Miami Cuban Credits End of Dual Currency System Idea to Farm Women's Group
A former Cuban dissident now living in Miami says the group she founded more than a decade ago should be credited with being the first to pressure the regime in Havana to end the island's despised dual currency system.
Magdelivia Hidalgo, Miami-based international representative for the Cuban dissident group Federacion Latinoamericana de Mujeres Rurales or Federation of Latin American Farm Women, told The Miami Herald this week that on Nov. 21 the group delivered to the National Assembly a petition signed by 10,738 people demanding the abolition of the convertible peso. Two group leaders, Maura Iset Gonzalez (left) and Katia Sonia Martin Veliz, appear in the picture in January during a Havana news conference about the peso campaign titled Con la Misma Moneda or With the Same Currency.
Soon after Raul Castro was installed as new president of the ruling Council of State on Sunday, rumors swept the island that the government planned to do away with the convertible peso.
The convertible peso, now worth about 24 regular pesos, was introduced in the 1990s and serves as an internal hard currency accepted in the best stores mainly frequented by foreign visitors. Cubans cannot use regular pesos in these stores.
Hidalgo said that is why her organization collected the signatures to demand that regular pesos be accepted everywhere in the island.
"Our organization was the only one that collected more than 10,000 signatures and delivered them to the parliament demanding the right to pay in all outlets with the currency Cubans earn for their work,'' Hidalgo told The Miami Herald.
-- Alfonso Chardy
How to explain Castro's exploitation of the Cuban people to neophytes in 15 words or less:
The Castro regime pays Cubans in script but doesn't accept it at the company store
Posted by: Manuel A. Tellechea | March 01, 2008 at 11:45 AM