Sun Jun 14, 2009 12:18pm EDT
By Tom Brown
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez says the island
is headed for "inevitable" change since former leader Fidel Castro
retired, and Cubans have become more outspoken than ever in their
criticism of the government.
"Change is coming, it's as inevitable as rain in the summer and cold in
the winter," Sanchez told Reuters in an interview.
She said President Raul Castro, who took over from his ailing elder
brother last year, lacks Fidel's persuasive charisma and faces a big
leadership test as the global economic squeeze piled fresh daily
hardships on Cubans.
Sanchez, whose "Generacion Y" blog is critical of Cuba's one-party
communist government and is widely read abroad, has won international
acclaim. She was selected by Time Magazine as one of the world's most
influential people in 2008.
But her Cuban readership is limited because Internet access is closely
monitored and restricted on the island. Cuban authorities, who often
condemn internal critics as U.S.-backed traitors, have accused her of
being a "professional dissident" at the service of "anti-Cuban
propagandistic machinery."
In the year of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution,
expectations for change have grown in the Caribbean nation following
Fidel Castro's formal handover of power to his brother Raul.
U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged "a new beginning" with Cuba and
eased certain restrictions under a 47-year-old trade embargo imposed by
President John F. Kennedy as Fidel Castro moved toward a Cold War
alliance with the Soviet Union.
But Obama has made clear he will keep the embargo in place to press
Havana to allow more political freedom, and Cuba's leadership has ruled
out any "concessions".
In her blogger vignettes about daily life in Cuba, the 33-year-old
Sanchez has written humorously about hardships faced by Cubans -- like
shortages of lemons, and the need to climb 14 stories to her apartment
because the building's Soviet-era elevators are in a constant state of
disrepair.
In an interview late last week, she spoke about the dire state of Cuba's
economy, and said people's willingness to accept more sacrifices on
behalf of what she calls a "dying" regime was under question as perhaps
never before.
"On the street you hear opinions or criticism now that you never would
have heard two, three, four or five years ago. People are waking up,"
said Sanchez.
"INCONFORMITY AND FRUSTRATION"
Sanchez said the charismatic Fidel Castro, who is 82, was able to demand
big sacrifices of the Cuban people, adding that "he managed to hypnotize
millions of Cubans for decades."
But she said Raul Castro, almost five years younger than Fidel, lacks
his brother's powers of persuasion and that more and more Cubans want
change.
"It's a slow process, of course, and sometimes it's not that visible.
But the amount of criticism, of inconformity and frustration is coming
out now. It's irreversible. I think this is an irreversible process,"
she said.
Fidel Castro has not been seen in public since he underwent intestinal
surgery in July 2006.
Although he occasionally surfaces in photos and videos with visiting
foreign leaders, and he writes frequent opinion columns in the state
media, Sanchez said Fidel Castro's absence from the public eye was
costing the government dearly.
There is little if any talk about a power vacuum in Cuba under President
Raul Castro, who was Cuba's defense minister for almost five decades. He
has made several key changes in leadership since taking office,
including firing two prominent ministers.
However, a deepening economic crisis in Cuba, which diplomats call the
worst since the so-called "Special Period" in the early 1990s that
followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, presents Raul Castro with a
difficult leadership test.
"I don't believe, I really don't believe, that this society can accept
another Special Period," said Sanchez.
She noted, as do many Cubans, that the average monthly wage was woefully
insufficient despite state food subsidies.
And Cuba's "revolutionary conquests" of free health and education for
all may be wearing thin as people hope for a higher standard of living,
with or without one-party rule.
"I don't think those things are free. They're paid for in freedom and
with every monthly salary that doesn't amount to anything," Sanchez said.
Rations of beans and salt were already cut earlier this month, due to a
steep drop in foreign exchange revenues from tourism and nickel, as the
global economic crisis hit hard.
There are widespread fears of more belt-tightening measures as the
government, which imports about 80 percent of Cuba's food, struggles to
overcome a liquidity squeeze and revive a farming sector ravaged by
crippling hurricanes last year.
(Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Kieran Murray)
Change in Cuba inevitable, says acclaimed blogger | Reuters (14 June 2009)
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Cuba/idUSTRE55D16K20090614?sp=true
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