(Published only in German by PapyRossa, Cologne, in 1997. Ernst Fidel Fürntratt-Kloep translated and censored sections including my conclusion.)

KUBA: ein “Yankee” berichtet

	CUBA: a “Yankee” reports

	by

	RON RIDENOUR

	ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 I thank the many people who have assisted me in this work, in one way or another. Among them are: Jon Lee Anderson, Anna Artén, Maritza Barranco, Vilma Boneva, Miriam Clark, Dansk-Cubansk Forening, La Embajada Cubana en Dinamarca, Sigismund Escalona, Ernesto Fidel Fürntratt-Kloep, Larry Hampshire, John Haylett (Morning Star chief editor), Haralaya-Tatiana, Albert Jensen, Lois Meldrum, Jan Petersen, Grethe Porsgaard, Jean Lois Ridenour, Jimmy Santana, Gitte Schødt, Juan Tapia, Dr. Sol Inés Tena, Milt Zaslow, Rene Zeyer.
Others aided by accepting me as part of the family: the  crews of  Seaweed, Shark, Gold Sand, Giorita and Rose Island, and Prensa Latina, GIA-2 farm, and Sanguily sugar mill.
This book was inspired by the brave crew of the Cuban freighter Hermann: Captain Diego Sanchez Serrano, Héctor Maura Díaz, Santiago Rodríguez Maya, Héctor González Pagés, Jesús Dole Calzadilla, Jacinto Farnot Camilo, Lino de la Luz Reyes Rosell, Mario Andrés Hidalgo Olivera, Francisco Montalvo Peñalver, Osvald Santiago Vega, Angel Bertot Gutiérrez.
Che Guevara has been my main inspiration and midwife to internationalist philosophy and action. Che and the Cuban people's revolutionary "project" will always be in my heart as will Che´s motto:
"The ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration: to see man liberated from his alienation." 

	CONTENTS

Acknowledgements									2
Contents											3
Foreword											5
Preface											7
Chapter 1   The First Three Decades							12
Chapter 2   The Big Stick: Malign and Hostile Neighbors				24
Chapter 3   Rectification									40
Chapter 4   Special Period								48
Chapter 5   Volunteer Work								54
Chapter 6   Popular Power Restructured							63
Chapter 7   Special Period, Stage ll							77
Chapter 8   Socialist Farm Cooperatives							81
Chapter 9   Self-Employment Law Opens Pandora´s Box				90
Chapter 10  Cuba´s Mean Streets							95
Chapter 11  Sailing with Sigi								107
Chapter 12  Worker´s Democracy: Talking Shop					117
Chapter 13  Downturn Curbed								125
Chapter 14  Emigration, a US Weapon							134
Chapter 15  Open Markets Halt Economic Decline					147
Chapter 16  Is the Media Reforming?							157
Chapter 17  1995 Economics & Politics							165
Chapter 18  King Sugar									178
Chapter 19  Welfare Network Still Soild					            	186
Chapter 20  1996 Politics; Rescue Posturing						198
Chapter 21  Civil Society								            223
Chapter 22  1996 Economy								231
Chapter 23  Conclusions									242

Appendix l: Bibliography								259
Appendix ll: Who´s Who								            261
Appendix lll: Demographics								262
Appendix lV: Tenacious Royal Palm							263

	FOREWORD

Cuba's revolution, its ideology and economy, the society as a whole is in crisis and transition. Contemporary reality is changing rapidly, sometimes in confusing directions. This book offers a look "behind the headlines" of life in Cuba today. It is aimed to inform and provoke readers into action against the US's blockade, while  reflecting upon how socialism, or constructing the "new person", might be achieved. This is not an historical study of the entire revolution and society, but rather focuses on the years since Perestroika begun in Russia. Emphasis is on the political economy and a few areas of civil society in the phase known as the Special Period, and where might it be heading.
When I first heard of Cuba, I was an airman in the US Force, "defending" my country in faraway Japan from Communism. Cuba was then undergoing a revolutionary war. Two years after the guerrilla forces defeated the Batista army and took political power, I was in college in California reading Fidel Castro speeches and Che Guevara essays, as were millions of other youths throughout the Americas and Europe.
Liberating spirit, sharing all resources and wealth, eradictating poverty and hateful racism. Dashing personalities at the helm delivering inspirational speeches and poetic essays, stimulating energy and bonding brothers and sisters, lovers and comrades all. Echoes resounding the world over, tingling millions and millions of poor people,  dreamers yearning for a universe where Don Quixote and the Little Prince are real and no one goes wanting. I was one of those impregnated. 
I attended my first demonstration during the Bay of Pigs invasion. The next year, I drove through Central America to find a way into Cuba to study it first-hand. The October (1962) missile crisis thwarted that plan when I was jailed in Costa Rica for "subversive" activities, that is, identifying with Cuba. It would be 25 years before I would see the unique island, and become part of the national work force, living on the peso economy with a ration card.

After 20 years in movement activities, I emigrated from the US. Since 1980 I have lived in Denmark, Iceland, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Cuba. A journalist since 1967, I was a staff reporter and editor for several US daily and weekly newspapers and magazines, and free lanced or worked as corrrespondent for many mainstream and alternative publications in the US, Denmark, Mexico, Nicaragua and Cuba. From the summer of 1993 to the spring of 1996, I was on the staff of Cuba's foreign wire service, "Prensa Latina," and the "Morning Star" Cuba correspondent. I had worked as a "foreign technician"—advisor, revisor, writer—for Cuba's foreign language publishing house, Editorial Jose Marti, from 1988 through 1992. I also did volunteer work with the new farmers, with sugar cane cutters, micro-brigade constructors, factory workers and merchant marines, in addition to translating and distributing books. Voluntary work was an end in itself,  but it was also useful for me to know the society from within, in order to best write about it.
I align myself with the Cuban revolution, with its valiant efforts to humanize people and be independent of superpowers. It has accomplished more in the way of providing the essentials for all people than any other Third World country, and for many people in the most advanced capitalist world. Mother Teresa is unemployed in Cuba, despite the hard times it is undergoing. People do not look down when spoken to, do not speak in wavering voices;  no one goes uncared for medically or socially; there is no public racism.
Nevertheless, I am critical of some of  Cuba's political and economic methods: its top-down decision-making and paternalism, endemic poor work habits, passivity and waste, the lack of creative education and open media, and too sparse civil liberties. After years of experiencing various approaches to political direction, I am now convinced that the only way to create the new man/woman--to construct a society based on mutual respect and cooperation, to end the exploitation of man by man, as well as to motivate workers to produce well--is that those who intend such must be active participants as decision-makers, thinkers and producers. They must also be accountable for their actions and hold their leaders accountable.
I am honored to have shared at least one outlet with Wilfred Burchett, the defunct weekly "Guardian" (New York).The deceased Australian and foreign correspondent wrote about what had guided his internationalist reporter's outlook. I repeat them here, from The Memoirs of a Rebel Journalist, as indicative of my beacon as well. 
"It is not a bad thing to become a journalist because you have something to say and are burning to say it. There is no substitute for looking into things on the spot... Make every possible effort to get the facts across to at least some section of the public. Do not be tied to a news organization in which you would be required to write against your own conscience and knowledge."
I have concluded that the best way to convince people to unite in solidarity is to tell the truth about the countries we wish to help become or remain sovereign. At a solidarity conference held in Havana, December 1993, nearly 300 European delegates and North American activist guests, representing 147 organizations, decided to coordinate actions opposed to the US blockade against Cuba, including caravans led by the US-based Pastors for Peace. Sergio Corrieri, president of ICAP (Cuba`s international friendship organization) and the conference host, spoke favorably of the heterogeneous beliefs of those aiding Cuba and he recognized the healthy character of having "different opinions, criteria, disagreements, which are useful for profitable interchange, as long as they are based on the non-negotiable respect for our self-determination as a nation." I write in this spirit. 
(La Habana, February 1997)
	END FOREWORD

	PREFACE

Cycling into downtown Havana by the long seafront wall, one November day in 1993, I was shocked to a standstill!
"Hollywood America Brazilian Blend"
The billboard advertized cigarettes—in dollars—on a main Havana artery. The fact that it was a billboard advertizement in US money was even more compounded by the vulgarity of its flashy Hollywood name.	
This was a first, a symbol, but a symbol of what, the beginning of the end to socialism?
In the following days, one noticed several more billboards popping up in clear view of millions of Cubans, most of whom cannot buy the products because they have no way of acquiring dollars. Nor are Cubans interested in the time and temperature flashing on and off on many of these billboards, a capitalist invention that rapidly ceased functioning in this tropical, socialist island without parts.
Soon, Cuban television commenced carrying advertizements for products and services, only in dollars, on sports programs, beginning with the Caribbean Sports Games. Cuba's sports stadium now advertize products in dollars. 
Cubans are either curious about this new departure from not publicizing anything, other than revolutionary politics, or they feel insulted and question why it is happening.
An unusual commentary appeared in the Young Communist Union  weekly "Juventud Rebelde", when the billboards got posted. Unusual, because the writer, Osvaldo Rodríguez Martínez, took on the incipient deviating practice. Unusual also, because the article was printed.
Rodríguez concurred with government policy that the society needed hard currency and that renting space for advertizing was one way, but he postulated that it would be more thoughtful for the population, and more profitable, if foreigners could look at such signs in hotels and dollar shops, not on public streets or sports stadiums.
Furthermore, he argued, how is it possible that rather than renting the space—an estimated $500 a month could be charged—the state, or whatever organization responsible, allowed these  signs as a free "courtesy" to attract foreign business. Moreover, the state and media have a rather extensive health publicity campaign in which (no) smoking is a major target.
Rodríguez predicted that another taboo would one day be broken: commercial advertizing in Cuban publications, radio and television. 
Is Cuba to become dollarized?

