning him to poverty.

This is nothing more than an implicit acknowledgment of the absolute failure of the Cuban state. For decades, they have boasted of a supposed "social justice" that exists only in the speeches from the Plaza de la Revolución. But the reality is different: the average Cuban has to rely on the charity of their relatives abroad to survive. Because in Cuba, everyone who receives remittances is a forced beggar, dependent on the gifts, handouts, and aid from friends and relatives who escaped from the socialist hell.

Meanwhile, the Cuban government is the ultimate beggar. It constantly solicits loans that it never repays, demands donations from the UN and the European Union, and exploits its doctors abroad to scrape together some foreign currency. And when they run out of money, they neither seek solutions nor reform the economy; instead, they simply squeeze the people even more with new regulations and price increases in their state monopolies.

If there are beggars in Cuba, it is because the regime has destroyed the citizens' ability to thrive on their own. If people have to rummage through the trash, it is because the government has turned the nation into an unviable country. And if families have to support each other, it is because the State is good for nothing but repression and plundering.

Do not come now to speak of "family solidarity" when they have spent decades persecuting, dividing, and impoverishing Cubans. If they want to find the true culprits of the poverty in Cuba, they should not look to uncles and nephews. They should look at the Palace of the Revolution and the military of GAESA, the only ones who have never had to beg or depend on anyone.