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I agree with Victor that this is the appropriate course of action.
I'm sure you do, but the AFD certainly didn't, and the section in the Cuba article barely scratches the surface of this - see talk
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'''Tourist segregation in Cuba''', in which local people are often barred from state-owned tourist facilities, is a controversial aspect of [[tourism in Cuba]]. It has widely been dubbed "[[tourist apartheid]]" in an allusion to the policies of [[History of South Africa in the apartheid era|apartheid]]-era [[South Africa]], under which black citizens faced extensive [[racial segregation]] of public facilities. In Cuba, security guards frequently bar Cuban nationals from entering hotels, beaches, restaurants, and other tourist facilities. This has become "a lightning rod for public frustration" , as [[Human Rights Watch]] puts it.<ref>[http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/cuba/Cuba996-03.htm CUBA'S REPRESSIVE MACHINERY: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution], IX. LABOR RIGHTS, June 1999. ISBN 1-56432-234-3</ref> It has been widely noted and criticised by international commentators and tourist guides.<ref>° "One of the most disconcerting aspects of contemporary Cuba is the government's creation of exclusive 'foreigner-only' tourism zones where Cuban nationals aren't welcome. Effectively, there are two Cubas, a reality that reeks of something akin to tourism apartheid, as many observers have noted."[http://www.frommers.com/destinations/cuba/3173020876.html A Cultural Primer: Tourist Apartheid & Jineterismo], [[Frommer's]] Travel Guide to Cuba, 2006. Retrieved [[July 10]], 2006.</ref>
#REDIRECT [[Tourism in Cuba#Impact on Cuban society and tourism apartheid]]

[[Human Rights Watch]] states "Cuban nationals are routinely barred from enjoying amenities open to foreigners ... the best hotels, resorts, beaches, and restaurants are off limits to most Cubans, as are certain government health institutions," and contrasts this practise with the [[Constitution of Cuba]], which "bars discrimination based on 'race, skin color, sex, national origin, religious creeds, and any other type [of discrimination] offending human dignity.'"<ref>[[Human Rights Watch]]. [http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/cuba/Cuba996-03.htm CUBA'S REPRESSIVE MACHINERY: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution], III. IMPEDIMENTS TO HUMAN RIGHTS IN CUBAN LAW, June 1999. ISBN 1-56432-234-3</ref> Dr. Gillian Gunn, former fellow at the [[Center for Strategic and International Studies]] goes further, stating "The exclusion also flatly contradicts Article 43 of the Cuban constitution, which guarantees all Cubans, 'without regard to race, skin color, religious belief, or national origin,' the right to 'lodge themselves in any hotel,' 'be attended in all restaurants and establishments serving the public,' and 'enjoy the same spas, beaches, social clubs, and other centers of sport, recreation, and leisure'."<ref name=Gunn>Gunn, Gillian. {{PDFlink|[http://www.trinitydc.edu/academics/depts/Interdisc/International/caribbean%20briefings/TheSociologicalImpact.pdf The Sociological Impact of Rising Foreign Investment]|82.5&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 84539 bytes -->}}, [[Georgetown University]] Cuba Briefing Paper Series, "Tourist Apartheid", January 1993.</ref>

In response, Cuban president [[Fidel Castro]] has described Cuba's tourism policies as an economic necessity and such analysis as a "perfidious, perverse, cynical" campaign to present the current situation as "a case of discrimination."<ref name=Farah>Farah, Douglas. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/cuba/stories/econ080992.htm Catering to Foreigners Instead of Cubans Puts Castro on Defensive] ''[[Washington Post]]'' Foreign Service Sunday, [[August 9]], 1992.</ref>

==Origins==

This policy was precipitated by the economic crisis known in [[Cuba]] as "the [[Special Period]]" which began in the early 1990s, and the government's resulting need to earn hard currency to make up for lost economic aid from the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name=Salon>"The policy isn't actually new. It's been around for at least a decade, since Cuba started expanding its tourism industry to make up for lost economic aid from the Soviet Union." Cave, Damien. [http://dir.salon.com/story/people/feature/2002/02/06/cuba_apart/index.html Tourism apartheid in Cuba], ''[[Salon.com]]'', [[February 6]], 2002. Retrieved [[July 10]], 2006.<br>° "Much of the economic decline and the desperation for hard currency is due to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, which supplied Cuba with an estimated $4 billion annually in subsidized imports, principally petroleum products." Farah, Douglas. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/cuba/stories/econ080992.htm Catering to Foreigners Instead of Cubans Puts Castro on Defensive] ''[[The Washington Post]]'', August 9, 1992.<br>° "The Cuban economy is still recovering from a decline in gross domestic product of at least 35% between 1989 and 1993 due to the loss of Soviet subsidies." [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/cuba/economy.htm Cuba's Economy], Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved [[July 10]], 2006.</ref> According to Dr. María Dolores Espino, professor of Economics at [[St. Thomas University (Florida)|St. Thomas University]], the phrase arose in Cuba itself as a result of the tourism policies of the Cuban government, and its efforts to isolate citizens from the resulting dichotomy of enclaves of [[capitalism]] within the larger framework of Cuban [[communism]]. "To further isolate international tourism from Cuban society, tourism was to be promoted in enclaves where, as much as possible, tourists would be segregated from Cuban society. The growing dichotomy was not lost on the average Cuban citizen, and the government tourism policy soon began to be referred to as 'tourism apartheid.'"<ref>Espino, María Dolores. {{PDFlink|[http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/asce/cuba10/espino.pdf Cuban Tourism During the Special Period]|234&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 240626 bytes -->}}, Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE), Volume 10, August 3-5, 2000.</ref>

