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Raul Rivero. Posted on Thu, Feb. 20, 2003 in
The Miami Herald.
HAVANA -- For a while now, Cuban households have experienced a dearth of
many of the consumer goods that they used to get via the black market. Thanks to
their ingenuity and pirouettes, a small troop of merchants compensated -- on
their own and by popular request -- for the state's proverbial ineptitude.
It turns out that the vigorous police operations that began in January
against drug traffickers and their clandestine drug dens rapidly turned into an
attack on the private activities of low-income citizens.
The surprise raids on the promoters of vice and destroyers of youth were
endorsed by a burdened and tense population. But the repression wreaked on the
so-called barrio fighters -- the men and women who take a risk by earning a few
pesos without stealing -- turned the guns around, this time against the
nomenklatura.
The police forces engaged effectively in digging up floors and tearing down
walls in their search for stashes of cocaine, marijuana, Ecstasy, Parkinsonil,
crack and hashish. At the same time, they cracked down on the sale of homemade
pastries, cigarettes, cake, merengue, peanuts, spices, soda pop, alcoholic
beverages, cigars, candy, white-cheese pizza and other delicacies intended
exclusively for the tables of the poor.
The police deployment -- patrol cars, paddy wagons and K-9 vehicles --
quickly erased from the urban landscape the vendors who come from the
countryside carrying their sinful bags and pregnant suitcases to place on the
table (empty, despite the ration cards) a slice of ham, some fruit, vegetables,
tamales and other products that the state's bungling turned into clandestine
goods.
People who rent rooms without paying taxes hastened to evict their guests,
Cuban and foreign, and the few surviving paladares (private dining rooms)
revised their menus in unison.
After starving out gastronomy in a manner reminiscent of [Spanish
concentration-camp commander] Valeriano Weyler, the antidrug operatives got rid
of the numbers runners who listen to the Florida Lottery results on Miami radio.
Thus, they snuffed the hopes of people who have dreamed of a boat that has come
for them and in the morning put 40 cents on No. 23 -- steamboat, according to
Cuban-Chinese lore.
The drive to clean the country of narcotics also turned to the indispensable
video ''banks.'' Warned by the grapevine, those efficient competitors of
Paramount removed from their homes the cassettes (dizzy from frequent use) with
the latest movies copied from the Florida channels and the programs and
newscasts they rent out for five or 10 pesos.
Those who were slow to move, or thought the warnings were idle talk, saw
their movie stocks depart forever and maybe, because they didn't have receipts,
saw their video equipment removed, with labels saying ''Confiscated.'' Another
objective of the forces was finding the television antennas that pick up signals
from abroad. Many people who kept the devices concealed on a balcony, between a
flower pot and a cactus, removed them hurriedly and went back to watching the
disturbing Round Tables and learning, through the local channels, about the
nation's many achievements.
The battle against drug traffickers, officially named Operation Shield, so
far has not deserved the attention of the local propaganda media. Therefore,
anecdotes and rumors swirl about with the intensity of a hurricane.
There is talk that high functionaries are implicated in all this; that
well-known personalities in sports and the arts have been called to account;
that inside some graves at Colón Cemetery bags full of cocaine were
found. That's major folklore.
The only thing that the shield allows us to watch is a single TV spot that
warns about the dangers of drug use. The victims of the silence that for years
hung over that grave topic must be all right. Thanks.
The antidrug campaign and the police force wielded showily in the barrios
halted the illegal trade. Even if all the raids and searches are not completed,
even if the cops don't rush into all the tenements ready to confiscate the
Russian radios, the cold that this effort has engendered has frozen the
environment and created a fear that has worsened our penury.
Raúl Rivero is an independent journalist in Cuba. | 
