Offshore Islands
Page 47
The idea of an old style strong leader in Cuba appealed to Ortega’s sense of history. Under Allende he had never imagined anything other for the future of his country. As a military man Ortega understood the meaning of organisation and discipline, politics were for civilians, that is to say once the military had assured control.
Ortega had been converted to the idea of the concentration of capital as opposed to the distribution of wealth he had dreamt of as a young idealist, before the realities of the world had become evident. He had seen how the accumulated capital in Soviet state owned enterprises had been pillaged by the strong. It had been unfortunately inevitable as the consequence of an unreasonable ideology invented by unreasonable men.
The same thing would happen in Cuba, either the future ex-communists would grab off everything for themselves or the Yankees would do it for them.
Raul Cienfuegos had a vision that would channel the creation of new wealth into building a new Caribbean power, independent of the Americanos and the European neo-colonialists, both of whom had long oppressed the development of those island nations, leaving them the crumbs of their banana and sugar economies. The profits of tourism should stay in the Caribbean, the sun and sea were their own renewable resources, not to be exploited by foreigners pumping out the profits and leaving an abandoned ruin when they decided it was propitious to leave.
Ortega had no doubts about Cienfuegos who was young and would learn the hard way. It required force to bring a country of eleven million back to work and prosperity. To start he would do it Cienfuegos’ way, but in exchange he wanted his own men in the right places with the economic concessions he needed to realise his own plans.
Carlos Ortega had the financial power to bring in the type of investor who was not too concerned with rights issues and democratic ideas. Investors from the USA, Central and South America, and Europe.
He had drawn up a list of the industries and businesses where he wanted major holdings; the main hotel chains, restaurants, night clubs, casinos, brewing and beverage companies, telephone companies, oil, tobacco, airlines, and last but not least banking.
That would give him enough leverage to bring in all the money that Cienfuegos wanted for the reconstruction of the country without the interfering gringos and their meddling institutions. The Yankee controlled world bank had already ruined a good number of countries emerging from the shadows of socialism.
He needed a free hand unhampered by an excess of rules and regulations; rules prevented the creation of wealth, which investors needed.
Behind Ortega was the money he invested for Russians, Colombians and the traditional Mafia. He was their merchant banker ensuring that the monies were invested where they were safe, earning the greatest profits guaranteed free of questions and crippling taxes.
His knowledge of global markets had enabled him to build his wealth in the arcane world of commodity trading with the resources plundered from Russia, together with his laundering of oil and mineral export revenues, which were either undersold or illegally transferred with his connivance to offshore accounts His diversification into money laundering and banking was a stepping stone to the creation of a business empire with a respectable facade, run to his rules.