In 1992, as Cuba entered the period of severe economic austerity, Cuban President [[Fidel Castro]] defended the newly instituted policies in a speech to the [[National Assembly of Cuba|Cuban National Assembly]]. He described the moves as an economic necessity that would need to be maintained for as long as the country had a need for foreign currency. According to Castro, the government was "pondering formulas" that would allow Cubans to use some of the tourist facilities as a reward for outstanding work, but believed that giving Cubans access to amenities at the expense of paying foreign tourists would ultimately be a counterproductive move for the economy; "For every five Cubans staying two or three days in one of those hotels, the country would have one less ton of meat to distribute to the people,".<ref name=Farah/>

==Broader implications==

In addition to evidence of the term being used by Cubans,<ref>"Cubans refer to the disparity between the high life of tourists and their own austere, declining standard of living as “tourism apartheid.” Foreign tourists frequent dollar restaurants and dollar stores, use dollar taxis, eat food and use transportation that Cubans cannot, and spend no time standing in lines for goods and services. The government’s need for hard currency has led it to reverse its anti-tourist stance and to give foreigners preferential treatment." Facio, Elisa, Toro-Morn, Marua, and Roschelle, Anne R. {{PDFlink|[http://www.uiowa.edu/ifdebook/conferences/cuba/TLCP/Volume%201/Facio.pdf Tourism, Gender, and Globalization: Tourism in Cuba During the Special Period]|134&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 137570 bytes -->}}, ''Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems'', Volume 14, Spring 2004. pp. 120-142.<br>° "Cubans, who earn an average of £8 a month, not afford to enter Havana's new five-star hotels. Even if they have dollars - either from working with tourists or from remittances sent by relatives overseas - they are barred from tourist hotels or resorts. There are no signs on hotel doors, but the ban is very real - thanks to a catch-all law against 'harassment of tourists'. Cubans call it 'tourism apartheid'." Rennie, David. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/06/08/wcuba08.xml Cuba 'apartheid' as Castro pulls in the tourists], ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 08/06/2002.<br>° "Along the way, the vagaries of what one young Cuban described, rather nervously, as ''tourist apartheid'' were at least as stunning and abundant as the towering royal palms." Karaeulter, Kirk. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9C03EFDF173FF932A25755C0A9669C8B63 In Cuba, 2 Worlds Bridged by a Dollar Sign], ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[June 11]], 2000.</ref>
the phrase has been widely used by non-Cuban sources, including the [[Encyclopædia Britannica]],<ref>"However, the increased dependence on foreign tourism has been accompanied by growing concern over illegal activities (notably prostitution and drug trafficking) and socioeconomic inequalities, wherein tourist areas are provided with many comforts and conveniences that are unavailable to the general public—a situation sometimes described as a “tourism apartheid.”" [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-54405 Cuba], [[Encyclopædia Britannica]], 2006.</ref> [[United States Department of State]],<ref>"Moreover, workers in Cuba’s tourist sector--at resorts where native Cubans are prohibited unless they are on the job--have been prohibited by a Ministry of Tourism regulation from accepting gifts, tips, or even food from foreigners, in a further attempt at increasing the tourist apartheid that exists on the island." [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2886.htm Background Note: Cuba], [[United States Department of State]], Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, December 2005.</ref> the [[United States Agency for International Development]],<ref>"If Castro is sincere in his desire for international respect, he must earn that respect. He must stop throwing Cuban journalists and peaceful activists into prison, stop tolerating sexual tourism, stop promoting tourist apartheid, stop religious discrimination, abandon censorship, end his internal embargo of information, stop panhandling for international credits and other hand-outs, and permit others to carry forward a true transition to democracy in Cuba." [http://www.usaid.gov/press/spe_test/speeches/2002/sp021017.html Remarks by Adolfo A. Franco, Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID], [[University of Miami]] Cuba Transition Seminar, [[October 17]], 2002.</ref> members of the [[United States Congress]] opposed to the Cuban government,<ref>"Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R.-Fla., an outspoken Castro opponent, said she would oppose the National Trust's effort. "I will first verify how the permission process took place, then why the U.S government believes that historic preservation in a terrorist country is of our national interest, why U.S. citizens should want to use monies to refurbish a tourist site in a tourist apartheid society," she said." Dart, Bob. {{PDFlink|[http://www.hemingwaypreservationfoundation.org/06_02_cox.pdf Bell Tolls for Hemingway House in Cuba?]|35.6&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 36539 bytes -->}}, ''COX Newspapers'', [[June 2]], 2005.</ref> political columnists,<ref>"...the result, in part, of Cuba's 'tourist apartheid,' which bars ordinary Cubans from mixing with foreigners in hotels, restaurants, and beaches." [[Jeff Jacoby|Jacoby, Jeff]]. [http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby032202.asp The U.S. embargo and Cuba's future], ''[[Jewish World Review]]'', [[March 22]], 2002.<br>° "Quite simply, Castro cannot allow the distribution of a book in Cuba that talks about how blacks were not allowed equal access to restaurants, beaches and clubs in the United States. It would remind Cubans of their own tourist apartheid policy, which bans them from places built for foreigners who pay in dollars or euros." Martinez, Guillermo I. [http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/sfl-gmcol15jun15,0,4441946.column No more fuel on fire], ''[[South Florida Sun-Sentinel]]'', [[June 15]], 2006.</ref> and others.<ref>"And the signs in hotels reading 'Solamente Turistas' ['Only Tourists'] should finally be taken down [a slap at the island's 'tourism apartheid']." [[Jay Nordlinger|Nordlinger, Jay]]. [http://www.nationalreview.com/impromptus/impromptus052102.asp A Cuba Policy to Cheer], ''[[National Review]]'', May 21, 2002.<br>° "However, the humanitarian Glover has never raised his voice on behalf of the Cuban people's human rights, the existence of the shameful tourist apartheid, the disproportionate majority of black Cubans in Castro's dungeons or the absence of black Cubans in key government positions." Blazquez, Agustin. [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5946 Hollywood's Cuban Connection], ''The Washington Dispatch'', [[February 4]], 2003.<br>° "U.S. tourism under current conditions would freeze in place Castro’s tourist apartheid, and likely exacerbate it." Calzon, Frank. [http://www.cubacenter.org/media/recent_briefs/subsidize.php3 Should American Taxpayers Subsidize Fidel Castro?], Center for a Free Cuba. Retrieved [[July 10]], 2006.</ref>