The economy is in shambles.
An aura of crumbling permeates daily life.
Everyone complains, grumbling that nothing functions; that it takes hours and hours to get anywhere by public transportation; that the daily diet is reduced to levels of thinness; that power cuts and unavailable spare parts have caused 150,000 refrigerators, innumerable television sets and other electric appliances to burn out and remain idle; that it doesn't pay to work because wages buy so little and there is even less at legal or fair prices.
The average monthly wage is still 200 pesos. A black market bar of soap, almost the only available, sells for 40 to 80 pesos. A bottle of cheap rum goes for 60 to 100.
While some walls crumble, others are being constructed or repaired—as is the case with the houses of a couple of hundred thousand people made temporarily homeless (relocated in state-provided shelter) by several devastating storms.
Despite all the scarcity and decay, Cuba's infant mortality rate has continually declined up to this day, in late 1996.Health care and education remain free of charge for all people. No schools or hospitals have been closed. None of the combined staff of 600,000 (17 per cent of the workforce utilizing about one-fifth of state expenditure) have been fired. Instead, thousands of doctors are still graduated annually, and now number 60,000 or one per 183 inhabitants, the lowest ratio of patients per doctor in the world.
But Cuba now has haves and have nots. The latter are mainly those who can acquire dollars, by hook or crook.  For the first time since the US initiated its blockade, Cubans can now possess hard currency legally (since July 26, 1993). Those with dollars have the slick side, the fine accommodation and observant services at dollar locations. It all depends on which side of the dollar you stand. So it is with the rest of the world. The big difference is, it has now struck independently maverick and socialist Cuba: the one nation that said "never" to making  concessions to capitalism.
People feel insecure today.
Crime is common and ever escalating, in spite of increased police co-ordination and arrests. Aggressive attitudes are on the rise. Cyclists drive against traffic as if they owned the whole street and pavements. Bus passengers rarely obey queues and common courtesies. Bus drivers do nothing to stop kids and adults from hanging onto any external part of the bus for a free and dangerous ride. Police look the other way at many infractions, yet make periodic sweeps of unemployed, out-of-school youths for "dangerousness" deviations.

People do not respect laws nor do they  know where to turn. They don't like criminals, "the resolvers of problems", but they offer goods and services otherwise unavailable. So they buy the stolen goods on the black market. They don't trust the word of authorities, because they don't follow through on promises and plans, in which ordinary people have little or no say, yet they don't want the evils of capitalism, of phony  US-style elections or foreign domination.
These are extremely complicated times for Cuba, for its citizens and the leaders in the Communist Party and government. The policies that leaders say they have been forced to take, admittedly lamentable, cause inequality and class divisions. Leaders say that there is no other alternative; the realities of the new unipolar world have imposed these harsh decisions. Party and government leaders talk a lot these days about paternalism and egalitarianism as negatives festering in the population, causing them to be indolent, sloppy at work, shunning work for play or "sickness" absenteeism, and all the while demanding and acquiring social services without paying in productive ways.
Lost in this critique is how that rampant paternalism began. Nearly four decades ago, Cuba's unions urged the new revolutionary government to establish work relations on the basis of one-task-one-job-one worker. The political leadership insisted that unity required only one political party without factions, which resulted in a most limited "democratic centralism". The government "gave" social and economic benefits without demanding payment of the real costs. Cronyism and play habits resulted.
With benevolent paternalism comes appeasing social benefits handed out by an ensconced bureaucracy. The command-run society functioned with few fiscal mechanisms for the first 16 years of revoutionary development. The 1976 Constitution established a parliament, which was elected, indirectly, that year. But the National Assembly has been weak and ineffective, a rubber-stamp for the Council of State--28 men and three women  (three of  the 31 are black or mulatto)--all members of the Communist party, half of those on the Politbureau.
Government ministries and state firms were hierarchically managed with the top boss deciding almost everything under state planning commissions. The result has been that the ordinary person waits apathetically  for "upstairs" to decide, and to deliver. Individual initiative has not been encouraged and meaningful incentives for better performance have, in practice, been scant.

Benevolent paternalism also means that leaders are unchallenged; a dubious public follows. It is impossible to know if the government can provide what is says it cannot, for example, because there are no established channels to important economic information--apparently, at times, leaders themselves act more on the basis of wishful thinking than on figures and facts--and a good deal of information is simply deemed unwise to divulge. 	No real tough, independent investigative reporting takes place, no deep throats have national outlets to blow the whistle.This is not an abstract question of the overused terms "democracy," "human rights," "civil liberties." This is a practical and vital matter of credibility, of whether or not the people believe their leaders and media. This is a matter of whether workers can or cannot have meaningful input into decision-making in order to inspire them to identify with the job, with the final product, with government policy, so that they will produce sufficiently and with quality.
Many people say that the real reason for some shortages or disappeared products is that government agencies are over-centralized, do not listen to workers, make unwise decisions and that the CMEA (Council of Mutual Economic Aid) countries floated a high standard of living without a productive internal base.
Waste has long been common in socialist Cuba--waste of resources through individual negligence and faulty consciousness, as well as misused management of resources, imports and products of labor due to the erroneous notion that waste could be compensated for as in the "First World" through exploitation, called "trade" by some ex- and neocolonies. Firms and institutions were not made to operate on cost accountability, not made to pay for their equipment, tools and supplies, and most people get the same wages regardless of production and are not educated in the ways of civics. Subsidized paternalism has been permitted to grow and florish, instead of making use of workers´ and common people´s initiative and creativity.
Nevertheless, people do not revolt nor publicly demonstrate. They don't because there is no alternative to point to, and the one that the West tries to impose on them is too obviously unattractive. Besides, there is no organized opposition, other than some small groups sponsored by the enmey, that is, the United States, and hostile not only towards the govenment but also towards almost everything that people have learned to value. And unapproved demonstrations are not acceptable by the state. On the few occasions when people have exerted efforts to demonstrate against policies, they could be readily identified with those groups. And patriotic Cubans—the vast majority of inhabitants—do not want to be so identified. 
One can gripe at mass organizations and at workers´ assemblies today, but experience teaches that, although some of the highest leaders encourage critiques, there is a huge, well established apparatus--erratically and inefficiently controlled-- that acts on its own. These bureaucrats resist fresh thinking and changes, to the effect that things move, if at all, with unperceptible slowness. Most of the time, people just want to get the meetings over as quickly as possible.

But Cubans would not be Cuban if they did not have their jokes. Hundreds of jokes about Fidel and the state system circulate and are told by nearly everyone, by more or less serious critics and even by party people in a good mood. There is something refreshing about many of these jokes. They approach irony and self-critique. Some people who defend Fidel and the system view these jokes as negative criticism, supplying ammunition to the enemy. I see them, some of them, as realistic representations of how people feel. Regardless of one´s ideological program, people´s true feelings must be taken into account or ideology fails. Solidarity activists need to understand reailty and people´s feelings, else they become alienated from the process of struggle, and often disassociate from participating. That leaves the door open for any powerful force to determine or dictate our destiny. If we understand why things go the way they do, it is easier for us to accept defeats and continue plugging along for future victories.
One joke has it that the president of the US asks God when the US will control the whole world. God replies: "In the year 3000." The Russian president then asks God when Russia will be able to restructure and fulfill its economic plans. God replies: "In the year 4000." Finally, Fidel asks when rectification of errors and negative tendencies policies will win out and the Special Period overcome. God begins to cry and answers: "I won't live long enough to see it."
But there is also this one: Fidel is gone, and as a leader of a communist state he comes to Hell. He succeeds in persuading Satan to ask God for an audience of  just two hours. After several attempts, Satan succeeds, but only ten minutes, no more. Ten minutes, an hour, two hours go by. Satan approaches the door. He hears God saying, "OK, Fidel. You are right. Just one condition. Let me be your second in command."

	END PREFACE

      CHAPTER 1
THE FIRST THREE DECADES

"Each time a country is freed, we say it is a defeat for the world imperialist system ... The practice of proletarian internationalism is not only a duty for the peoples struggling for a better future, it is an inescapable necessity ... The development of countries now starting out on the road to liberation should be paid for by the socialist countries." (Che Guevara, Organization of Afro-Asian Solidarity, February 26, 1965.)

Reconstructing and remoulding the nation's comprador economy, following the revolutionary  triumph, January 1, 1959, required new thinking and new partners, after the United States cut ties with the new revolutionary Cuban government. The US began its embargo in 1961, and the Soviet Union offered to underwrite Cuba´s economic development and military defense. But US aggression began even before the new government began nationalizing, in 1959-60, much of the land and industry, including foreign property for which Cuba paid or offered to pay compensation. 
The shift in partners took place with dramatic rapidity. In 1958, over 70 per cent of trade was with the US. By 1963, 80 per cent was with the communist parties-led bloc.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, sugar had accounted for 82%  of the nation's exports, most of it sold to the US. The initial revolutionary goal was to reduce the emphasis on sugar cane. It constructed roads to unused nickel mines, in order to extract nickel for export, sought to mine other minerals, produce steel, grow more vegetables for consumption and export, and open markets everywhere possible; in short, to diversify.
 Cuba's economic survival and development strategy has passed through five stages and is now in its sixth:

    1)1959-63--Industrialization-diversification; 2) 1964-75--Toward a Ten Million Tons Sugar Harvest; 3)      1976-85--Gradual diversification with priority on sugar as the main export crop to CMEA ; 4) 1986-       90--Rectification "correcting errors and negative tendencies;" 5) 1990-93--Special Period in Time of        Peace with national cutbacks and substitutes for imports, introducing controlled elements of foreign         investments and mixed economy; 6) 1993-present—Special Period, stage two, a more radical market      reform, with private initiative and a dual economy hoping to forge a single, healthier economy.
The book is structured on these stages, focusing on the latter three. This chapter paints a  quick and crude brush stroke of the more important economic and political elements of the first three stages.
On March 17, 1959, the much-awaited Agrarian Reform law was promulgated. Latifundias could no longer operate privately. Lands over 30 caballerias (13.4 hectares each, for total of 400 hectares)--with some exceptions if efficiency warranted--were confiscated with indemnification and turned over to landless peasants or farmed as state collectives for the benefit of all. Rents and sharecropping were eliminated on the principle that land belongs to those who till it. Lands owned by Batista and his key supporters (Batistianos) were confiscated outright and given free to farm workers and squatters (up to 27 hectares per family). The first lands confiscated were Fidel´s own family, which he turned over to farmworkers.
A new state agency, INRA (National Institute of Agrarian Reform), was established to implement the law, to supply seed and resources to the new landowners and state collectives, to set prices, to plan production and offer technical aid. INRA also performed auxilliary tasks for rural development: construction of  housing, roads and electric wiring, health care centers, schools and recreation facilities. 
INRA's long-term goals were to diversify crops, to avoid dependency on imports, eliminate the middle man in distribution-marketing by substituting with the ACOPIO monopoly; and conduct scientific experiments for agricultural-husbandry improvements.  INRA became, de facto, the inner government as it directed the economy. In 1960, it worked with the newly inauguarated Central Planning Commission (JUCEPLAN), which was set up with Soviet and Czechoslovakian economist expertize.
Antonio Nuñez Jimenez was the first head of INRA. Trained as a geographer and speleologist, he ran the vast agricultural lands now in the hands of the state until late 1961, when another leading member of the revolutionary forces, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez took over.
 In the first stage, it became common to see state-administered farms trying to grow between 20 and 35 different crops. Decisions were all too often made in a rush with too little data available for good planning, and farm production was not advancing as hoped. 
            In October 1963, a second agrarian reform nationalized all private holdings larger than 5 caballerias (67 hectares). Many of the larger landowners had been leaving much of their land fallow because they wanted greater profits or because they opposed the socialist measures. Over 11,000 farms were expropriated and compensation was paid to most except a few belligerent counterrevolutionaries.	

