流亡古巴人返國拉抬經濟----中壢英文補習班 @ 金學堂英語的部落格

【聯合報／By DAMIEN CAVE／陳世欽譯】

Some Cuban Exiles Return to Help

HAVANA — The business ideas have ranged from a bikini franchise to restaurants and software design firms . But more novel than the pitches, in a country where entrepreneurship used to be illegal, is the financial muscle behind them: Cuban- Americans whose families lost their previous ventures to Cuba’s Communist government.

“It’s all about people not losing hope and seeing that starting a business is a way to improve their lives,” said Eduardo Mestre, 65, a Wall Street banker who returned to Cuba last year for the first time since 1960 to see the start-up training he helps finance. “Emotionally, it’s very hard not to connect with people who have all this ambition in a place where maintaining hope is very hard to do.”

Many of the first Cubans to leave after Fidel Castro took over are reuniting with the island they left in bitterness and anger, overcoming decades of heated opposition to its leaders, and partnering with Cubans in new ways.

Some are educating a new crop of Cuban entrepreneurs to take advantage of the recent limited openings for private enterprise in Cuba. Exiles in Miami have also helped finance the renovation of Cuba’s most revered Roman Catholic shrine. Young heirs to the Bacardi family, which fled Cuba after the revolution, leaving behind luxurious homes and a rum business that employed 6,000 people, are sending disaster relief and supporting artists.

Alfonso Fanjul, the Florida sugar baron, recently said that he had gone back to Cuba twice, meeting with Cuban officials and later declaring that he would consider investing under the “right circumstances.”

It has been a shocking reversal for a community of exiles that has long supported the American embargo against Cuba. And though the activity is legal through exceptions to the sanctions, some Cuban-American lawmakers have responded with outrage.

Even so, what has emerged as President Raúl Castro has opened the economy, just a crack, is an alternative approach that emphasizes grass-roots engagement, often through churches, as a tool for giving Cubans skills and independence from the state.

“We think engagement, dialogue and interaction — lowering the barriers — is the best way to develop civil society,” Mr. Mestre said, “but also some of us who feel some respect for the 11 million people stuck there, we just really feel that’s the right thing to do.”

The Cuba Emprende Foundation, a nonprofit on which Mr. Mestre is a board member, has struggled to reassure Cuban officials that its founders are interested only in incubating small businesses, in line with the government’s stated economic policy.

Cuban officials suggest that Cuba Emprende must be part of a covert Washington plot, board members say. A Cuban instructor in Havana, who spoke anonymously to protect the program, said the pressure had increased as Cuba Emprende grew; by mid-March, 731 graduates had completed the 80-hour course.

One of Cuba Emprende’s first graduates, in 2012 , said the program played a major role in helping her realize her dream . Niuris Higueras Martínez, 39, opened Atelier, one of Havana’s most popular restaurants.

“Everything in that course was important,” she said, including how to calculate her books or change her menu for the slow season.

Now, in her business and others, there is a demand for more opportunity, along with barriers. Cuban law and the American embargo prohibit Cuba Emprende from bankrolling its students’ ideas as it would like to. Without enough capital for bigger ventures, including Ms. Higueras’s dream of a cooking school, some ambitions are just visions.

During the dinner rush at Atelier, however, with foreigners and Cubans enjoying food and service that had disappeared from Havana for decades, Ms. Higueras focused on how far she had come.

“If you have 15 employees, you have at least 10 families whose troubles are suddenly resolved,” she said . “If you open a little, you get a lot.”

中譯

做生意的點子包括比基尼加盟店、餐館與軟體設計公司。然而在這個自行創業曾經違法的國家，更新奇的卻是背後出資的人：家族事業曾被古巴共黨政府沒收的古巴裔美國人。

65歲的華爾街銀行家梅斯特雷1960年離開古巴，去年首次重返，看看他資助的新創企業訓練計畫成果如何。他說：「關鍵在於人們不放棄希望，認為創業是改善生計的方法。他們身處保持希望不易之地卻依然大有抱負，在情感上很難對他們不加聞問。」

古巴前總統卡斯楚掌權後第一批流亡國外的古巴人，最近有不少回到當年懷著悲痛與憤怒遠離的祖國，克服長期反對古巴領導人的心理，並以新方式與古巴人結為夥伴。

有人利用古巴政府最近有限度允許自營生意的良機，培訓新一代的古巴創業家。旅居邁阿密的古巴流亡人士並資助翻修古巴人最崇敬的天主教堂。巴卡迪家族在古巴爆發共產革命後流亡海外，留下豪宅與曾雇用六千人的蘭姆酒生意，其年輕一代的繼承人最近開始向祖國輸送災害救濟，並贊助祖國的藝術家。

佛羅里達州蔗糖大亨范胡爾最近表示回過古巴兩次會晤古巴官員。他後來又說，考慮「條件適合」時在古巴投資。

古巴流亡社群長年支持美國對古巴實施禁運，今昔對比轉變驚人。雖然這些活動是禁運制裁下的合法例外，部分古巴裔美國國會議員對此還是忿忿不平。

即使如此，古巴總統勞爾‧卡斯楚開放古巴經濟的一個小縫隙，卻是強調草根性接觸的一個替代性選擇，而且通常透過教會進行，使古巴人得以培養專業技能，同時不再仰賴政府。

梅斯特雷說：「我們認為接觸、對話與互動，進而減少障礙，是發展公民社會的上策。然而我們當中有些人對受困於古巴的1100萬古巴人懷有一定的敬意，對我們這些人而言，這真是該做的事。」

梅斯特雷是非營利組織「古巴承諾基金」的董事之一。該基金不斷向古巴官員保證，基金創辦人只對扶植古巴小企業有興趣，絕對符合古巴政府宣示的經濟政策。

董事會成員透露，古巴官員認為「古巴承諾基金」必屬華府陰謀之一環。哈瓦那一名為保護該計畫而要求匿名的古巴講師說，隨著「古巴承諾基金」的不斷成長，壓力也相對增加。至三月中旬為止，已有731人修完80小時課程結業。