==Sociological aspects==
{{quotefarm}}
[[Paul Hare]], [[United Kingdom|British]] Ambassador to [[Cuba]] from [[2001]] to [[2004]], sees tourist apartheid as part of a larger system of "systematic elitism" in Cuban society, which includes special clinics and foreign trips "offered by the communist party and military to its own", though he describes tourist apartheid as "particularly distasteful".<ref>Hare, Paul. [http://drclas.fas.harvard.edu/revista/?article_id=850 U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Latin America and the Caribbean], ''Revista: Harvard Review of Latin America'', David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at [[Harvard University]], Spring 2005.</ref> Tourist apartheid has been closely linked with ''jineterismo'', the tourist sex industry in Cuba;<ref>"Jinterísmo, Tourist Apartheid and the State for Itself? Evaluating the Nature, Purpose and Impact of Cuba's Radical Reforms and State Capitalism since 1993", [http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/materials/guerra-syllabus-362.doc History 362a, Colony, Nation and Diaspora: Cuba and Puerto Rico], course syllabus, [[Yale University]] Faculty of History. Retrieved [[July 10]], 2006.</ref><ref>[http://www.frommers.com/destinations/cuba/3173020876.html A Cultural Primer: Tourist Apartheid & Jineterismo], [[Frommer's]] Travel Guide to Cuba, 2006. Retrieved July 10, 2006.</ref> according to [[Elisa Facio]], the government "appeared to turn a blind eye in hopes the dollars ''jineteras'' earned would help overcome the [[Cuban Revolution|Revolution]]'s worst economic crisis.<ref name = Facio2>Facio, Elisa. [http://www.colorado.edu/EthnicStudies/ethnicstudiesjournal/archive/Volume%20I%201/Jineterismo.htmlJinterismo During the Special Period], ''Global Development Studies'', I, 3-4 (Winter 1998-Spring 1999), 57-78. Republished in ''DES: A Scholarly Journal of Ethnic Studies'', Volume 1 Number 1, [[University of Colorado at Boulder|University of Colorado]] Department of Ethnic Studies.</ref>

Some Cubans appear to have negative feelings about the policy. According to Facio:
<blockquote>Some Cubans feel that this "tourism apartheid" subverted the whole purpose of the revolutionary state, which is to promote equality. Others counter that unlike other countries, tourist income in Cuba does not go into the hands of a few wealthy business tycoons but goes to keep up the health care system, the schools, and the food supply. But many Cubans who understand this argument are nevertheless highly bothered when they see the island's best resources going toward coddling foreigners while their own lives are plagued with serious daily difficulties. Second, with the inception of tourism there has been an increase in crime.<ref name=Facio2/></blockquote>
According to Gunn:
<blockquote>There is another social problem in Cuba closely related to the Bryden's "[[demonstration effect]]": Cuban citizens' resentment at being excluded from the new joint venture hotels, captured in the term "tourist apartheid." The government is aware that such exclusion undermines one of its main claims to legitimacy - egalitarianism - and reminds Cubans of the time when all but the elite were turned away from certain beaches and clubs... The degree of citizen outrage is evident in the remark of a vigorous [[Fidel Castro|Castro]] supporter, who over a three-year acquaintanceship had never criticized the regime. This autumn he remarked that once while jogging on the beach he had been stopped by a guard for a joint venture hotel, who said only foreigners were permitted on the next section of sand. Furious, he told the guard that Cuban beaches are for Cubans, and kept on jogging.<ref name=Gunn/></blockquote>
Others concur:
<blockquote>Cuba's swing to tourism is bringing in vital hard currency, but the accompanying bitterness among Cubans denied access to the lures laid out for foreigners has grown to the point that President Fidel Castro is on the stump in defense. The resentment, coming as Cuba's economic crisis deepens and the standard of living drops sharply, has given rise to a new phrase here to describe the gulf that exists between tourists and Cubans -- "tourism apartheid."<ref name=Farah/></blockquote>