Before the revolution, there was very little manufacturing industry. In the revolution´s first two years, its industrial development came under a department within INRA, headed by Che Guevara. In February 1961, Che became the minister of the new Ministry of Industry. The ministry employed 150,000 workers, 60,000 of them in sugar refinery. In the first stage, the ministry invested 850 million dollars in shaping a metals industry and a total of two-hundred and eighty-seven industries (many of them new factories), including 105 sugar mill. Factories produced pencils, barbed wire, spark plugs, paper, paint, lamps, and many other products that had been imported. Cotton was also grown again, for a short time, for textiles. 
On March 24, 1963, Che touched off  "the great debate" about raising social consciousness aimed at increasing the quantity and quality of production and forming the integral person. His vision was that people could be morally stimulated to create a positive work ethic not based on materialistic or individualistic incentives but out of satisfaction of knowing a good job was being done and that one's duty to his country and fellow man was being fulfilled.
The "New Man" would discard egoism, selfish designs for wealth and power. People would become complete human beings when they were no longer compelled "by the physical necessity of selling (themselves) as a commodity," Che said. The end of money was foreseen, and for several months money was hardly used for many essentials. Local telephone calls, sports and cultural events and cinemas were free. The hope was that the nation could forge socialism and communism simultaneously. 
Che placed emphasis on voluntary work, and a few micro-brigades--small volunteer worker units-- eventually built some housing. Many people also volunteered to cut sugar cane, and soon school children engaged in voluntary agriculturework as part of their studies.
Che concocted an economic strategy he called "budgetary calculation." Centralized planning and decision-making was key to his approach that emphasized using economic analysis of costs with standards for consumption, raw materials, products produced, and inventory. Che hoped that enterprises would be geared to specialize in manufacturing without managing capital, in this way avoiding monetarism, greed and individualistic tendencies. The Ministry of Finances furnished the money for management.
Yet this approach precluded, in practice, a significant decision-making role for the workers on the work site and in national policies, an essential ingredient to forming the "new man." With greater centralization, government-appointed administrators hired more subordinates, and adminstrators acquired more power and importance in decision-making, along with JUCEPLAN planners.

Che began to see that greater production required the means of production to be in the hands of workers and not exclusively for enterprise management and national planners to control. This was a theme that he began to write about in a few articles, such as "Socialism and Man in Cuba," first written as a letter to Carlos Quijano, editor of Marcha (a weekly in Uruguay, which published the article March 12, 1965).  
Carlos Rodríguez had been a leader of the Popular Socialist Party (PSP), which was closest to Soviet economic  and political thinking. Although the PSP had not supported the July 26 Movement, which Fidel led  in guerrilla warfare that resulted in the January 1, 1959 victory, Rodríguez was an exception. He had supported their armed struggle approach, both in the mountains and cities.
As head of INRA, Rodríguez adopted an economic strategy that he called "auto finance", which emphasized material incentives, with moral emulation in the background, and mini-plans in which economic units had more determining role than in Che´s "budgetary calculation." For a few years, both strategies ran parallelly on an experimental basis.
After producing an unusually good sugar harvest (zafra ) in 1961, 6.8 million tons (MT), the sugar industry was neglected by government units in favor of diversification and production fell to 4.8MT in 1962, and then to an historic low of 3.9MT in 1963. Nature did not help matters either. The draught of 1961 was debilitating, followed by  Hurricane Flora in 1963, which killed 1200 people and damaged many crops. 
José Luis Rodríguez, a key economist with  Cuba's World Economic Research Center (CIEM) when I interviewed him, in 1989 (now Minister of Economy and Planification), explained that the "strategy of industrialization did not flourish because of an insufficiently integrated infrastructure. The country also lacked an educated and skilled managerial and labor force, had a shortage of electric energy and was forced to convert to new equipment and parts, and necessarily expensive investments in defense."
Nevertheless, in this short-lived, chaotic and romantic first stage, the economy grew slightly over 1958-9, an annual average of 0.7%, and great social progress was accomplished for the population as a whole. Several ministries stood for social and educational development. Although INRA was mainly the key economic organism, it also constructed hundreds of schools and medical centers in rural areas. It built 1,400 countryside stores in a short time span, 10,000 housing units, several roads and three new rural towns. 
When the literacy campaign was underway, during 1961, all private schools were nationalized, and education was henceforth free for all. This broke up economic privilege and racial discrimination, while also angering the Catholic Church hierarchy.

The Ministry of Public Works spent 100 million dollars in the first period, building 270 rural schools and 45 new or expanded hospitals. The Ministry of Social Welfare built nursery schools and old age homes, neither of which had ever existed before. Health care was now free for all persons. Polio was eliminated in 1963; diptheria, tetanus, typhoid, and malaria soon followed suit once the massive vaccination programs wiped out many diseases and infectuous mosquitos. The first of scores of solidarity medical missions sent abroad was formed in 1962, this time to assist Algerians.
            Although social progress was dynamic, limited finances and economic production could not support this growth.The valiant efforts to diversify the economy wasn´t working quickly enough. Economic assistance from the Soviet Union and CMEA formed much of the basis for Cuba´s development. 
 In late 1963, the revolution´s leaders decided to reorient the economy to priortize sugar production, the historically proven crop that Cuba could rely upon and one that the new allies could most use. Long-term contracts were negotiated with CMEA at good prices (.06 cents a pound). With this guarantee, annual increments in sugar production were planned between 1965 and 1970. Ten million tons were forecast for 1970. The Soviet Union and other CMEA countries would buy seven million tons in 1970, and China and the capitalist market would buy the rest, leaving several hundred thousand tons for national consumption.
 During the second economic development stage, a third method of economic strategy was put into play in 1965. It became popularly known as the fidelista model, because Fidel took charge of mixing Che´s centralized planning and Rodríguez'  mini-plans, combining material and moral incentives. Fidel took over INRA directly and, de facto, the Ministry of Agriculture. He abolished the Ministry of Finance, weakened JUCEPLAN, and blasted the growing bureaucracy in the style of Che.
 For the 1965 crop, Fidel offered major bonuses to 5000 of the most productive workers. Bonuses included vacations to socialist countries and to Cuban resorts, and durable domestic goods. That year´s harvest rose significantly, 6.1MT,  over the 4.5MT in 1964.
The 10MT sugar plan was a "matter of honor",  Fidel said. One billion dollars was invested in the sugar  industry over the next six years. Most other industries were neglected. Adults going to night school and students training in technical skills dropped out to work the zafras. Volunteer labor came from schools, social services and most industries. 
The new economic strategy with the goal of producing ten million tons of sugar in 1970 "looked good," José Luis Rodríguez told me. "The Soviet Union offered us a stable market with preferential  and just prices. In exchange for sugar and nickel, we received oil, wheat, machinery, vehicles, plant technology and even some convertible currency." 
Nevertheless, the plan was simply too ambitious, and the infrastructure was inadequate. 

In 1961, Che had predicted that 8.5MT could possibly be produced by 1970, if the country could acquire the proper equipment and renovate the industry´s infrastructure. Fidel hoped that a new nationally invented combine could mechanize much of the sugar harvest, thus saving manpower and accomplish greater harvests. However, the Minister of Sugar, Orlando Borrego, a man close to Che, told Fidel that only  five percent of the planned 1970 harvest could be cut by  the new combine, because it was still only in development in 1968.  Borrego also warned that mills and equipment were too old and broken down for such a gigantic harvest. The minister was fired in 1968 for his "pessimism".
The 1970 harvest continued for eight months instead of the usual five or six. Although far short of its goal, the harvest set an historic record of 8.5MT by the time it was ended on July 23. Fidel admitted the zafra defeat in his speech on July 26, 1970, celebrating the 17th anniversary of the July 26 Movement attack on dictator Batista´s Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. 
 The Minister of Labor at the time, Jorge Risquet, reported that the harvest cost the economy three times its value. He blamed absenteeism--reported to be at 29% nationally--and "problems of widespread passive resistance". 
 Because so many resources and energy went into the gigantic sugar harvest plan, production in almost all other areas, including food and light industries, declined drastically over the next three years. Social discontent also plagued economic production and revolutionary consciousness.
 The 1968 "revolutionary offensive" had shut down the last of private businesses,  58,012 small enterprises, including bars and restaurants. The small business vendors and private service workers had performed functions that the state now assumed, but was incapable of fulfilling adequately. There was less offer than before and, for a time, very little to drink. These measures led to increased crime that the Ministry of Interior checked by massive arrests. Harsh sentences were handed down, including the rarely used death penalty for some crimes.
 With the 1970 sugar setback, it was time to try something different, as Fidel insinuated in his cogitative July 26, 1970 speech:
     "You cannot hold a man responsible for anything unless he is in a position where he can decide things...Often men with no authority to make decisions are the ones who have to confront the problems...There should be a manger, naturally—for there must always be someone accountable--but we must begin to establish a collective body in the management of each plant...Why should a manager have to be absolutely in charge? Why shouldn't we begin to introduce representatives of the factory's workers into its management?"

       The disappointing economic reality and a crime problem with social unrest influenced the Communist party´s top leadership to scrap the ideal of creating socialism and communism simultaneously, and they began studying a new economic strategy and a more participatory political structure.

