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May 22nd 2003 | Havana. From The Economist print edition.
America's reluctance to tighten its embargo is rare good news for Cubans
ORDINARY Cubans braced at the approach of their country's independence day
on May 20th. Last month, Fidel Castro's communist government smashed the
island's small but growing democracy movement. In response, the United States
expelled 14 Cuban diplomats. It also signalled that it might use the anniversary
to announce a tightening of the trade embargo against Cuba, unfastening the
economic lifelines proffered under the Clinton administration. Cubans worried
that George Bush might ban relatives in the United States from sending
remittances, ground the 30 flights a week between the two countries and/or stop
cash sales of the American food that improves meagre diets. In the event, in a
short radio address beamed to the island, Mr Bush merely promised to foster
democracy and human rights and wished Cubans godspeed in ridding themselves of
Mr Castro.
That will prove difficult. After 43 years in power, Mr Castro shows no sign
of retiring quietly. In last month's crackdown, the harshest since the 1960s, 75
activists were jailed. The government then executed by firing squad three men
who had hijacked a Havana ferry in a failed bid to reach Florida. Mr Castro
claims that he acted in self-defence: the party line, endlessly repeated by the
state-run media, is that after Iraq Mr Bush plans "regime change" in
Havana. Cubans watched the war through the lenses of Arab and European
television cameras, courtesy of Mr. Castro's media monopoly. They were
horrified.
Oswaldo Payá, who heads the Varela Project, a petition drive seeking
democratic reform, and who is one of only a few dissident leaders still free,
says that Mr Castro is simply manipulating Cubans' fear of war while trying to
distract attention from economic problems. The government has ordered air-raid
drills at primary schools, for example.
The official arguments have cut little ice abroad. Governments and many
intellectuals normally sympathetic to Mr Castro have condemned him this time. Mr
Bush's decision not to take further measures against the island owed much to
divisions among Cuban exiles in Miami. But it has also denied Mr Castro an
opportunity in the propaganda war to shift the spotlight back to "American
aggression". That war is escalating: this week an American aircraft
broadcast propaganda programmes, interrupting Cuban TV stations.
The new repression came as Cuba's economy once again faces hard times. The
state-run sugar industry, the backbone of the countryside employing 400,000
workers, is near collapse. Last year, Mr Castro closed half of the island's 156
sugar mills, and ordered that other uses be found for 60% of land under sugar.
Much has reverted to brush. Raw-sugar output this year, at about 2m tonnes, will
be 45% down on 2002, and compares with a peak of 8.1m tonnes in 1989.
Sugar is in decline across the Caribbean, but in Cuba's communist economy
there are few alternatives. Last year's closures left more than 100,000 workers
jobless; the government now pays them to stay at home or to study in makeshift
schools. For most, the only future is subsistence farming. Others are also
affected. Big factories, such as one making cane cutters at Holguín, in
eastern Cuba, and a tyre plant in Havana, have slashed output.
Mr Castro admitted in December that 2002 had been a "terrible year":
GDP grew by only 1.1% as tourism, now the island's main industry, fell off; the
price of imported oil was high, and Cuba was hit by three hurricanes. All this
has shown up in scarcer public transport and more frequent power cuts. Many
Cubans say they find it harder than ever to make ends meet. Tourism has picked
up this year, but that may not offset sugar's decline, officials say.
On top of this, the crackdown has poisoned ties with the European Union and
Canada, which together provide more than 50% of the island's tourists, trade and
foreign investment. Often at odds with the United States over Cuba, the EU and
Canada are now furious at what they see as Mr Castro's betrayal of their more
constructive approach. A plan for Cuba to join the EU's Cotonou trade pact has
been dropped. To make the point, the EU mission in Havana invited American
diplomats, those dissidents still free and the wives of those who are not, to a
reception this month. Cuban officials walked out in protest at the presence of "enemies".
Nowadays, such talk convinces few |