<blockquote>Complaints of a tourist apartheid are not unfounded as Cubans are moved off tourist beaches, refused entrance to tourist hotels, and asked to wait in queues while tourists are ushered to the front – even walking the streets with foreign visitors is likely to get a young Cuban pulled over by the police. The health service itself has become an instrument of tourism, luring foreign patients with some of its specialist treatments, whilst transport services deteriorate for Cubans and improve for tourists. With such large numbers of relatively wealthy tourists travelling in and out of the country, Cubans have become more acutely aware of the restrictions on their freedom of movement and material wealth. Interestingly, these frustrations are not vented at tourists but at the government, though almost always behind closed doors.<ref>Norman, Matt. [http://travel.roughguides.com/spotlight_display.html?spotlightid=204 Cuba: New Development, Old Ideology and Rich Cultural Heritage], Roughguides.com, [[April 1]], 2000. Retrieved July 10, 2006.</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>They rubbed their chins, a common reference to the bearded Castro, and ran a finger across their throats: They are waiting for Castro to die... The cousin and his friends talked about the places they cannot go, the hotels and beaches, the discos that now require dollars. "It's like [[South Africa]]," the cousin's friend said. "It's [[History of South Africa in the apartheid era|apartheid]]," the cousin said.<ref name = Amrhein>Amrhein, Saundra and Lush, Tamara. [http://www.sptimes.com/2002/05/12/Travel/The__reality_tour__of.shtml The 'reality tour' of Cuba], ''[[St. Petersburg Times]]'', [[May 12]], 2002.</ref></blockquote>
According to [[Salon.com]], other Cubans view it with resignation: <blockquote>"Tourism apartheid," as its critics call it, is taking hold... Many Cubans, if not most, don't seem to notice the irony of this situation. Iglesias, for example... only shrugged when I prodded him about his feelings on Cuba's economic policies. Castro's form of tourism, which flies in the face of both socialist and free-market ideals, didn't seem to bother him. Like many other Cubans Diana and I spoke to over the course of two weeks, he simply accepted the policy as inevitable. This is apparently quite common."<ref name=Salon/></blockquote>

Still other Cubans see tourist apartheid as a net benefit: "Though these trips appear to fuel the growing 'tourism apartheid' on the island, some Cubans we encountered say conditions would be worse without them."<ref name = Amrhein/>

Tourism remains a key source of income for the Cuban government,<ref>"Tourism remained a key source of revenue for the Government. The system of so-called "tourist apartheid" continued, with foreign visitors who paid in hard currency receiving preference over citizens for food, consumer products, and medical services". [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/cuba/economy.htm Cuba's Economy], Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved July 10, 2006.</ref> and Colin Crawford, of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at [[Georgia State University]], suggests that tourist apartheid might become a permanent regression to the pre-revolutionary state of Cuban society. In his view
<blockquote>to the extent that the [[Cuban Revolution|Revolution]] committed itself to equality of access to natural resources, the new tourist apartheid could, if it becomes an entrenched feature of the society, become Cuba’s new normal. With only 44 years of socialist government and, before that, a period nearly ten times as long of colonial domination, it is not hard to imagine that this could occur... The modern, post-revolutionary Republic of Cuba perhaps moved too far from the individual autonomy side of the property ownership continuum to the collective end for its property regime to continue effectively. Paradoxically, the example of its new tourist apartheid suggests, it now risks swinging back to its original, equally unstable position.<ref>Crawford, Colin. {{PDFlink|[http://aysps.gsu.edu/urag/workingpapers/2004/urag_0410.pdf Environmental Justice in Cuba: Capital Needs, Developing a Tourist Infrastructure, and Liberty of Access to Natural Resources]|134&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 137482 bytes -->}}, Working Paper No. 04-10, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, [[Georgia State University]], October 2004.</ref></blockquote>
Others merely describe the situation as ironic: "That tourism has brought exclusive resorts, segregated hotels and a general playground for foreigners swinging through the island looking for Caribbean romance. Ironically, these are precisely the circumstances the revolution worked 40 years to erase."<ref name = Amrhein/>

==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}

==References==
<div style="height: 120px; overflow: auto; padding: 1px; background: white; margin-bottom: 8px;">