         In preparation for what became the third stage of economic development, a realistic attitude now dictated shifting back to more industrialization, phasing out the fidelista economic model and systematically offering material incentives for production generally.Volunteer labor was cut back to concentrate on "Red Sundays", clean-up and productive tasks closer to home that included some housing micro-brigades.
      In 1972, Cuba joined CMEA. This meant adopting the Soviet four-stage transition from capitalism to communism: transition to socialism, socialism, transition to communism, communism. Cuba's leadership now sought a more orderly, totally state-controlled production process based on five year plans coordinated with CMEA, which sent European technicians to help plan and direct many activities at various levels, especially in the sugar and metallurgy industries, in the armed forces and education. Sugar, citrus fruits, and nickel were indexed to prices of oil imports, binding Cuba even more to socialist state trade.
               Joining CMEA guaranteed regular increases in food and goods consumption with preferential prices for products, development credits, compensation for commercial imbalances, technical and military aid that allowed the government to afford high investments in social expenditures. Cuba extended health and education systems, which became the envy of Third World nations and CMEA countries, which began to send many people to the island for health treatment. Cuba neglected, however, emphasizing nutritional self-sufficiency and soon was importing nearly two-thirds of its foodstuff from CMEA.
            In foreign policy, however, Cuba continued to retain significant independence. In contrast to the Soviet geopolitical outlook, Cuba rejected "peaceful coexistence" as a strategy and held fast to revolutionary armed struggle as a necessity to overthrow oppressive governments and to combat imperialist aggression. It aided the Vietnamese and several African governments in their defensive wars against outside interventions. 
         Che had left Cuba in the spring of 1965 to aid revolutionary forces in the Congo. Fidel read Che´s farewell letter at a rally. The next that Cubans would hear about Che from Fidel was at the October 18, 1967 ceremony, when Fidel announced his comrade´s death upon his October 8 capture in Boliva. Cuba´s foreign policy was then aimed at creating "two, three, many Vietnams," as Che had told Third World revolutionaries in an April 1967 message.
   	 In March 1967, Fidel criticized leaders of Venezuela´s Commuist party for their ambiguous attitude toward the national guerrilla struggle led by the party´s former head, Douglas Bravo. In August, Fidel publically criticized the Soviet Union for its associations with reactionary governments in Latin America.
Cuba named the year 1967  for "Heroic Vietnam," followed by the year of the "Hero Guerrilla." The figures of  Ho Chi Minh, Che, and Fidel became code names for popular liberation rebellion around the world. But when the Prague Spring experiment of "socialism with a human face" was crushed by Soviet intervention, Fidel supported the Soviet Union´s takeover of Czechoslavkia.

  	Fidel´s August 23, 1968 speech did criticize the Novotny government--an indirect critique of Soviet Stalinization--a critique that other CMEA nations dared not take. Nevertheless, Fidel was setting a new tone when he said that Soviet intervention was necessary. "We must learn to face the political realities, and not give way to romantic and idealistic dreams."
With the Cuban revolutionary third stage, its dreams of creating socialism were codified with an explicitly socialist constitution and a formal parliamentary structure. The idea was to give "the masses" a forum to express popular imput, other than the periodic encounters with Fidel--known as "direct democracy"--the results of which were determined by that one man's will, mood and capacity to follow through with suggested needs or  desires.
  	Early in the revolution, mass organizations had been created in this direct fashion, as was the case with the first militias and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), in late 1960. When Fidel returned from his trip to a United Nations meeting in New York, he was speaking to a rally, on September 28, 1960, when two small bombs exploded near the crowd. Fidel interrupted what he was saying to announce:
  	"We´re going to have a committee of revolutionary  vigilance on every block, so the people can watch, so that there´s no imperialist, no sellout to the imperialists who can move an inch."
Initially organized as organs of vigilance, the CDRs evolved into neighborhood committees that encouraged people to clean up the neighborhood, arranged garbage collections and repairs of electric power wires, collected materials to be recycled, organized vaccination campaigns for children, and distributed supplies to victims of natural catastrophes. However, their vigilance role also led some CDR individuals to snitch on neighbors for no good reason other than personal spite, thereby creating unfounded suspicions.
    	Another mass organization, the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), was established at the same time as the CDRs. The Federation has been led by Vilma Espin, a former urban resistance fighter who married Raul Castro. All Cuban women over 15 automatically become members, but the focus has on housewives, who help others acquire basic domestic skills, improve hygiene and health-care, and assist vaccination campaigns.
    	Youth groups also had been organized: Pioneers for elementary school children and the Young Communist League (UJC).  The Federation of Secondary Education Students (FEEM) and the Federation of Universtity Students (FEU) had existed and were now taken over by Communist youth.
  	 The leadership had waited 17 years before institutionalizing the revolutionary political structure into a parliamentary system,  because leaders had been fearful of losing the spontaneity of  "direct democracy", and  needed to solidify the nation in front of continual US aggressions.

Che had addressed this matter in his article, "Socialism and Man in Cuba."  Che characterized their form of rule in the early period as an, "almost intuitive method of sounding out general reactions to the great problems we confront. In this Fidel is a master. His own special way of fusing himself with the people can be appreciated only by seeing him in action...this close dialectical unity between the individual (Fidel) and the mass in which both are interrelated..."
Che also realized that this direct method of decision-making could not continue forever and in the same 
article suggested that, "a more structured connection with the mass is needed...We are looking for something new that will permit  a complete identification between the government and the community in its entirety...the greatest brake has been our fear lest any appearance of formality might separate us from the masses and from the individual, might make us lose sight of the ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration: to see man liberated from his alientation. "
  		What the leadership came up with in 1975-6 had its beginning in 1965 when the new Communist party was forged, amalgamating the July 26 Movement, the pro-Soviet PSP, and the university student-based Revolutionary Directorate. Both the party and the government executive have since been led by Fidel. A decade passed before the party held its first congress. In 1975, the appointed party delegates approved, on the national plain, the experiment in municipal government underway since 1974 in Matanzas province. The party  decided to restructure the entire country based on a new constitution and a three-tier Popular Power government.
    	Tens of thousands of meetings were held for people to air their complaints about the previous years' setbacks and to discuss the upcoming referendum on the constitution. Some 16,000 modifications of the constitutional draft were suggested; hundreds were adopted by planners. On February 15, 1976, the constitution was voted for by  97.7% of the 98% of eligible voters who went to the polls--that is, all those over 16 years of age, other than criminals.
 The constitution proclaimed the National Assembly as "the people's supreme power and represents and expresses the sovereign will of all the working people...the only organ in the Republic invested with constituent and legislative authority...(it is) composed of deputies elected by Municipal Assemblies of the People's Power."
The national assembly selects the Council of State and the president, who recommends the Council of Ministers to the assembly. Though the national assembly  passes all laws, it only meets for two annual sessions over a two to three-day period, and the deputies hold down regular jobs. The Council of State rules on a day-to-day basis, and makes decree-laws, which it proposes to the assembly in the next session. Every decree law has been unanimously approved by the assembly since its first session. 

     	Voters nominate two to eight candidates at local precinct meetings for municipal government. They later vote for one person, whose qualifications are based on one´s character and volunteer work. No politics are discussed, nor is money or campaigning involved. Thousands of municipal delegates, in 169 municipalities, are voted for every two and one-half years. They, in turn, select delegates to govern the 14 provinces for two and one-half years and national deputies, serving for five years. The mass organizations and Communist party also play a role in the provincial and national candidate selection process. (Constitutional reforms took place in 1992, discussed in chapter 6).
    	In the first municipal elections, 76.7% of the voters attended the nominating meetings, and 95.2% voted for candidates. Participants in the nominating process increased to over 90% in future elections and between 97 and 99% of voters take to the polls.
  	Although elections are not partisan, the Communist party, as the only political and ideological force, dominates policy making. Article 5 of the constitution states: "The Communist party of Cuba, the organized Marxist-Leninist vanguard of the working class, is the highest leading force of the society and the state, which organizes and guides the common effort toward the goals of the construction of socialism and the progress toward a communist society." And in the preamble, Fidel Castro is ratified "to carry forward the triumphant Revolution."
    	National Electoral Commission statistics show that, over the years, between eight and 18% of municipal delegates have been women, while between 22% and one-third of upper level representatives have been women. No exact figures on race exist but estimates are that between one-third and 40% of the upper branch representatives are black or mulatto. Half the population or more have African ancestors. Nearly all members of the National Assembly are either members of the Communist party or the Young Communist League, and approximately 70% of municipal delegates are members of one or the other. Combined membership of the two  organizations is over 1.1 million, about ten percent of the people.
    	Institutionalization of the revolution also involved most organisms. More emphasis was placed on the nuclear family, which was enunciated in the Family Code of 1975. The role of unions increased after 23 national unions were reconstructed at the 1973 Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC) congress. They were now functionally separated from the Communist party, although not politically. Guarantees of equal rights for all regardless of age, "race, color, sex or national origin" were also codified. Violations of these rights are punishable by jail sentences and fines. There are also guarantees for social security, pensions, free health care and education.

