Web posted at: 2/9/2008 8:4:36
Source ::: AFP
HAVANA • A video of university students boldly challenging the communist
government on why Cubans cannot travel freely, or stay in Cuban hotels,
has stirred society as Cuba braces for possible reforms and leadership
change.
Interim president Raul Castro said on January 20 that the National
Assembly would elect Cuba's next president on February 24, amid
speculation ailing Fidel Castro might not be its choice for the first
time in almost five decades. Raul Castro also has suggested lawmakers
will soon be handling potential reforms.
In a video made public over the Internet this week and circulated in
Havana, students grilled National Assembly speaker chief Ricardo
Alarcon, a top regime official, on sensitive social issues many critics
deem human rights abuses.
"Why don't the Cuban people have the real possibility to stay at hotels
or travel to different places around the world?" Eliecer Avila, a
self-avowed government supporter at the University of Computer Science,
demanded of Cuba's top lawmaker.
Alarcon tried to justify Cuba's policies controlling its nationals'
travel, saying: "if everybody in the world, all six billion inhabitants,
were able to travel wherever they pleased, there would be a tremendous
traffic jam in our planet's airspace. "People who travel are really a
minority," he said.
And in implied criticism of Cuba's economic policy, Avila asked why
staples such as food, cleaning products and clothing must be purchased
with convertible pesos, when workers everywhere are paid in normal
currency, which is worth 1/25th.
Alarcon did not address the earning power/currency question.
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