<div class="references-small">
*Amrhein, Saundra and Lush, Tamara. [http://www.sptimes.com/2002/05/12/Travel/The__reality_tour__of.shtml The 'reality tour' of Cuba], ''[[St. Petersburg Times]]'', [[May 12]], 2002.
*Blazquez, Agustin. [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5946 Hollywood's Cuban Connection], ''The Washington Dispatch'', [[February 4]], 2003.<br>
*Calzon, Frank. [http://www.cubacenter.org/media/recent_briefs/subsidize.php3 Should American Taxpayers Subsidize Fidel Castro?], Center for a Free Cuba. Retrieved [[July 10]], 2006.
*Cave, Damien. [http://dir.salon.com/story/people/feature/2002/02/06/cuba_apart/index.html Tourism apartheid in Cuba], ''[[Salon.com]]'', [[February 6]], 2002. Retrieved [[July 10]], 2006.
*Crawford, Colin. {{PDFlink|[http://aysps.gsu.edu/urag/workingpapers/2004/urag_0410.pdf Environmental Justice in Cuba: Capital Needs, Developing a Tourist Infrastructure, and Liberty of Access to Natural Resources]|134&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 137482 bytes -->}}, Working Paper No. 04-10, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, [[Georgia State University]], October 2004.
*Dart, Bob. {{PDFlink|[http://www.hemingwaypreservationfoundation.org/06_02_cox.pdf Bell Tolls for Hemingway House in Cuba?]|35.6&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 36539 bytes -->}}, ''COX Newspapers'', [[June 2]], 2005.
*[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-54405 Cuba], [[Encyclopædia Britannica]], 2006.
*Espino, María Dolores. {{PDFlink|[http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/asce/cuba10/espino.pdf Cuban Tourism During the Special Period]|234&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 240626 bytes -->}}, Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE), Volume 10, August 3-5, 2000.
*Facio, Elisa. [http://www.colorado.edu/EthnicStudies/ethnicstudiesjournal/archive/Volume%20I%201/Jineterismo.htmlJinterismo During the Special Period], ''Global Development Studies'', I, 3-4 (Winter 1998-Spring 1999), 57-78. Republished in ''DES: A Scholarly Journal of Ethnic Studies'', Volume 1 Number 1, [[University of Colorado at Boulder|University of Colorado]] Department of Ethnic Studies.
*Facio, Elisa, Toro-Morn, Marua, and Roschelle, Anne R. {{PDFlink|[http://www.uiowa.edu/ifdebook/conferences/cuba/TLCP/Volume%201/Facio.pdf Tourism, Gender, and Globalization: Tourism in Cuba During the Special Period]|134&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 137570 bytes -->}}, ''Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems'', Volume 14, Spring 2004. pp. 120-142.
*Farah, Douglas. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/cuba/stories/econ080992.htm Catering to Foreigners Instead of Cubans Puts Castro on Defensive] ''[[Washington Post]]'' Foreign Service Sunday, [[August 9]], 1992.
*[http://www.frommers.com/destinations/cuba/3173020876.html A Cultural Primer: Tourist Apartheid & Jineterismo], [[Frommer's]] Travel Guide to Cuba, 2006. Retrieved [[July 10]], 2006.
*[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/cuba/economy.htm Cuba's Economy], Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved [[July 10]], 2006.
*Gunn, Gillian. {{PDFlink|[http://www.trinitydc.edu/academics/depts/Interdisc/International/caribbean%20briefings/TheSociologicalImpact.pdf The Sociological Impact of Rising Foreign Investment]|82.5&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 84539 bytes -->}}, [[Georgetown University]] Cuba Briefing Paper Series, "Tourist Apartheid", January 1993.
*Hare, Paul. [http://drclas.fas.harvard.edu/revista/?article_id=850 U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Latin America and the Caribbean], ''Revista: Harvard Review of Latin America'', David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at [[Harvard University]], Spring 2005.
*[[Human Rights Watch]]. [http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/cuba/Cuba996-03.htm CUBA'S REPRESSIVE MACHINERY: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution], III. IMPEDIMENTS TO HUMAN RIGHTS IN CUBAN LAW, June 1999. ISBN 1-56432-234-3
*[[Human Rights Watch]]. [http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/cuba/Cuba996-03.htm CUBA'S REPRESSIVE MACHINERY: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution], IX. LABOR RIGHTS, June 1999. ISBN 1-56432-234-3
*[[Jeff Jacoby|Jacoby, Jeff]]. [http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby032202.asp The U.S. embargo and Cuba's future], ''[[Jewish World Review]]'', [[March 22]], 2002.
*Karaeulter, Kirk. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9C03EFDF173FF932A25755C0A9669C8B63 In Cuba, 2 Worlds Bridged by a Dollar Sign], ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[June 11]], 2000.
*Martinez, Guillermo I. [http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/sfl-gmcol15jun15,0,4441946.column No more fuel on fire], ''[[South Florida Sun-Sentinel]]'', [[June 15]], 2006.
*[[Jay Nordlinger|Nordlinger, Jay]]. [http://www.nationalreview.com/impromptus/impromptus052102.asp A Cuba Policy to Cheer], ''[[National Review]]'', [[May 21]], 2002.
*Rennie, David. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/06/08/wcuba08.xml Cuba 'apartheid' as Castro pulls in the tourists], ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', 08/06/2002.
*Norman, Matt. [http://travel.roughguides.com/spotlight_display.html?spotlightid=204 Cuba: New Development, Old Ideology and Rich Cultural Heritage], Roughguides.com, [[April 1]], 2000. Retrieved July 10, 2006.
*[http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2886.htm Background Note: Cuba], [[United States Department of State]], Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, December 2005.
*[http://www.usaid.gov/press/spe_test/speeches/2002/sp021017.html Remarks by Adolfo A. Franco, Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID], [[University of Miami]] Cuba Transition Seminar, [[October 17]], 2002.
*"Jinterísmo, Tourist Apartheid and the State for Itself? Evaluating the Nature, Purpose and Impact of Cuba's Radical Reforms and State Capitalism since 1993", [http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/materials/guerra-syllabus-362.doc History 362a, Colony, Nation and Diaspora: Cuba and Puerto Rico], course syllabus, [[Yale University]] Faculty of History. Retrieved [[July 10]], 2006.
</div>
</div>
</div>

==See also==
*[[Crime of Apartheid]]
*[[Human rights in Cuba]]

==External link==
*[http://www.cubaverdad.net/apartheid_in_cuba.htm Apartheid in Cuba]
{{Types of Segregation}}
{{World Tourism}}
[[Category:Tourism in Cuba]]
[[Category:Economy of Cuba]]
[[Category:Cuban society]]
[[Category:Discrimination]]

