The plot reads like a detective novel — shadowy oligarchs, a phantom airline, an unexplained death and a tropical island on the cusp of change. The twist is that this tale of alleged capitalist greed and corruption unfolds in Cuba, in the twilight of Castro rule, and the detectives are Communist Party officials.
If this were fiction, the author would be accused of over-egging things by making one of the protagonists a former bodyguard for former Chilean president Salvador Allende who becomes a guerrilla commander and ends up a tycoon nicknamed Potbelly.
Cuba’s biggest corruption scandal in years has ensnared stalwarts of the revolution, led to dozens of arrests and resignations and shone a light on clandestine preparations for the government’s possible collapse. An investigation into the food firm Rio Zaza — a joint venture between the Cuban government and the Chilean bodyguard-turned-businessman, Max Marambio — has spread to the airport, where senior officials allegedly used state aircraft to rake in millions of illicit dollars.
The civil aviation minister, Rogelio Acevedo, was fired in April and last month it was the turn of Jorge Luis Sierra Cruz, the transport minister, to be “liberated from his duties for errors committed in the performance of his functions.”
Corruption scandals are not new, but what has shocked Cubans is that the alleged scams are said to have been an effort to cash in before things crumble.
“It has become evident that there are people in government and state positions who are preparing a financial assault for when the revolution falls,” Esteban Morales, a historian and prominent commentator, wrote on the Web site of the state National Artists and Writers Union of Cuba.
Corruption posed a graver threat to the revolution than political dissidents, he said, because it came from within — from greedy party apparatchiks.
“Others are likely have everything ready to produce the transfer of state property into private hands, like what happened in the former Soviet Union,” he said.
The scandal broke in December last year, when the authorities jailed Lucy Leal, an accountant for Rio Zaza, over alleged irregularities at the food and drinks producer. More arrests followed, including employees of a sister company, the Sol y Son travel agency. In April, Rio Zaza’s Chilean manager, Roberto Baudrand, was found dead in his Havana flat in unexplained circumstances.
Suicide, said some; stress caused by seven-hour interrogation sessions, others said. Chilean diplomats lobbied in vain for an independent post-mortem examination.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not