José Antonio Fornaris, Cuba-Verdad
HAVANA, April - The Cuban government managed to build the "José Martí anti-imperialist open tribune" in three and a half months, across from the former U.S. embassy, which today houses the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. The government supplied all the steel,
concrete, and colorful tiles-some say brought in expressly from México-in addition to the necessary manpower to complete the public works project in record time. The plaza includes a statue of national hero José Martí, holding a child on his right arm and pointing a finger
on his left hand toward the U.S. Interests Section.
The whole affair looks like a monument to frustration, a symbol of hurt personal pride. And it is an unjustifiable use of resources which are badly needed elsewhere.
In the city of Havana alone, more than 200,000 housing units are in fair or poor condition; 24,000 are in imminent danger of collapsing. In 10 de Octubre, just one municipality within the city, there are almost 1,000 tenements.
I recently was in one of these, called "El Rancho." The human mysery is readily apparent. In the dwelling I visited -to call it a home would stretch the imagination- a four month old girl had died two years before, a victim of a bacterial infection; a boy had been critically ill
with scarlet fever last year, and a 28-year-old man trying to escape from desperation had lost his life months before by secreting himself in the landing gear of a plane bound for England.
Under these conditions, no one has the right to divert scarce resources needed to build housing to the construction of political plazas; much less if these plazas are only good for yelling at a neighbor's country and at a neighbor's government.
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