    	In this era of politically restructuring, the third stage of economic development got underway with  a new planning approach called Direction and Planning System of Economy (Sistema de Direccíon y Planificacíon de la Economia-SDPE). In 1975, new methods of bookkeeping and semi-autonomous management were introduced, reestablishing the use and importance of money. Capitalistic methods of profit-making, pricing and wages, and interest were introduced, but without profit for capitalists. A part of profits was returned to the individual work center, which invested some in improvements and some in the "collective incentive fund," which went for bonuses, child-care centers, worker housing and dinning halls.
Greater priority was given in the '70s to train economists and new professionals. Although more authority was granted to individual state enterprises, many of the administrators and directors were not trained in those fields. They were appointed to their posts for past deeds and out of friendship ties. Managers did not question, as a rulem decisions from above, and they often obscured deficiencies. A good deal of chaotic administration continued with waste and inefficiency as results.
    	Raul Castro blasted the SDPE system in a 1979 speech, saying that enterprises permitted "deliberate go-slows so as not to surpass the norms, which are already low and poorly applied in practice, so they won't be changed because they are being more than met...(enterprises also allowed) unjustified absences from work...working no more than four or six hours...rampant cronyism: 'you do me a favor and I'll do you one,' and pilfering on the side."
    	Bureaucratic centralism--an ever-escalating phenomenon that Che had seen as the most dangerous, subtle enemy of the revolution--was so entrenched that when things floundered people could only hope that "Comrade Fidel (would) take over the situation and pull our chestnuts out of the fire," Raul said.
    	A dozen years after the closure of the last private markets, the government relented to mounting complaints about the totally state-controlled food and consumer production and distribution process, and allowed some small-scale private enterprises to function, although without employees. Handicraft and repair work had been assumed exclusively by state agencies. In 1982, a new law allowed for a few to work  privately, mostly pensioned persons performing individual services such as knife sharpening and shoe shinning. By the end of the decade, 29,000 self-employed were licensed.
    	The biggest change was the supply-demand farmers' market, approved in 1980. Only private farmers could partake, and do so without middle men. They were permitted to sell surplus products after meeting state quotas, which the government distributed to the population through the ration system (which had been established in March of 1962 to assure that everyone could acquire the most essential foodstuffs, toiletries and clothing items at low, subsidized prices). Most farmers, however, had no real way of producing as well as transporting and selling their crops in city market places. This dilemma influenced many  farmers to clandestinely hire market vendors and moonlighting chauffeurs, who were usually regularly employed by state firms, so that the farmers could concentrate on production. Many of these middle men became rich, as did a few farmers. 

A short-lived housing law, passed in 1984, permitted private construction of housing and even private sales and rentals.The new farmer market entrepreneurs and thieves could now build large and comfortable homes  at inflationary prices. This angered ordinary people who did not have access to capital.
    	Free farmer market sales amounted to just two percent of total food consumed. Most people could not afford to buy more than a few items. Although people complained about the prices and the luxury lifestyle of the new rich, most liked the possibility of being able to browse through the markets where there was usually a greater variety of  better quality foods than at the state stores. 
   	The state competed by opening an official parallel market, selling some consumer items and durable household equipment at a low profit. In addition to durable goods offered at moderate but profitable prices to everyone, distinguished workers were granted certificate bonuses allowing them to buy a few goods on time plans at just above cost.
   	In  this stage, the state also sought to overcome economic dependency on CMEA, and many Latin American and Western European governments, as well as Japan and Canada, grew tired of US blockade pressure and began trading with Cuba. (Canada and Mexico had never complied with the US blockade, in large part). In the early 1980s dollar trade with Western firms accounted for 40% of the national total. With the rush for hard currency,  consumer goods and better technology, however, Cuba soon became deeply indebted. The debt quadrupled to six billion dollars in a decade. The nation couldn't export enough to make ends meet and the Paris Club cut off credits. By 1987, 88.5 percent of Cuba's trade was once again with CMEA.
    	Many social advancements took place in this era. The family doctor program was launched in 1984. The perspective was to provide a personal doctor for every rural and mountain family, and eventually for all. (Just over a decade later, 95% of Cubans are covered by 30,000 doctors, who live in a combination house-clinic in neighborhoods they serve.) The family doctor program emphasizes preventative care, with some treatment. Doctors also partake in counseling and social work, helping people to reduce or give up vices such as smoking and alcoholism. All Cubans are also connected to nearby polyclinics and hospitals.
    	Genetic-biotechnology research and production got underway in the 1970s, soon placing Cuba in the ranks of the most developed nations and the only Third World country to have this advanced medical technology. Dr. Carlos Miyares Cao discovered that the human placenta can be used to help grow skin pigmentation, effective against vitiligo with a 84% success rate and without harmful side-affects. Cuban scientists began making  vaccines and would soon be discovering new ones against diseases for which no vaccine existed.

    	Another achievement of the third period was sending a Cuban cosmonaut into outerspace. Fighter pilot Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez, son of a Guantanamero farmer,  became the 100th astronaut to fly outside the earth's atmosphere. He was the first black person and first person from the Third World to do so. He flew in a Soviet space ship with Yuri Romanenka, departing from the USSR on October 18, 1980.
    	Despite difficulties and discrepancies, Cuba experienced constant growth in this stage. The first half (1976-80) netted an average 3.4% annual growth (Global Social Product). In the free marketing era, growth increased between 7.2 and 7.9%, depending on statistical approaches.
     	Everyone had a job with a month paid vacation. People danced in the streets and were fed 3000 calories a day on the ration card. In fact, one-quarter had become obese and family doctors started morning exercise programs in the parks, and in elderly and child-care centers. 
    	After two five-year plans, Fidel delivered angry critiques at the state of the economy, whose growth was largely based on competition that was deteriorating socialist values. Fidel had been in the minority on some economic issues, including the farmers market, during much of the third stage. His criticisms were adopted by the majority of the party´s day-to-day leadership, the Politbureau, and the 200-member, platform-making central committee. And another reform period called "rectification" was launched.

	END CHAPTER

                       
CHAPTER 2
THE BIG STICK:  MALIGN AND HOSTILE NEIGHBORS
"We suffered the greatest damage because all the hatred of imperialism turned upon us, since we were at their doorstep...We had the audacity to make a revolution and build socialism 90 miles from the US or just a few inches from their naval base—and this could not be forgiven...The hatred it generated had to be very strong. That's why they blockaded us with so much determination and that is why the USSR was so important to us." (Fidel Castro, July 26, 1993 speech.)

Now, Washington believes, is the moment to grab "the last bastion" and return it to its "rightful" place in  Miami's backyard, where Cuba—unlike Asian and European  socialist states—once belonged. National chauvinism and triumphalism are all the more enhanced since the collapse of the Soviet Union and CMEA. With the supposed end of the cold war, rather than soften its line on Cuba, the Wall Street-Pentagon-CIA fraternity sees the island plagued by economic crisis and socialism is dissolving. With a little help from the strangling economic blockade, coupled with periodic terrorism and fifth column fabrication , "Castro's Cuba" can be pushed into the sea all the faster.
That outlook is bolstered by much of the international media, which focuses almost exclusively on negative information and disinformation.
The US had barely liberated itself from the British empire when, in 1808, it offered Spain $40 million to buy "the most beautiful land eyes had ever seen," as Columbus described Cuba. Spain turned down the offer and US strategy turned to  violence.
Yankee marines periodically occupied Cuba on the pretext of preventing pirate raids. The Monroe Doctrine became the government's "manifest destiny" strategy from 1823 onward. Southern plantation owners organized mercenary invasions prior to the Civil War, but were defeated.
The US saw its chance to declare war on Spain when the Cuban creole army (Mambises) were close to sundering the Spanish in their third war for independence.

On February 15, 1898, the US battleship Maine was blown up in the Havana harbor and 241 seamen died. All the officers, save the two watch officials, were at a party with Spanish officials, but media mogul William Randolph Hearst ignored this "curiosity" and spread the dubious notion that Spain stood behind the massacre. Congress declared war and the US was able to seize victory from the Cubans. It then imposed humiliating conditions on the new republic, forcing it to give Guantanamo Bay for a US naval base, which remains in US hands. In addition, the US assumed mineral and communication development rights. The US dispersed the liberation army and put in a puppet government.
Between 1906 and 1933, US troops landed numerous times on Cuban soil to "restore order" and back governments and policies favorable to its interests.
CIA director Allen Dulles organized the vicious Bureau to Repress Communist Activities in 1956 to aid dictator Batista against rebel patriots. Mafia boss Meyer Lansky,  Miami capo Santos Trafficante and other mobsters were permitted to run a $100 million vice operation.
Since the revolutionary triumph in 1959, the US government has employed Murder Incorporated tactics, coordinated principally by the CIA, to kill Cubans. The Cuban government estimates that the US has directly or indirectly killed about 2,000 Cubans and foreign national visitors.
Some SIX HUNDRED and TWELVE (612) plans have been drafted, according to General Fabian Escalante, former chief of Cuban State intelligence Department (DSE) , to assassinate President Fidel Castro, the most targetted state leader in history.  At least THIRTY-TWO (32) actual attempts have been made on the man´s life. Murder contracts on Fidel may have originated with a US National Security Council directive, signed March 10, 1959, just 70 days after the revolutionary victory. It was designed to bring "another government to power in Cuba." The same month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the CIA to begin training Cuban exiles for an invasion of Cuba, according to his memoirs. This occurred before any nationalizations, two years before Cuba declared itself socialist, and one year before it began trading with the Soviet Union.
The first US government attempt on Castro's life may have taken place in October 1959. Air Force Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty worked for President Eisenhower and with the CIA to kill Castro. They used a L28 helicourier to transport Oscar Spijo and another Cuban exile to shoot him with a high-powered rifle from a building overlooking a familiar walking route. The terrorists were landed but never heard from.
With this failure, the CIA-Mafia connection was hatched. The US Congress later revealed at least six concrete attempts made by this unholy alliance.
One of the first and most virulent paramilitary organizations, Alpha 66, was organized by the CIA in the early 1960s. Its  head , CIA Cuban agent Antonio Vecina,  tried twice to assassinate Fidel Castro. Current Alpha 66 chief is Andres Nazario. He told the Miami media, in 1993, that he had the "right" to kidnap tourists and attack solidarity activists, such as the Pastors for Peace.

