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In reply to the discussion: Two Cuban women's players missing at tournament [View all]Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)while it was under the Soviet Union.
In contrast, Cuban emigres go back and forth all the time. They are not arrested if they come back. In fact, they are considered a valuable source of hard currency and supplies that the embargo makes difficult to obtain.
Remember the indignation among Cuban emigres when the Bush administration limited them to one visit every three years?
One of the problems Cuba has is its dual economic system. People with relatives overseas and those who work in the tourist industry have access to CUCs (the convertible Cuban peso), which are worth 24 times the ordinary Cuban peso (moneda nacional), so they have never had it better. The discrepancy is so great that jobs that ordinarily would not be very prestigious, such as cab driver or restaurant waiter, are highly sought after. (I saw the same thing in China in 1990.)
The goods and services that are available for moneda nacional are neither as plentiful nor of as high quality as the goods available for CUCs, yet the produce and meat available in the covered outdoor market (for moneda nacional) appeared to be of good quality, although just laid out on tables.