Tony Allen-Mills | June 16, 2008
ON a patrol off the Caribbean resort of Cancun this month, the crew of a
Mexican naval vessel spotted unusual activity on an arriving yacht.
Officers found 33 Cuban migrants on board.
The Cubans were heading for Miami by a roundabout route - instead of
braving the short but heavily policed crossing from western Cuba to
Florida, they were planning to be escorted by professional smugglers
overland through Mexico to the US border.
Authorities in Mexico and the US have reported a jump in the number of
Cubans attempting to flee their homeland, despite economic and social
reforms introduced by President Raul Castro, 77, who succeeded his
ailing brother, Fidel, 81, in February.
The younger Castro has won international attention for reforms that
seemingly marked the beginning of the end of rigid communist orthodoxy.
Yet the lifting of bans on mobile phones, improved access to computers
and other consumer goods, and the removal of restrictions on wages and
foreign currency have had little impact on a poor population reeling
from rising fuel and food prices.
Cubans newly arrived in Miami have raised serious doubts about Raul
Castro's intentions.
"It's just a big facade to impress the people," claimed Yhosvany
Carmona, a popular Cuban television actor who arrived in Miami last
week. "Who are these people who can now afford to buy computers,
cellphones and DVDs? They are the same people who could afford to buy
them on the black market before."
In one sense, Castro has had little choice but to radically restructure
an economy that has struggled since the collapse of the Soviet Union
robbed it of its principal banker.
Forced to import at least half of its food and fuel requirements, Havana
has begun to acknowledge that ideological purity is no match for a
global financial meltdown. Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage complained
this month that "the blind laws of the market have converted the world
economy into a casino".
Lage revealed that Cuba's food imports this year would cost $2.7billion,
up from $1.5billion last year. Its fuel costs have risen from
$9.3million a day to $12.4million a day. Fearful of stoking revolt by
passing these costs on to Cuban consumers, the Government has been
heavily subsidising prices.
Cracks in communist ranks have begun to appear, and Maria del Carmen
Concepcion, a senior member of the party secretariat, warned last week
that the Fidelista revolution might "self-destruct" if economic problems
were not resolved.
The pressures appear to have persuaded Raul Castro that he cannot afford
to wait for his brother's death to begin dismantling his legacy. Many
Cuba watchers have been stunned by changes they believe that Fidel could
never have countenanced, most notably the first stirring ofcritical
debate in the government-controlled media. Some have concluded that the
giant of the Cuban revolution must now be so ill that he is unaware of
what is happening.
Yet other analysts have noted that the reforms have been more about
style than substance. Cubans are now allowed to stay at beach hotels
that were previously reserved for foreign tourists, but there has
scarcely been a flood of local pleasure-seeking. The average salary of
Cuba's 11.4million citizens is $18 a month, and hotel rooms cost up to
$200 a night.
The Government has removed a ceiling on wages. Originally intended to
prevent social inequalities from emerging, the low salaries paid to
Cuban professionals have driven thousands of them from the island.
Younger Cubans have been taking risks that were unthinkable when Fidel
was in his prime. At a meeting with students at Havana University in
February, Ricardo Alarcon, the Government's third-highest-ranking
official, was stunned when several lined up at a microphone and
challenged government policies.
One student, Eliecer Avila, wanted to know why workers were paid in a
worthless local currency, while most consumer goods were priced in a
convertible currency pegged to the dollar. He asked why Cubans could not
travel to Bolivia to see where Che Guevara, Fidel's companion in arms, died.
Alarcon's response showed how out of touch the leadership has become. In
a barely coherent 30-minute response, he defended the ban on foreign
travel: "If all the world, some six billion people, could travel
whenever they wanted, the jam in the skies would be enormous."
Avila was arrested for his cheek, and conspicuously absent from Raul
Castro's reforms has been any move to free political prisoners or to
tolerate serious political dissent. The regime has ignored critical
blogs, but when Yoani Sanchez, author of the popular GeneracionY blog,
won a top Spanish award for her writing, she was denied a travel visa to
collect her prize.
Some analysts say Raul may be attempting to engineer a transition to
Vladimir Putin-like democracy, with a new class of Cuban oligarchs
emerging from the communist and military elite. Others are more
optimistic that Raul can bury a bankrupt system alongside the brother
who built it.
The European Union will this week consider lifting its sanctions against
Cuba to encourage further change. US presidential candidate Barack Obama
has said he is willing to meet Raul Castro, although he will not lift a
US trade embargo immediately.
Yet before anyone got carried away by Castro's reforms, the Communist
Party organ, Granma, warned they were aimed at "strengthening socialism"
and would not lead to the kind of change sought by "adversaries, fifth
columnists and internal mercenaries". The editorial was entitled: "There
will not be room for subversion in Cuba".
The Sunday Times
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23867745-36235,00.html
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