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Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Cuban Economist and Castro Critic, Dies at 72

September 25, 2013 by NewsMaker

The cause was liver disease, a family spokesman said.

Mr. Espinosa Chepe (pronounced CHEH-pay) lost his job as an official of the National Bank of Cuba in 1996 after advocating the limited restoration of capitalist principles like the right to buy and sell one’s home or start a business.

He then became a journalist, writing articles for American and Spanish-language Web sites in which he used statistical data to analyze Cuba’s economic problems. In March 2003 he was one of 75 activists arrested as part of a government crackdown on dissent known as the Black Spring.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for what the government characterized as “mercenary” propagandizing on behalf of the United States government. Mr. Espinosa Chepe, who denied the accusation, was released in November 2004 because of failing health.

The crackdown brought international attention to a society of disparate dissidents in Cuba that had emerged in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. They included independent journalists, religious leaders, labor union organizers and academics who called for democratic overhauls and greater individual liberties, and found outlets for their views on Web sites like CubaNet and Nueva Prensa Cubana, both based in Miami, and Encuentro, in Madrid.

Mr. Espinosa Chepe, who joined Castro’s revolutionary government in the early 1960s and was once head of the powerful Office of Agrarian Reform, had frequently clashed with fellow economic planners over policies he considered overly dogmatic.

His internal critique became increasingly adamant after 1991, when the loss of the Soviet Union’s financial support began taking a devastating toll on the country’s economy. But his proposals for change, many of which had already been adopted in former Soviet bloc states, were labeled counterrevolutionary, said Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a professor emeritus of economics and Latin American studies at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on Cuban economic policies.

Despite opportunities to resettle in the United States or Spain after he was fired, colleagues said, Mr. Espinosa Chepe kept his small book-lined apartment in Havana and began writing about Cuba’s economy. Like the writings of other dissidents, his articles mainly reached Cuban expatriate communities. But his voice was familiar to Cubans who heard his broadcasts for Radio Martí, the United States government radio station that broadcasts from Miami.

“He was the best-known and most independent-minded economist in Cuba,” Professor Mesa-Lago said, and by refusing for years to leave, “he sacrificed his health and ultimately his life for his country.”

Chronically ill from liver disease, Mr. Espinosa Chepe had initially received government permission to visit Spain in 2010 for medical treatment, including a possible liver transplant. But learning at the last minute that the government’s permission stipulated that he never return, he scrapped the plan, Professor Mesa-Lago said.

Mr. Espinosa Chepe finally departed for medical treatment in Madrid six months ago, accompanied by his wife, Miriam Leiva, when the Cuban government, under pressure from international humanitarian groups, reversed itself to permit the couple’s return.

Mr. Espinosa Chepe was born in the central province of Cienfuegos on Nov. 29, 1940, to a father who was a Communist and a mother who was a fervent Roman Catholic, Professor Mesa-Lago said. He graduated with several degrees in economics from the University of Havana and joined the government in 1961, two years after Mr. Castro overthrew the American-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

He was Cuba’s economic attaché to Yugoslavia in the 1980s, and he later wrote about being influenced by the experiments in market overhauls undertaken in the Soviet Union under Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

As a dissident, Mr. Espinosa Chepe wrote on a variety of topics besides economics, including the rise in alcoholism and suicide and what he called the “information apartheid” emerging in Cuba, based on the access of a privileged few to the Internet (mainly via telephone lines) and its denial to the vast majority of people.

The country’s economic stagnation, he wrote in a 2009 article titled “Crisis Over Crisis,” was having its most devastating impact on civil society. Market changes introduced since 2008 by Fidel Castro’s successor, his brother Raúl, had been inadequate to stem a tide of crime and self-dealing deeply entrenched in Cuban society because of the lack of opportunity.

“These years of prolonged and deep crisis have generated an enormous loss of spiritual values in large segments of the population,” Mr. Espinosa Chepe wrote. “People had few choices other than the black market. Egoism, mendacity, double morality, and all illegal methods of survival have proliferated to incredible levels.”

His wife is his only known survivor.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/world/americas/oscar-espinosa-chepe-cuban-economist-and-critic-of-castro-dies-at-72.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: cubanet, language web, liver disease

Rebranding of Ici Radio-Canada Is Criticized

June 9, 2013 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

OTTAWA — From its beginning almost 76 years ago, Canada’s government-owned, French-language radio and television broadcaster has been closely linked to its on-air identification: “Ici Radio-Canada.”

So closely that when it announced last week that it would rebrand itself with a highly abbreviated version of that phrase, the plan swiftly met widespread condemnation and mockery, especially from those angered over dropping the word Canada. The broadcaster’s new marketing name will be “ICI,” the French word for “here.”

The reaction came from politicians among all parties in Parliament (with the exception of the separatist Parti Québécois), in readers’ comments on Web sites, from newspaper columnists and even from the union representing the network’s employees.

Le Devoir, a Montreal newspaper, began its article about the change with, “The unthinkable, the incredible, the inconceivable has happened.” An online post from “Infoman,” a Radio-Canada satirical show, included a photo of a man playing solitaire on one of the broadcaster’s computers. Its caption, designed to resemble the ICI logo, translates as “HERE we work hard!”

Some critics carried more weight. James Moore, the federal minister responsible for about $1 billion given to Radio-Canada and its English counterpart, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, each year, said the change took him by surprise and was not to his liking.

“Canada’s public broadcaster’s name is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation — in French, Société Radio-Canada — and I said to the President of C.B.C., Canadians will support a Canadian broadcaster if only they ensure the broadcaster is Canadian in content and name,” Mr. Moore, the minister of Canadian heritage, told the House of Commons on Thursday.

Some online critics, particularly on English-language Web sites, suggested that Quebec separatism was a factor in the new name. Radio-Canada has employed people who later sought office for various political parties, and it has been associated with several prominent separatists. Long before he became Quebec’s first separatist premier, René Lévesque was one of Radio-Canada’s best known journalists.

Pierre Nantel, a member of the opposition New Democratic Party, called such speculation groundless. Although Mr. Nantel, a former broadcaster who briefly worked at Radio-Canada, said it was important to keep the network at arm’s length from politicians, he added that he was somewhat puzzled by the rebranding.

“Everyone is against them,” he said from the Montreal suburb he represents in Parliament. “Why are they playing with a brand if everyone likes it?”

On Friday, William B. Chambers, the broadcaster’s vice president for brand, communications and corporate affairs, said that it was all a misunderstanding induced by the network’s “enthusiasm” for its new identity.

“Our purpose is not to hide or set aside ‘Radio-Canada,’ ” he said. The ICI rebranding, he said, is simply an attempt to add a succinct, single name to the wide variety of broadcast and Internet services it operates.

But it appears that “Radio-Canada” will generally not be seen or heard by listeners, viewers and readers. The prominent “Radio-Canada.ca” label on its home page, for example, will be become “ICI.ca” in October.

The loss of the full name in most instances, Mr. Chambers said, will be offset by including the network’s abstract logo. It is so well known that, in Mr. Chambers’s view, it immediately summons “Radio-Canada” in the minds of most people. While Mr. Chambers called it “the gem,” the logo is more commonly known as “the pizza” and has been around in various forms for about 40 years.

“It’s one of the most powerful logos in the country,” Mr. Chambers said. How that word association will work on radio, which will rename its main network ICI Première as of August, was unclear.