Late Castroism has already lost the London trial because many Cubans, including those suffering in body and soul from the Olive Green and Guayaberada castes, want Havana to do poorly after trying again to resolve a conflict between a believer and a debtor to be ideologized who owes the eleven thousand virgins.
Castro’s financial filibuster has led Cuba and its current rulers into a complicated scenario; primarily due to the precedent character of Saxon law, which would open a cascade of similar claims in the event of a decision in favor of CFR I Limited; as already formulated by ICBC Standard Bank PLC, of which the majority shareholder is Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC); that is required of Havana as a whole $1,344 million; between capital and interest.
A State owing eleven thousand maidens is a failure, but if its chief victims are glad it is losing in London; even when they know that a negative verdict will mean more hunger and misery for them, the separation between government and people is total; no matter how hard the Pinocchios try to invent the bitter truths.
Challenging the international order and repeatedly failing to meet payment obligations only leads to suicide; although the Bluff Commission now appears and denounces the immorality of world capitalism, which should not have been so bad when communism fell of its own accord and without pressure. It fell apart!, as the chief debtor liked to say, following Raúl Castro; recognized expert in the fall, socializing losses and privatizing successes; always with anti-imperialist gibberish.
With the exception of the reformist period of Raúl Castro Ruz, who tried to honor international commitments; The remainder of Castro’s recholata has been non-payment from 1959 to the present, haggling with creditors using cheap excuses and impish maneuvers, and even promoting a global insurgency against foreign debt.
Some analysts claim that Castroism’s failures stem from the campaign against foreign debt in the 1980s; but history shows that Fidel Castro was clear since 1959 that his revolution had to be characterized by not paying the loans and, if the creditor became farruco, by maneuvering to disguise the debt and tried to discredit him; as late Castroism is now doing with the CFR I Limited Fund based in the Cayman Islands calling it the Vulture.
If the financial vultures arouse so much revulsion in Havana, how do you agree to the sale of Cuban debt as junk bonds?
In 1959 the revolutionary government did not recognize; and therefore also has a debt generated by previous cabinets of $52 million. Cuba’s International Reserves; added at that time $505 million, which is the second largest in Latin America after Venezuela. In that year Castroism expropriated private banks, confiscated bank deposits and Cubana de Aviación.
In 1960, Castroism expropriated US assets for a value of almost two billion dollars; for which he paid no compensation. It was the largest seizure of US assets in history that triggered the embargo. The regime also confiscated property valued at from Cubans and foreigners who had emigrated $6.7 billion.
In 1991, with the disappearance of the USSR and the domino fall of the CAME zone, Havana itself decreed the cancellation of its debt to the old socialist camp; Decision that complicated relations with Yeltsin, Putin and other states emerging from communist ruin.
A painter High Court of Justice of England and Wales Determining whether the CFR I Limited fund has the status of a creditor to the Cuban government and its judgment is unfavorable to Havana would recreate an episode in Cuba from 2002, when a clash between Fidel Castro and then-Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda led the commander to modify a private debt taken out by Cuban companies with the Banco de Comercio Exterior de México (BANCOMEXT).
Castro changed the $279 million debt with the stroke of a pen; from Cuban trading companies with BANCOMEXT; Conversion into a sovereign (external) debt of the Republic of Cuba, transfer of the obligation to fulfill it to the National Bank (BNC), which in the London lawsuit acts as guarantor of the debts claimed by CFR I Limited.
The Mexican financial company responded by filing a lawsuit before the International Court of Arbitration in Paris, demanding the freezing of the proportional part of ETECSA’s revenues in its favour; from the collection that corresponded to him for the concept of telephone traffic, and confiscated accounts held by the Cuban state at the Italian bank Intensa San Paolo.
The Paris award was devastating for Cuba; to the point that the legendary Director of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) Olga Miranda commented that before reading it to him you had to take a nerve pill; but a formal deficiency appreciated by the French state and the arrival of Felipe Calderón in the presidency of Mexico prevented the bleeding of Dollars from reaching Almendares; although Havana had to take on the debt to BANCOMEXT.
At that time ETECSA was a mixed company with Italian capital from Telecom; but now the Cuban telephone company is a state monopoly, subordinate to the financial, business and military conglomerate GAESA, which maintains the same business niche and works with European carriers, which provide ETECSA with a good part of its revenues from traffic and international top-ups.
Should the case arise, CFR I Limited could resort to the same option to recover Cuba’s legacy debt dating back to 1981, with the benefit of the precedent of the Paris Court’s arbitral award and knowledge of the deficiency in a way that facilitates bilateral negotiations with the Government of Calderón, then.
If, after the conclusion of the London process, the parties do not agree on a negotiated settlement before the final judgment is rendered, the Cuban government will be exposed to its counterpart taking the appropriate legal action to obtain foreclosure of the approved loan, which means that it may request the confiscation or security of assets identified as belonging to the Republic of Cuba; in any jurisdiction where the judgment of the UK courts is upheld.
But at this point of anger, CFR I Limited and the London court itself know that the Paris Arbitration Court has for years dismissed the resources and maneuvers of Cuba, which owns the finance company Rafin, SA, the International Finance Bank (BFI), from Havin Bank Ltd based in London City, and owned by Habanos, SA; although most traditional tobacco brands are already foreign owned.
The Cuban government’s constant and repeated opacity regarding the accounts of the above entities arguing the US embargo are poorly paid tricks that convince few in the world, and the London court and the opposing party know it.
Given the current precarious situation of the Cuban economy, the impossibility of accessing loans from international financial organizations and the persistent default, perhaps the only objective alternative left to the Cuban government – in the face of a possible unfavorable verdict in the current legal dispute being settled in London – to offer CFR I Limited business and investment on the island, with significant tax exemptions and benefits.
But that would be another story; that it wouldn’t be easy either, because Havana ignored negotiation proposals from the Cayman Islands-based fund, which – before denouncing – attempted a mutually beneficial bilateral deal, and if anyone wins in court; In the event of a pact, he hardens his position, knowing that the loser will walk like the sharpener’s dog, which ate the sparks to eat something hot.
It is better for the Olive and Guayaberada caste to contemplate why so many Cubans are happy about their defeats than to go around absurdly confusing the pita with errors that reflect their growing discredit and their absolute dependence on the United States, capitalism , only strengthen and solidarity emigration to him who despises and rides.