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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The Ghosts Of Eastern Europe Haunt Cuba

The Ghosts Of Eastern Europe Haunt Cuba
How Raul Castro Is Steering The Island Nation In A Post-Fidel World
HAVANA, May 26, 2008
(CBS) By CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer.

When Raul Castro took over as Cuba's President in February, he began to
amend some of the out-of date policies established by his brother Fidel.
He also made it clear more changes were coming.

However, Cuba's rigid state-controlled media doesn't allow for any
genuine public discussion of these changes (which would have to include
the voices of suppressed dissidents).

But there is one journal that acts as a window into the government's
cautions musings over social change. Temas, an officially tolerated
magazine with non-governmental funding, has been publishing articles
that explore Cuba's political options.

Rafael Hernandez is the editor of Temas. Under his editorship Temas has
previously broached taboo subjects, including the prevalence of domestic
violence in Cuba and the issue of racial discrimination.

Hernandez points out that Raul Castro's master-plan for Cuba's future
will be fully revealed at the Communist Party Congress, scheduled for
sometime late in 2009.

"One serious problem of the socialist model in Cuba," said Hernandez,
"has been hyper-centralization, so the most important political change
will be decentralization."

In agriculture, for example, reorganization will transfer decisions to
the local level.

Already, Raul Castro has announced farmers will be allowed to expand
their operations onto vacant land if they wish, and buy farm implements
in hard currency rather than waiting for state-issued tools.

The Cuban Communist Party knows the island's agricultural output has to
improve; right now, this fertile country imports 80% of its food.

Raul Castro, who fought alongside his brother Fidel in Cuba's
revolutionary battles, is now 77 years old. For many years Cuba's
Defense Minister, he is also an ideological Communist. This year, his
pragmatic side surfaced when he explicitly recognized that information
technology was unstoppable by finally making it legal for Cubans to own
cell phones and computers.

However, his liberalizations do not extend to a free press or media.

Similarly, multi-party politics are not in the cards either, said Hernandez.

Cuba's leadership is deeply suspicious of adversarial politics, and its
sometimes messy, rambunctious debates - as they are of the United States.

Certainly so far, Cuban leadership has shown no sign of loosening the
authoritarian control it wields through the Communist Party Central
Committee and an inner circle of advisors. All serious policy
disagreements and power struggles take place in the inner sanctum, away
from public view.

Raul Castro has talked of "democratizing" Cuba's Communist Party but so
far has not spelled out what he has in mind.

One of the ghosts that is haunting Cuban politics is the fate of Eastern
Europe. We must avoid that outcome here.
Rafael Hernandez
Nevertheless, Hernandez said change will have to come because of "social
pressure." He credits Cuba's stability to the fact that until now there
has been a consensus behind government policies. At present, he said,
"the consensus is shrinking." People are not in agreement with the
continuous postponement of overdue political decisions.

People can't live on their salaries. Basic goods are out of their reach.
That's putting pressure on the leadership to find solutions.

However, it would be quite wrong, said Hernandez, to think of Raul
Castro as Cuba's Gorbachev - the Russian politician who precipitated the
disintegration of the Soviet Union with his policies of "glasnost" and
"perestroika."

"In fact, quite the opposite," said Hernandez. "One of the ghosts that
is haunting Cuban politics is the fate of Eastern Europe. We must avoid
that outcome here. That's why policy implementation and political
reforms are so slow - because the political leadership doesn't want to
let things get out of control."

Raul Castro and Cuba's leadership know that Soviet-style Communism is
dead. Instead, they are aiming to give Cuba some form of autocratic
socialism with an overlay of private enterprise.

"I would say that would be a combination of Nordic socialism, Vietnamese
socialism, Chinese socialism," said Hernandez. "But I don't think there
is a model we may follow because we have a unique history - and we need
to work out a new socialist model based on that experience."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/26/world/main4127392.shtml

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