Cuba's communist party has reportedly expelled a prominent intellectual for blowing the whistle on high-level corruption. Esteban Morales is said to have been "separated from the ranks" of the party over a bombshell article, which accused senior officials of looting the state before it crumbled. The Playa Municipal branch of the party has stripped Morales of his membership and the historian, a frequent commentator on state television, has disappeared from public view, the Havana Times reported. Morales broke taboos with an article in April that criticised unnamed, greedy apparatchiks. "It has become evident that there are people in government and state positions who are preparing a financial assault for when the revolution falls," he wrote on the website of the state National Artists and Writers Union of Cuba. He claimed in the article that corruption from within threatened to destroy the 50-year-old communist state. "Others likely have everything ready to produce the transfer of state property into private hands, like what happened in the former Soviet Union." The article quickly vanished from the site, but was copied and circulated among intellectuals and analysts. "To publish an attack on high-level corruption on a state-controlled website was fairly amazing," said one European diplomat. Rumours of a corruption scandal involving Havana airport have been circulating for months. Rogelio Acevedo, the civil aviation minister, and Jorge Luis Sierra Cruz, the transport minister, have been fired. In addition to this, dozens of airport employees have been arrested, amid claims that state aircraft were used for private gain.
Sunday, 4 July 2010
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