Cuba’s government approves small and medium-sized enterprises

ON AUGUST 6TH the Cuban council of state approved a long-awaited law authorising the creation of small and medium-sized enterprises. The announcement came less than a month after thousands of Cubans took to the streets calling for freedom and an end to the Communist dictatorship. After a brutal crackdown, around 380 protesters are now in prison awaiting trial on charges such as “delinquency”.

The announcement could be designed partly to distract attention from the state’s suppression of dissent. On an island with the fourth-highest official covid-19 infection rate in the world it will be tricky for people to forget that there was enough petrol to power motorcycles, trucks and buses filled with boinas negras (a special-forces unit of the Cuban military) who were sent out to rough up the protesters in July, but not enough for ambulances or incinerators to cremate the dead.