Cuba: an island of despair;
Castro regime professes hope, but basic
services are abysmal, many say
By Tracey Eaton, Dallas
Morning News. Posted on Sun, Aug. 21,
2005.
HAVANA - (KRT) - At the risk of being devoured
by sharks, Juan Carlos is secretly preparing
to escape Cuba by boat.
"I've had enough," said the 32-year-old
cook, who earns less than $15 a month. "When
I get home from work, there's no electricity,
no water and no gas. I swat mosquitoes all
night, then get up at 6 to go to work again.
If you were in my shoes, I guarantee you'd
leave, too, even if you had to climb into
a bedpan and paddle to Florida."
The socialist government that Washington
has spent hundreds of millions of dollars
trying to topple is on the brink again.
Not because of a lack of human rights or
democracy, but because of something as simple
as keeping the lights on and providing basic
services, according to an August report
by the University of Miami's Institute for
Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.
"Deteriorating economic, health and
living conditions" in Cuba, the report
warns, are "dangerously similar"
to the circumstances that sparked the 1994
rafters crisis, when 30,790 Cubans fled
to the United States.
There are no signs of an exodus, the report
said, but unhappiness with Fidel Castro's
socialist government is growing.
Tensions are mounting, Cuban dissidents
agree.
"There is total discontent,"
said Alain Gomez Ramos, 27, an independent
journalist who is part of the opposition.
During the first half of the year, the
U.S. Coast Guard picked up more than 1,500
Cubans at sea, the highest number in 10
years.
A Cuban Foreign Ministry official, speaking
on condition of anonymity, conceded that
some Cubans are frustrated and want to leave.
But he contended support for the revolutionary
government is not unraveling. Most people,
he said, still back Castro, whose government
has endured the most severe and longest-lasting
U.S. economic sanctions ever imposed.
"If your father promises to take you
to Disneyland, then tells you later you
can't go, sure you'll complain about it,"
the official said. "But you still love
your father."
What's certain, many Cubans say, is that
there's a widening gap between the gloomy
mood on Havana's streets and the government's
upbeat official line, which predicts that
the economy this year will grow at an astonishing
9 percent, thanks in a large part to Venezuela,
Cuba's newest and most important ally.
"I've stopped trying to understand
this country," said a veteran former
Cuban intelligence official, sitting down
for a hearty meal of roast pork, black beans
and fried plantains. "In April, the
government said our energy problems were
over. Then we had the worst blackouts ever.
Still, Fidel gives the impression this is
the best country in the world."
Billboards showing a smiling Castro and
the words "Vamos Bien" ("We're
Doing Well") appear throughout Havana,
belying Cuba's brutal summer of 2005.
Hurricane Dennis plowed across the island
in July, causing $1.4 million in damage
and wrecking the country's already decaying
power grid. Rolling power outages of six
to 12 hours became common. And an estimated
2.5 million of the country's 11.3 million
residents were left with no running water,
according to the Institute for Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies.
The storm added to devastation from Cuba's
worst drought ever, which has caused an
estimated $1.2 billion in crop and livestock
losses since 2003.
Despite such setbacks, Castro supporters
forge ahead, voicing optimism that their
economic and political alliance with Venezuela,
the world's fifth-largest oil producer,
will help them weather hard times ahead.
"Cuban officials are convinced that
Venezuela will save them. It's the last
card the Cuban government is playing,"
said Edgar Lopez Moreno, 28, a member of
the dissident movement.
Among dozens of agreements reached this
year: Venezuela sells Cuba 90,000 barrels
of oil per day at cut-rate prices while
Cuban doctors treat tens of thousands of
Venezuelan patients for free or at a low
cost.
Cuban officials say the oil-for-doctors
swap and other treaties - along with trade
pacts with China and Vietnam - will turn
around the country's tough economic straits
within one year.
But many Cubans can't wait, Lopez said.
"Young people aren't interested in
political discourse," he said. "Ninety
percent of them want to abandon the country."
Those staying behind, meantime, try to
find humor in their difficult straits.
Jose Fuster, a famous Cuban artist dubbed
the "Picasso of the Caribbean,"
managed to incorporate the country's energy
woes into a piece of his artwork, a seven-foot
tiled crocodile with an energy-saving light
bulb mounted on its head.
"Look here," he said, pulling
a switch, "no electricity."
Others tells jokes.
"Pepito, who's to blame for all these
blackouts?" one joke begins.
"I have no idea," another man
says. "But when I find him, I'm going
to grab him by the beard, throw him on the
ground and break his other kneecap."
Castro fell after a speech in October 2004,
shattering his left knee. But he made a
quick recovery and was making frequent appearances
on Cuban television this spring, telling
the people that better times were ahead.
The Cuban government is spending hundreds
of millions of dollars to upgrade its antiquated
power plants, he said in a July 26 speech.
Already, blackouts have begun to diminish,
the Foreign Ministry official said.
"This country continues recovering
and advancing despite all the difficulties,"
he said. "And claims that Cuba isn't
progressing are wishful thinking."
He contends that Bush administration officials,
U.S.-financed dissidents and the media deliberately
exaggerate the extent of Cuba's problems
- anything to give the U.S. a pretext to
invade.
President Bush hasn't been subtle about
his wish for regime change. In late July,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named
a "Cuba transition coordinator,"
Caleb McCarry, a former staffer for the
House Committee on International Relations.
"Liberty and freedom ... are not America's
gifts, but gifts from the Creator,"
and that is why the U.S. promotes democracy
around the world, she said in announcing
the appointment.
Cuban officials criticize what they call
Washington's interventionist approach and
mockingly call McCarry the wanna-be "governor"
of Cuba.
"Surely he will receive a juicy salary
in his new job, but Caleb McCarry, I assure
you, will retire without setting foot in
Cuba," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe
Perez Roque told reporters.
© 2005, The Dallas
Morning News.
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