The United States House select committee on assassinations, in 1979, listed Alpha 66 as one of the 20 right-wing groups with the "motivation, capability and resources" to assassinate President John F Kennedy.  Alpha 66 still operates openly in the US. The Miami city commission gave it a $10,000 grant and  declared a city-wide Dr. Orlando Bosch Day, following his 1987 arrest in Venezuela for co-planning the 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian aircraft in Barbados. Bosch was soon bought out of prison with CIA funds. He lives in the US and is free to terrorize against Cuba.
Frank Sturgis, convicted of Watergte crimes, has long been a CIA official ( a colonel in 1990) involved in terrorism and assassination plots against Cuban leaders. He is connected to the Miami-based Cuban Freedom Army, along with Higinio "Nino" Díaz. In October 1990, Sturgis sent two commandos in an inflatable  dinghy to eastern Havana shores with instructions to sabotage, sow rebellion and kill Fidel and Raul Castro and Ramiro Valdés (the former Minister of  Interior). The two paramilitarists, Gustavo Rodriguez Sousa and Tomas Ramos Rodríguez, were quickly captured and sent to prison for 20 years.
With the 1993 release of some CIA papers concerning their operations against Cuba, in the 1960s, Cuban television showed documentary and interview programs about some of the attempts on Fidel's life. The Ministry of the Interior asserted that it has evidence about JFK´s murder. General Fabian Escalante revealed the names of those who conspired to murder Kennedy and some of those who pulled the triggers--men who also sought to murder Fidel. Gen. Escalante said that it was a CIA-Pentagon-Mafia conspiracy, using Cuban exiles and Lee Harvey Oswald as a patsy.
One of the triggermen was Higinio Diaz. Another was Eladio del Valle, who was shot by Cuban security when he landed in Cuba in 1967 in yet another attempt to murder Fidel. CIA men Frank Sturgis and David Atlee Phillips, along with Orlando Bosch, were part of the JFK murder conspiracy. Also figuring in were Mafia leaders Santos Trafficante and the Novo Sampol brothers (who later murdered Orlando Letelier, Chile's ambassador to Washington) and Air Force General Charles Pearre Cabell, whom Kennedy had fired as deputy director of the CIA because of his role in botching the Bay of Pigs invasion.
The last attempt on Fidel's life, known to this writer, occurred the month before the Rodríguez' capture, in what the defendants claimed to be their own initiative. Doctors Julio Bientz Saab and Julian Arana Rosainz were convicted of an assassination plot, which was to have occurred on September 27, 1990 when Castro was scheduled to visit the Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery. They were to use explosives detonated by remote control to blow up Castro.
Besides attempting to murder the nation´s top leaders, the US has used biological warfare,  an invasion, threats of nuclear war, paramilitary warfare, media disinformation, immigration games coupled with instigating dissidence, and trade embargoes and blockades to bring  Cuba to heel.

Instead of realizing its goal, US aggressions have served to harden Cubans´ resolve and radicalize their programs. When asked by Look magazine writer, Laura Bergquist (November 1960 issue), how far Cuba would go with its revolution, Che Guevara responded thusly:
"What lies ahead depends greatly on the United States. With the exception of our Agrarian Reform, 	
which the people of Cuba desired and initiated themselves, all of our radical measures have been a 	
direct response to direct aggressions by powerful  monopolists of which your country is chief 		         exponent...U.S. pressure on Cuba has made necessary the ´radicalization` of the Revolution. To know 	
how much farther Cuba will go, it will be easier to ask the U.S. Government how far it plans to go."
    
 	     Cuba´s first nationalization law aimed at foreign-held property, for instance, was signed the day after President Eisenhower decreed that the US would not buy 700,000 tons of sugar already scheduled. Cuba decreed Law 851, on July 6, 1960, which it based on article 24 of the 1940 constitution that recognizes the internationally accepted right to eminent domain. At the same time, the Cuban government offered an "Indemnification Fund which will annually be provided with 25% of the foreign currency obtained through the sale to the United States of sugar in excess of 3,000,000 tons and at a price not inferior to 5.75 cents per English pound." Expropriated land would also be compensated with bonds in Cuban currency, maturing in 20 years at the rate of 4.5% interest. The land would be assessed in accordance with tax valuations that the owners filed with the Batista regime in October 1958.
     The US government, speaking for its capitalists, refused indemnification. Cuba did compensate other foreign firms and governments for property and businesses nationalized. These included: Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Canada and Mexico.
   On January 3, 1961,  Eisenhower terminated diplomatic relations with Cuba as a last official act of his presidency. Cuba launched its literacy campaign just as the "Camelot" President Kennedy was handed the Eisenhower-Nixon invasion plan, which JFK then set about to execute. Cuba´s leadership was prepared for this "secret war" and hid most  planes of its small air force. At daybreak on April 15, two US B.26s, with false Cuban markings, flew over Havana's air force headquarters dropping bombs. Six other B.26s bombed three more Cuban airfields. Real military damage was slight, but seven people were killed and 44 wounded on the ground.
   The Cuban military and police rounded up all persons suspected of being subversive, thus smashing any chance that the opposition underground might assist the upcoming invasion. The following day, Fidel addressed a large crowd at the funeral of the seven killed. Here, for the first time, the Cuban people learned that their revolution was a socialist one, and they cheered Fidel's words:
"Comrades, workers, peasants, this is the socialist and democratic Revolution of the humble, with the 	
humble, for the humble...The attack of yesterday was the prelude to aggression by the mercenaries. All 	
units must now go to their battalions...Let us form battalions and dispose ourselves to sally out facing 	
the enemy...with the conviction that to die for our country is to live and to live in chains is to live under 	
the yoke of infamy and insult."

   The matter of  socialism would be officially announced at the May Day rally, following the victory, when Fidel declared Cuba to be a socialist state that did not need elections because "the people expressed their revolutionary desire daily."
   Upwards to 1,500 Cuban exile mercenaries, and a handful of US-born frogmen and pilots, attacked the nation on April 17, at the swampy zone of the Bay of Pigs. They were met by an equal number of volunteer militia and about 300 Cuban soldiers, led by Fidel, who proceeded to fire upon the US warship "Houston" with tank cannon balls. Fidel apparently hit the ship, and a Cuban T.33 sank it. There were a few exchanges of tanks and aircraft, on both sides, but it was largely the civilian militia that defeated the disillusioned invaders. The 1,180 prisoners were eventually traded for a ransom of 40 to 62 million dollars worth of medicines and food. The exact value of delivered goods is disputed. During the nearly two years in prison, the invaders were well treated. Only a handful of previously sentenced war criminals, from Batista's time, were executed.
     Following a clever change of national currency, which cost the CIA 500 million pesos that it had accummulated with the intention of creating an inflationary run on Cuba's monetary stability, the US government sought revenge. On September 4, 1961, Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) (P.L. 87-195) "to give vigor, purpose, and new direction to the foreign aid program...and to prevent or prohibit...importation or exportation" of anything concerning a country with which the United States is at war.  
   The US realized that it must act to stem the influence of the Cuban revolution in "Asia, Africa, and Latin America (where the ) old and traditional social structures are breaking down." Thus the FAA laid the basis for all future economic embargo and blockade measures against Cuba and, at the same time, launched the "alliance for progress" to avert any repetition of  liberation wars inspired by  Cuba's example. 
     The FAA was, however,  based on the fundamental law known as the War and National Defense Title 50, which established the Trading with the Enemy Act, on October 6, 1917. This body of law resulted from World War One, but was now factitiously employed in the case of Cuba, against which the US government and Congress had not declared war. 
     Section 618 of the FAA reads: "No assistance shall be furnished under this Act to the present government of Cuba...the President is authorized to establish and maintain a total embargo upon all trade between the United States and Cuba."

     Four months later, on January 25, 1962, the foreign minister-members of the Organization of American States voted, with some objections, in favor of the US proposal to oust Cuba from its ranks. Only Mexico retained diplomatic and trading relations with Cuba until, in the mid-1970s, other Latin American governments began to reestablish relations.
      Now was the moment that JFK chose to impose the full embargo. But first there was a particular Cuban product that the United States president could not do without. He summoned his press relations aide, Pierre Salinger to assist him. Salinger reported what took place in the magazine, "Cigar Aficionado"  (Autumn 1992):

"Pierre, I need some help...I need a lot of (Cuban) cigars," he said solemnly.
"How many, Mr. President?"
"About 1,000 Petit Upmanns...tomorrow morning."
     I walked out of the office wondering if I would succeed. But since I was now a solid Cuban cigar smoker, I       knew a lot of stores, and I worked on the problem into the evening. The next morning, I 	
walked into my White House office at about 8 a.m., and the direct line from the President's office was 	
already ringing. He asked me to come in immediately.
"How did you do Pierre?" he asked, as I walked through the door.
"Very well," I answered. In fact, I'd gotten 1,200 cigars. Kennedy smiled, and opened up his desk. He 	
took out a long paper which he immediately signed. It was the decree banning all Cuban products from 	
the United States. Cuban cigars were now illegal in our country."

So it came to pass that, on February 3, 1962, JFK signed "Proclamation 3447 Embargo On All Trade With Cuba." 
That summer, the Soviet Union pledged more armaments for Cuba´s defense. Part of the agreement entailed housing scores of nuclear missiles and some SAM missiles. The theory was that the US maintained nuclear missiles around the Soviet Union, and, furthermore, since JFK had tried to take Cuba by force once, he might do so again thus necessitating that Cuba have big guns.
By mid-October, several U.2 spy flights confirmed that between 30 and 35 nuclear missiles were in place in Cuba. The US government established a military "quarantine" around the island, preventing ships from passing in or out. It also cut off air traffic between the US and Cuba. The world braced for war.
 	The Cuban military mobilized as Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev exchanged messages without consulting Cuba´s leaders. The US insisted the missiles be removed post haste. US media published lists of "approved fall-out shelters." Fidel remained resolute. A U.2 overflying Cuba was shot down with a SAM (the last time a US military plane has been attacked by Cuban forces). Kennedy did not order retailiation but did amass an invasion force in Florida.

 	On October 28, Khrushchev relented and ordered the dismantlement and withdrawal of all missiles. Fidel, still unconsulted, refused to permit a UN-sponsored inspection on Cuban soil and the US had to tally the missles while overflying Soviet ships bearing them. The only "concession" that JFK granted was an unsigned promise not to invade Cuba again. However, since the inspection did not take place on Cuban soil, presidents since his time have usually considered that promise null and void. Although the crisis ended without casulties, other than the U.2 pilot, no resolution to US antagonism over Cuba was forthcoming. 
 	The Cubans learned not to rely on Soviet defense, and once the war against Vietnam ended, it was 
 Vietnamese advisors who reshaped Cuba´s defense strategy on the principle of  "the war of all the people". 
       	The US continued violent warfare against Cuba, following the missile crisis, initiating "Operation Mongoose" as part of its overall secret war. Some 300 paramilitary groups were infiltrated inside Cuba until  they were wiped out in the mid-1960s. Periodic sabotage actions were directed from the air and by sea, sometimes aimed at Cubans personally and their embassies and firms in foreign lands. Such was the case of the horrendous massacre of people on a civilian aircraft. I quote from an interview with one of  the double agents, Ignacio Rodríguez-Mena Castrillon, that Cuba had inside the CIA:
"The worst event through all those years was the brutal sabotage of Cubana Aviacion  CUT-1201, on 	
October 6, 1976, in Barbados. Seventy-three people died: fifty-seven Cubans, and the remainder 	Koreans        and Guyanese. Cuba´s entire junior fencing team died on Flight 455. Mercedes and I were supposed to be         among the dead."