Revision as of 04:04, 12 June 2008

Tourist segregation in Cuba, in which local people are often barred from state-owned tourist facilities, is a controversial aspect of tourism in Cuba. It has widely been dubbed "tourist apartheid" in an allusion to the policies of apartheid-era South Africa, under which black citizens faced extensive racial segregation of public facilities. In Cuba, security guards frequently bar Cuban nationals from entering hotels, beaches, restaurants, and other tourist facilities. This has become "a lightning rod for public frustration" , as Human Rights Watch puts it.[1] It has been widely noted and criticised by international commentators and tourist guides.[2]

Human Rights Watch states "Cuban nationals are routinely barred from enjoying amenities open to foreigners ... the best hotels, resorts, beaches, and restaurants are off limits to most Cubans, as are certain government health institutions," and contrasts this practise with the Constitution of Cuba, which "bars discrimination based on 'race, skin color, sex, national origin, religious creeds, and any other type [of discrimination] offending human dignity.'"[3] Dr. Gillian Gunn, former fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies goes further, stating "The exclusion also flatly contradicts Article 43 of the Cuban constitution, which guarantees all Cubans, 'without regard to race, skin color, religious belief, or national origin,' the right to 'lodge themselves in any hotel,' 'be attended in all restaurants and establishments serving the public,' and 'enjoy the same spas, beaches, social clubs, and other centers of sport, recreation, and leisure'."[4]

In response, Cuban president Fidel Castro has described Cuba's tourism policies as an economic necessity and such analysis as a "perfidious, perverse, cynical" campaign to present the current situation as "a case of discrimination."[5]

Origins

This policy was precipitated by the economic crisis known in Cuba as "the Special Period" which began in the early 1990s, and the government's resulting need to earn hard currency to make up for lost economic aid from the Soviet Union.[6] According to Dr. María Dolores Espino, professor of Economics at St. Thomas University, the phrase arose in Cuba itself as a result of the tourism policies of the Cuban government, and its efforts to isolate citizens from the resulting dichotomy of enclaves of capitalism within the larger framework of Cuban communism. "To further isolate international tourism from Cuban society, tourism was to be promoted in enclaves where, as much as possible, tourists would be segregated from Cuban society. The growing dichotomy was not lost on the average Cuban citizen, and the government tourism policy soon began to be referred to as 'tourism apartheid.'"[7]

In 1992, as Cuba entered the period of severe economic austerity, Cuban President Fidel Castro defended the newly instituted policies in a speech to the Cuban National Assembly. He described the moves as an economic necessity that would need to be maintained for as long as the country had a need for foreign currency. According to Castro, the government was "pondering formulas" that would allow Cubans to use some of the tourist facilities as a reward for outstanding work, but believed that giving Cubans access to amenities at the expense of paying foreign tourists would ultimately be a counterproductive move for the economy; "For every five Cubans staying two or three days in one of those hotels, the country would have one less ton of meat to distribute to the people,".[5]

Broader implications

In addition to evidence of the term being used by Cubans,[8] the phrase has been widely used by non-Cuban sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica,[9] United States Department of State,[10] the United States Agency for International Development,[11] members of the United States Congress opposed to the Cuban government,[12] political columnists,[13] and others.[14]

Sociological aspects

Paul Hare, British Ambassador to Cuba from 2001 to 2004, sees tourist apartheid as part of a larger system of "systematic elitism" in Cuban society, which includes special clinics and foreign trips "offered by the communist party and military to its own", though he describes tourist apartheid as "particularly distasteful".[15] Tourist apartheid has been closely linked with jineterismo, the tourist sex industry in Cuba;[16][17] according to Elisa Facio, the government "appeared to turn a blind eye in hopes the dollars jineteras earned would help overcome the Revolution's worst economic crisis.[18]

Some Cubans appear to have negative feelings about the policy. According to Facio:

Some Cubans feel that this "tourism apartheid" subverted the whole purpose of the revolutionary state, which is to promote equality. Others counter that unlike other countries, tourist income in Cuba does not go into the hands of a few wealthy business tycoons but goes to keep up the health care system, the schools, and the food supply. But many Cubans who understand this argument are nevertheless highly bothered when they see the island's best resources going toward coddling foreigners while their own lives are plagued with serious daily difficulties. Second, with the inception of tourism there has been an increase in crime.[18]

According to Gunn:

There is another social problem in Cuba closely related to the Bryden's "demonstration effect": Cuban citizens' resentment at being excluded from the new joint venture hotels, captured in the term "tourist apartheid." The government is aware that such exclusion undermines one of its main claims to legitimacy - egalitarianism - and reminds Cubans of the time when all but the elite were turned away from certain beaches and clubs... The degree of citizen outrage is evident in the remark of a vigorous Castro supporter, who over a three-year acquaintanceship had never criticized the regime. This autumn he remarked that once while jogging on the beach he had been stopped by a guard for a joint venture hotel, who said only foreigners were permitted on the next section of sand. Furious, he told the guard that Cuban beaches are for Cubans, and kept on jogging.[4]

Others concur:

Cuba's swing to tourism is bringing in vital hard currency, but the accompanying bitterness among Cubans denied access to the lures laid out for foreigners has grown to the point that President Fidel Castro is on the stump in defense. The resentment, coming as Cuba's economic crisis deepens and the standard of living drops sharply, has given rise to a new phrase here to describe the gulf that exists between tourists and Cubans -- "tourism apartheid."[5]