Ignacio was known as "Julio" to the CIA, and "Isidro" to DSE. Cuban security. Ignacio eventually served 21 years as a double agent in his job as a chief flight steward. His wife, Mercedes, was director of flights at Havana´s airport.
"Just imagine this dirty deed! The explosion of an entire plane. Everybody dead. All my companeros, at 	
least twenty colleagues, were murdered. The CIA involved in this atrocity, and here I was working for 	
them...They trained the killers: Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, and the two Venezuelans, 	
Freddy Lugo and Hernan Ricardo Lozano."

Bosch had recently formed the paramilitary coordinating group CORU (Comando de Organizaciones Revolucionarias Unidas) with Alpha 66 as an associate member. CIA officer Lawrence Sternfield convoked CORU´s founding convention in San Jose, Costa Rica.  CORU took public credit for the Cuban DC-8 sabotage.

     	   George Bush was CIA director at the time, and Sternfield was one of his key officers. Richard Nixon had just been dethroned over the Watergate crimes and coverup, bringing his "Cuba Project" home to Washington in yet one more presidential backlash from their secret war on Cuba. Nixon (like Bush and then Ronald Reagan) had shielded Posada and Bosch, and used other Cuban exile terrorists for his Watergate crimes. 
GERM WARFARE
   	   Jimmy Carter was elected president in late 1976, and in his first year he signed an agreement with Fidel exchanging government interests offices in both nations´capitals. This coolling off approach was part of general detente with the Communist party-led world. Carter´s so-called "human rights" approach to foreign policy, however, was a two-edged, fig-leafed sword. He encouraged visitation of Cuban exiles in Miami to their families, who bore gifts to tempt their revolutionary morale, while Bush also continued violent actions.
  US intelligence espionage was now directed from its Havana CIA station at the US Interests Section.
The CIA has attempted to recruit Cubans not only to inform on their government but to commit sabotage and aid in assassination attemps on Fidel's life. Their cover was blown in the summer of 1987 by the Cuban government itself, which revealed 27 double agents that the CIA thought it had actually recruited. Between their testimony and hard evidence recorded by the DSE, coupled with sparse yet telling congressional information that emerged from the post-Watergate debacle, it is confirmed that some of the economic setbacks Cuba was experiencing in the late-70s and early 80s were caused by bacteriological warfare that the CIA conducted.
  Cuba lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sugar, tobacco and coffee due to sugar cane rust, coffee smut, and blue tobacco mold in 1978-9, and 500,000 swine and thousands of turkeys from swine fever and Newcastle diseases planted by CIA operations.
  Ignacio Rodríguez-Mena told me that, "The CIA was often interested in crop plagues and domestic animal sicknesses. My handler, Nicolas, asked me, in the Madrid Hotel Sideral, to get close to places where I could plant a virus."
  Sugar industry advisor Orlando Argudín López was agent "Oscar López" to the CIA and "Rolando" in his true role as a DSE infiltrator. His handler, Bernardo, told him in Paris, in May 1979, that the CIA was introducing diseases to affect people and animals.
  Not satisfied with killing off food sources, the CIA directed diseases at the people themselves. Dengue fever type 2 broke out in Cuba a year after the 1980  Mariel exodus. On February 16, 1981, two months before the outbreak, María Santiesteban Loureiro received a coded message from the CIA:
"Message 40XPossibility of Learning what types of dengue is known in CubaXDetails about what virus 	
sicknesses affect the populationXMedicines Cuba importsXCountriesXGreetingsXJulia." 

  DSE agent Santiesteban was known as "Regina" to the CIA, and "Any" to her security department. She turned over this, and subsequent messages about dengue fever and hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, to the DSE. The mosquito-transmitted fever eventually caused 344,000 people to be sick; 158 died, including 101 children. Conjunctivitis could not be controlled for four years, having affected one million people.
  Ignacio had also been approached by his handler concerning  dengue fever. When the CIA found out where the nation was buying the containers for fumigating the fever-carrying mosquito, "they convinced the producer to make them without the head of the fumigator, rendering the equipment useless."
  Cuba is still spending an extra 1.5 million dollars annually to buy the pesticides needed to ensure that the fever does not return. The US, which could sell the product much cheaper, refused to do so.
  The CIA was temporarily paralysed, following the 1987 exposure-denunciation. When it resumed anti-Cuban actions, it focused on promoting a heightened economic war, plus fomenting an internal "fifth column," as well as assisting periodic terrorist paramilitary actions.
  The CIA co-operates with Cuban exile operations now sponsored chiefly by Miami multi-millionaire Jorge Más Canosa, a former terrorist and Bay of Pigs invader, and Carlos Montaner, also a former terrorist operating out of Madrid. Montaner was set up with a book publishing house (Playor) and a news agency (Firmas). Both concentrate on destablishing Cuba. Canosa runs the Cuban-American National Foundation and is behind Radio and TV-Martí, which broadcast inciteful programs to Cuba illegally.
  The current strategy of the Canosa-Montaner networks is to lay the basis for a "democratic" takeover of the Cuban government and reclaim nationalized property.
  In May 1991, Montaner telephoned "dissident writer" María Elena Cruz advising her that a foreigner would be visiting. Cruz was then the head of one of the internal opposition groups,  estimated by themselves to number 50 with about 1,000 members. Many refer to these groups as "travel agencies" because they are often used as a vehicle to escape Cuba. By making a nuisance of themselves inside Cuba, malcontents and counterrevolutionaries hope to obtain a hard-to-get US visa in order to enjoy the "good life" in Miami.
  Cruz received Harriet C. Babbitt, who carried Montaner instructions for Cruz to obtain 100 Cuban intellectuals' signatures on a petition. Cruz could only get 10 names to the "Declaration of Cuban Intellectuals," which Babbit got printed in the "Miami Herald" and  broadcast over Radio Martí.
  Harriet Babbitt is the wife of  Arizona politician Bruce Babbitt, who became President Clinton's Secretary of the Interior. In 1993, Harriet Babbitt became Clinton's ambassador to the OAS and is in charge of disbursing government funds to Cuban "dissidents" living on the island.

  In July 1991, Montaner sent another letter, this time through a Spanish reporter, Xavier Domingo, addressed to five spokesmen of the fifth column, advising them to form a "Democratic Platform" comprised of political parties that they were to form. Those parties were to be in the European tradition: Christian Democrats, Liberal Democrats and Social Democrats—all without precedent in Cuba.
  Montaner even had the audacity to suggest who should head each party and then, regardless of membership size, they would receive international economic and political aid.
  On September 5, seven "leaders of the internal opposition" announced that they had founded the "Cuban Democratic Convergence" to seek a new constitution, political pluralism and a capitalist economy. Montaner´s suggested party names and leaders were announced at a Havana news conference. Photos of these couriers and copies of the letters and documents mentioned are in the hands of the Cuban ministry of the interior, and have been seen by this writer.
  Throughout 1991, the Cuban-American National Foundation campaigned to obtain "widespread investor interest in Cuba," once it was "freed." The Florida government issued a report on how the state would "absorb" the economy of the new Cuba. Canosa's CANF claimed to have acquired cash and bonds amounting to $15 billion—enough to buy  60 per cent of all Cuba's land, industry and private homes. A massive Miami victory party was planned for V-Day, predicted for the end of 1991. A year later, and without victory at hand, the Canosa-Montaner networks, backed by US government propaganda  parroted by the international media, launched a two-pronged strategy. One entailed predicting that the forthcoming Cuban elections would be undemocratic and invalid, and encouraged voters to mark "No" or return a blanc ballot.
Both the opposition and the Cuban government considered a vote for the candidates as a vote for the Communist party government and Fidel. On December 20, 1992 and February 24, 1993, Cuba held its municipal and then the provincial and national elections. Some 99 per cent of voters went to the polls. All but seven per cent stood behind the offical candidates.
The second part of the strategy to overthrow Cuba´s form of life continued as well. In 1991 and 1992, nine commando raiding groups were spotted off or on the Cuban coast. Most of them were captured. Paramilitarists carried machine guns, explosive materials and plans to bomb public places at random and some factories. There were also plans to kill Fidel.
On October 7, 1992, a Commando L speedboat machine-gunned the facade of the new Spanish-Cuban joint venture hotel Melia at Varadero´s beach resport. Commando L head Tony Cuesta announced in Miami that he had sent nine such raiding parties in 11 months.

                                       BLOCKADING THE HIGH SEAS
The CIA, and its paramilitary-mafia collaborators, is not simply a loose cannon within the US government from which the president can conveniently disassociate himself. The US government uses the CIA as one limb  in its multibranched armored tree. The treasury department and its coast guard are also integral in the government´s war against Cuba.
 	On the morning of January 25, 1990, the Hermann sailed out of Moa, Holguín, the principle nickel port. The 3600-ton maximum displacement freighter was carrying ten tons of chrome to Tampico , where it would load 15 tons of merchandise--a normal, though light voyage. Like many ships throughout the world, it flew a Panamanian flag of convenience. The Hermann was officially owned by Guamar Shipping Company S.A., but chartered and operated exclusively by Cuba with an all-Cuban crew.
Crossing the Yucatán Canal, on the 29th of January, a US reconnaisance aircraft repeatedly overflew it. The next day, the US coast guard cutter, WPB-1320 Chiconteague, began maneuvers around the 80-meter long freighter. US sailors shouted audible insults and made vulgar gestures at the Cubans. The Yankee captain demanded that Captain Diego Sanchez Serrano heave to and allow his ship to be inspected for "possible drugs." Without hesitation, and without consulting Havana authorities, the captain and the entire crew told the Yankees to take a flying leap.
The cutter shot high-pressurized water at the crew. Angel Bertot Gutiérrez, the 60 year-old cook, a former guerrilla in the Rebel Army, dashed out of the kitchen onto the main deck with cleaver in hand. The coast guard threatened to board forcefully. Captain Sanchez, who is not a Communist, never wavered course.
The United States State Department got into the act from Washington, and advised the Cuban government that it presumed the "right" to inspect the ship, despite the fact that it was in international waters. Afterall, the US had recently invaded Panama in order to capture one supposed drug dealer, why shouldn´t it board a Cuban freighter flying a flag of the conquered?
The Cubans viewed it differently. According to Fidel, government leaders in Havana asked Captain Sanchez, through radio communication, how he and the crew assessed the situation and what they wanted to do. No one wanted to give in. The government agreed and so informed Washington.
Before dawn on the last day of January, the Chiconteague struck the Hermann, but the freighter outmaneuvered the cutter´s attempts to fatally ram it. Then, US sailors opened fire, hitting the hull, decks, bridge, storehouse and machine department with cannon balls and machine gun bullets. They fired repeatedly for one hour and forty-five minutes, according to crew testimony. The Hermann limped into Mexican waters, passing oil rigs that could have caught on fire from US bullets. Once in Mexico waters, the US coast guard backed off.