Complaints of a tourist apartheid are not unfounded as Cubans are moved off tourist beaches, refused entrance to tourist hotels, and asked to wait in queues while tourists are ushered to the front – even walking the streets with foreign visitors is likely to get a young Cuban pulled over by the police. The health service itself has become an instrument of tourism, luring foreign patients with some of its specialist treatments, whilst transport services deteriorate for Cubans and improve for tourists. With such large numbers of relatively wealthy tourists travelling in and out of the country, Cubans have become more acutely aware of the restrictions on their freedom of movement and material wealth. Interestingly, these frustrations are not vented at tourists but at the government, though almost always behind closed doors.[19]

They rubbed their chins, a common reference to the bearded Castro, and ran a finger across their throats: They are waiting for Castro to die... The cousin and his friends talked about the places they cannot go, the hotels and beaches, the discos that now require dollars. "It's like South Africa," the cousin's friend said. "It's apartheid," the cousin said.[20]

According to Salon.com, other Cubans view it with resignation:

"Tourism apartheid," as its critics call it, is taking hold... Many Cubans, if not most, don't seem to notice the irony of this situation. Iglesias, for example... only shrugged when I prodded him about his feelings on Cuba's economic policies. Castro's form of tourism, which flies in the face of both socialist and free-market ideals, didn't seem to bother him. Like many other Cubans Diana and I spoke to over the course of two weeks, he simply accepted the policy as inevitable. This is apparently quite common."[6]

Still other Cubans see tourist apartheid as a net benefit: "Though these trips appear to fuel the growing 'tourism apartheid' on the island, some Cubans we encountered say conditions would be worse without them."[20]

Tourism remains a key source of income for the Cuban government,[21] and Colin Crawford, of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, suggests that tourist apartheid might become a permanent regression to the pre-revolutionary state of Cuban society. In his view

to the extent that the Revolution committed itself to equality of access to natural resources, the new tourist apartheid could, if it becomes an entrenched feature of the society, become Cuba’s new normal. With only 44 years of socialist government and, before that, a period nearly ten times as long of colonial domination, it is not hard to imagine that this could occur... The modern, post-revolutionary Republic of Cuba perhaps moved too far from the individual autonomy side of the property ownership continuum to the collective end for its property regime to continue effectively. Paradoxically, the example of its new tourist apartheid suggests, it now risks swinging back to its original, equally unstable position.[22]

Others merely describe the situation as ironic: "That tourism has brought exclusive resorts, segregated hotels and a general playground for foreigners swinging through the island looking for Caribbean romance. Ironically, these are precisely the circumstances the revolution worked 40 years to erase."[20]

Notes

  1. ^ CUBA'S REPRESSIVE MACHINERY: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution, IX. LABOR RIGHTS, June 1999. ISBN 1-56432-234-3
  2. ^ ° "One of the most disconcerting aspects of contemporary Cuba is the government's creation of exclusive 'foreigner-only' tourism zones where Cuban nationals aren't welcome. Effectively, there are two Cubas, a reality that reeks of something akin to tourism apartheid, as many observers have noted."A Cultural Primer: Tourist Apartheid & Jineterismo, Frommer's Travel Guide to Cuba, 2006. Retrieved July 10, 2006.
  3. ^ Human Rights Watch. CUBA'S REPRESSIVE MACHINERY: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution, III. IMPEDIMENTS TO HUMAN RIGHTS IN CUBAN LAW, June 1999. ISBN 1-56432-234-3
  4. ^ a b Gunn, Gillian. Template:PDFlink, Georgetown University Cuba Briefing Paper Series, "Tourist Apartheid", January 1993.
  5. ^ a b c Farah, Douglas. Catering to Foreigners Instead of Cubans Puts Castro on Defensive Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, August 9, 1992.
  6. ^ a b "The policy isn't actually new. It's been around for at least a decade, since Cuba started expanding its tourism industry to make up for lost economic aid from the Soviet Union." Cave, Damien. Tourism apartheid in Cuba, Salon.com, February 6, 2002. Retrieved July 10, 2006.
    ° "Much of the economic decline and the desperation for hard currency is due to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, which supplied Cuba with an estimated $4 billion annually in subsidized imports, principally petroleum products." Farah, Douglas. Catering to Foreigners Instead of Cubans Puts Castro on Defensive The Washington Post, August 9, 1992.
    ° "The Cuban economy is still recovering from a decline in gross domestic product of at least 35% between 1989 and 1993 due to the loss of Soviet subsidies." Cuba's Economy, Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved July 10, 2006.
  7. ^ Espino, María Dolores. Template:PDFlink, Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE), Volume 10, August 3-5, 2000.
  8. ^ "Cubans refer to the disparity between the high life of tourists and their own austere, declining standard of living as “tourism apartheid.” Foreign tourists frequent dollar restaurants and dollar stores, use dollar taxis, eat food and use transportation that Cubans cannot, and spend no time standing in lines for goods and services. The government’s need for hard currency has led it to reverse its anti-tourist stance and to give foreigners preferential treatment." Facio, Elisa, Toro-Morn, Marua, and Roschelle, Anne R. Template:PDFlink, Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems, Volume 14, Spring 2004. pp. 120-142.
    ° "Cubans, who earn an average of £8 a month, not afford to enter Havana's new five-star hotels. Even if they have dollars - either from working with tourists or from remittances sent by relatives overseas - they are barred from tourist hotels or resorts. There are no signs on hotel doors, but the ban is very real - thanks to a catch-all law against 'harassment of tourists'. Cubans call it 'tourism apartheid'." Rennie, David. Cuba 'apartheid' as Castro pulls in the tourists, The Daily Telegraph, 08/06/2002.
    ° "Along the way, the vagaries of what one young Cuban described, rather nervously, as tourist apartheid were at least as stunning and abundant as the towering royal palms." Karaeulter, Kirk. In Cuba, 2 Worlds Bridged by a Dollar Sign, The New York Times, June 11, 2000.
  9. ^ "However, the increased dependence on foreign tourism has been accompanied by growing concern over illegal activities (notably prostitution and drug trafficking) and socioeconomic inequalities, wherein tourist areas are provided with many comforts and conveniences that are unavailable to the general public—a situation sometimes described as a “tourism apartheid.”" Cuba, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2006.
  10. ^ "Moreover, workers in Cuba’s tourist sector--at resorts where native Cubans are prohibited unless they are on the job--have been prohibited by a Ministry of Tourism regulation from accepting gifts, tips, or even food from foreigners, in a further attempt at increasing the tourist apartheid that exists on the island." Background Note: Cuba, United States Department of State, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, December 2005.
  11. ^ "If Castro is sincere in his desire for international respect, he must earn that respect. He must stop throwing Cuban journalists and peaceful activists into prison, stop tolerating sexual tourism, stop promoting tourist apartheid, stop religious discrimination, abandon censorship, end his internal embargo of information, stop panhandling for international credits and other hand-outs, and permit others to carry forward a true transition to democracy in Cuba." Remarks by Adolfo A. Franco, Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID, University of Miami Cuba Transition Seminar, October 17, 2002.
  12. ^ "Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R.-Fla., an outspoken Castro opponent, said she would oppose the National Trust's effort. "I will first verify how the permission process took place, then why the U.S government believes that historic preservation in a terrorist country is of our national interest, why U.S. citizens should want to use monies to refurbish a tourist site in a tourist apartheid society," she said." Dart, Bob. Template:PDFlink, COX Newspapers, June 2, 2005.
  13. ^ "...the result, in part, of Cuba's 'tourist apartheid,' which bars ordinary Cubans from mixing with foreigners in hotels, restaurants, and beaches." Jacoby, Jeff. The U.S. embargo and Cuba's future, Jewish World Review, March 22, 2002.
    ° "Quite simply, Castro cannot allow the distribution of a book in Cuba that talks about how blacks were not allowed equal access to restaurants, beaches and clubs in the United States. It would remind Cubans of their own tourist apartheid policy, which bans them from places built for foreigners who pay in dollars or euros." Martinez, Guillermo I. No more fuel on fire, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, June 15, 2006.
  14. ^ "And the signs in hotels reading 'Solamente Turistas' ['Only Tourists'] should finally be taken down [a slap at the island's 'tourism apartheid']." Nordlinger, Jay. A Cuba Policy to Cheer, National Review, May 21, 2002.
    ° "However, the humanitarian Glover has never raised his voice on behalf of the Cuban people's human rights, the existence of the shameful tourist apartheid, the disproportionate majority of black Cubans in Castro's dungeons or the absence of black Cubans in key government positions." Blazquez, Agustin. Hollywood's Cuban Connection, The Washington Dispatch, February 4, 2003.
    ° "U.S. tourism under current conditions would freeze in place Castro’s tourist apartheid, and likely exacerbate it." Calzon, Frank. Should American Taxpayers Subsidize Fidel Castro?, Center for a Free Cuba. Retrieved July 10, 2006.
  15. ^ Hare, Paul. U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Latin America and the Caribbean, Revista: Harvard Review of Latin America, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, Spring 2005.
  16. ^ "Jinterísmo, Tourist Apartheid and the State for Itself? Evaluating the Nature, Purpose and Impact of Cuba's Radical Reforms and State Capitalism since 1993", History 362a, Colony, Nation and Diaspora: Cuba and Puerto Rico, course syllabus, Yale University Faculty of History. Retrieved July 10, 2006.
  17. ^ A Cultural Primer: Tourist Apartheid & Jineterismo, Frommer's Travel Guide to Cuba, 2006. Retrieved July 10, 2006.
  18. ^ a b Facio, Elisa. During the Special Period, Global Development Studies, I, 3-4 (Winter 1998-Spring 1999), 57-78. Republished in DES: A Scholarly Journal of Ethnic Studies, Volume 1 Number 1, University of Colorado Department of Ethnic Studies.
  19. ^ Norman, Matt. Cuba: New Development, Old Ideology and Rich Cultural Heritage, Roughguides.com, April 1, 2000. Retrieved July 10, 2006.
  20. ^ a b c Amrhein, Saundra and Lush, Tamara. The 'reality tour' of Cuba, St. Petersburg Times, May 12, 2002.
  21. ^ "Tourism remained a key source of revenue for the Government. The system of so-called "tourist apartheid" continued, with foreign visitors who paid in hard currency receiving preference over citizens for food, consumer products, and medical services". Cuba's Economy, Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved July 10, 2006.
  22. ^ Crawford, Colin. Template:PDFlink, Working Paper No. 04-10, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, October 2004.

References

See also

Template:Types of Segregation Template:World Tourism

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