At the request of the Cuban government, Mexican officials in Tampico inspected the ship for any possible traces of drugs.
"They found neither drugs nor urine, neither drugs nor shit on that ship! I´m certain that if those dogs had been taken on the U.S. coast guard vessel, all three things would have been found there," Fidel said at an emotional rally , held in Havana, the day after the crew docked in Tampico and flew to the capital.
The malecón was packed with people just a few meters from the US Interests Section. I stood under the headless moument to the US battleship Maine.
Fidel addressed the roaring crowd and their "neighbor to the north."
"Fate had it that we would all meet here today, in this small square not far from the lair of the imperialists, where they see us and hear what we say. But the fact is that this is where the remains of what used to be a symbol of U.S. domination, the famous Maine monument, still are.
I wouldn´t say that the sailors who died on the Maine didn´t deserve a monument...because they were the victims of an imperialist crime...The humble sailors on that battleship, at a time when the empire was about to wage its first imperialist war, were mercilessly sacrificed...a pretext for war, the pretext for intervention in Cuba, the occupation of the Philippines, Puerto Rico and other Spanish possessions. It was like the well-known, prefabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident, which took place in more recent years. 
If there´s one thing we can be certain of, it is that never again will the voracious eagle which symbolizes the empire be restored on top of these columns...
Level headedness was displayed by the members of the crew under attack and that´s what we must have to remain in control of our actions, because there are still some things from the United States out there and we don´t want our people to give way to indignation, although it is natural that in the bottom of your hearts you would feel profound indignation over events...which are so repugnant.
They wanted to provoke and test the morale of Cubans, because everytime they commit a crime they think others will be frightened. They fail to realize that such crimes increase the courage of our people."

Fidel explained the events of the attack and told us what he said to Cuba´s representatives in the US.

"If they tell you the ship has a Panamanian flag, you tell them that the flag is Panamanian but the balls on it are Cuban. The crew refuses to be searched as a matter of honor and because it has no confidence in the shitty U.S. navy and authorities, because they are capable of making up any lie and of planting anything on the ship.
They waged a moral war against the enemy...When the ship could catch on fire, when they no longer had life preservers, when they had no chance of saving themselves unless they surrendered, they didn´t stop, they continued on course and continued to be willing to run aground or crash into the oil rigs and burn to death there, rather than fall into the hands of the imperialists.
You have here these men, simple men of the people, turned into heroes overnight."

The United Nations Council of State heard Cuba´s formal complaint. US representative Thomas Pickering replied that his government had the "right" to inspect the Hermann, and insisted that similar action would occur in the future. The UN took no action against the perpetuators of this inglorious aggression on international waters.
The Communist party elected the black helmsman, Francisco Montalvo Peñalver, to the central committee.                                                	HOW THE BLOCKADE WORKS 
President Fidel Castro calls the food and clothing rationing program the "fairest system in the world." It was instituted in 1962 mainly as a defense mechanism against the economic blockade to assure sufficient food, clothing and some household items for all the people. Even before the blockade was formally adopted, Washington exercised muscle against many foreign countries to prevent them from trading with Cuba. England early succumbed to such pressure by refusing to fulfill a contract to sell aircraft and the famous Leyland buses.
The US also tried to use its Cuban agents, actually moles, in the blockade effort. One double agent, Miguel Ángel Lopéz Escobar, the general business director of the National Bank of Cuba in the 1980s, spoke about his CIA assignments upon coming out of the cold in July 1987:
"In September 1986, officer Alicia (Barbara Lee Graham) said that the President of the US was going to speak to the Western countries about strangling the Cuban economy to `prove' the inefficiency of socialism.Alicia said that Ronald Reagan was going (to get Europe) to stop Cuba from receiving credits. In the exclusive Paris Club, where bank creditors are represented, there is a man whose sole task is to impede our business transactions...In December 1986, a trade mission I was on arrived in India to negotiate credit for the Matanzas rayon plant. The CIA asked me to obstruct the negotiations."

  In October 1992, the Cuba Democracy Act  (Torricelli law) was signed by President George Bush, under pressure from Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton, who tried to red-bait the former CIA director and leading Republican.
            The law increased penalties on foreigners for trading with Cuba. It calls for confiscating any ship that docks in a US port within six months of docking in Cuba;  lets the President cut off aid and trade with any nation that imports Cuban sugar; forbids US company subsidiaries in third countries to trade with Cuba;  bans products with a Cuban component from entering the US; prohibits all items containing any US-manufactured part or design based on any US-originated information from  being sold to the island; forbids international banking to conduct dollar transactions with Cuba (extending earlier laws); authorizes funding  internal "dissident" groups;  and steps up diplomatic pressure on governments and companies trading with Cuba.

The effects of the US blockade have been severe, and profoundly so since the demise of the socialist camp.The Cuban government estimated, in 1992, that the blockade had cost its economy $40 billion, the equivalent of 20 times its current annual export earnings. The Ministry of Transport calculated, in 1991, that its activities alone had cost $3 billion in extra expenses during the three-decade long blockade. As another example, the provision against subsidiary trade caused the loss of a 700 million dollar-trade in food and medicines. 	US business has been adversely affected by the embargo, too. US economists estimate that its businessmen, who would otherwise have conducted profitable commerce,  have not earned $30 billion in a 30-year period. And now, with expanded apertures in  tourism and joint ventures, those losses multiply.
Documents divulged by Cuba's Foreign Ministry and by some foreign firms, in the 1990s, show that many foreign companies have been pressed to stop fulfilling contracts with Cuba, end traditional trade or not implement new plans.
Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina delivered a report about the blockade to a UN September 1993 meeting, just prior to the UN second annual vote condemning the US  for violating the UN Charter, which forbids  bans on "freedom of trade and navigation."
Robaina detailed some of the results of the Torricelli-reinforced blockade:
         --US intimidation caused many willing partners to charge higher prices to offset US recrimination threats. Cuba paid $41.5 million more than it should for imports of grain, chicken and milk in 1992; it lost $85 million in extra freight charges and $43 million in energy costs.
--Washington pressed Britain's Tate and Lyle to sever links with Cuba.
--US blackmail caused three countries to back out of a deal to barter sugar and nickel for oil.
            --   US representatives visited France's Total offices saying that the oil-prospecting sites offered them in               Cuba rightfully belonged to the US. (Total later backed out of Cuban oil drilling, but kept its fingers in               other Cuban business).
       --US embassies launched an offensive against oil-producing countries not to sell to Cuba.
         --Cable and Wireless was told that it could not operate between the US and Europe if it did business with     Cuba.
   --Traders Cargall and Continental buckled under threats and $100 million of Argentinian wheat was         stopped from delivery.
 --Credits and signed contracts have likewise been terminated with other Latin American, European and     Asian countries and firms.
   Among other firms that have backed out of trade are: Leyland, Ayerst, Copper Tool, General Electric, Federal Pacific Electric, Simonds Industries, Pepsi Cola and dozens more. Spain's Piher Semiconductors was forced into bankruptcy by the US Treasury for its trade with Cuba.

 Several other foreign firms have bowed to US pressure not to do business with Cuba's exemplary health care program:
--Germany's Siemens refused to sell equipment for use in nuclear medicine to diagnose pathologies;          Sweden's Siemens Elena followed suit;
--LKB stopped selling laboratory equipment to determine blood protein and hormone levels and the long-    standing commercial links between the Scandinavian Alfa-Laval and Medicuba were cancelled in May      1991;
--Spain's Editorial Interamericana stopped supplying medical books in 1991;
--Japan's Toshiba Corp. was forced to not sell an ultrasound machine to diagnose cardiovascular diseases     and Nihon Kohden stopped the sale of a machine to diagnose neurological and ophthalmological diseases;
--France's Thompson Group CGR ceased selling spare parts for X-ray machines;
--Argentina's Medix couldn't see its way clear to sell spare parts for cleaning dialysis machines.
The mysterious neuritis epidemic in 1992-4, affecting some 50,000 people, also cost the economy an unnecessary loss when the health ministry had to buy reactors at double the price and pay extra transport costs of 250,000 dollars. In fact, 32 essential medical products and equipment must be bought at higher prices with greater transport costs, about three million dollars annually, because of the US blockade. Many capitalist firms impose 30 to 40% overcharges on Cuba's health care imports.	
The UN Charter, adopted without dissent in 1970 by the general assembly, reads:
"No state or group of states has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatsoever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state. Consequently, armed intervention and all other 	
forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the state or against its political, 
economic and cultural elements, are in violation of international law.
"No state may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measure to coerce another state in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights to secure
 		from it advantages of any kind."

        	The US has been found guilty of violating international laws (including the UN charter) concerning Cuba by many courts, including: The International Court of Justice (1970), Tribunal of Commerce, Antwerp (1966) and the European Community at District Court, The Hague (1982).

Another aspect of the US blockade is the travel ban, which affects US citizens first and foremost but also Cubans wishing to visit the US. Decreed by President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and upheld by the US Supreme Court, the ban forbids ordinary citizens from spending US dollars in Cuba (journalists and researchers are exempted). Only rarely, however, has the government taken violators to court and never for simple tourism. Two cases stand out.
     	Don Snow was arrested in Florida in 1990, when he returned from fishing for largemouth bass in Cuba, a favorite sport of his. He was jailed for 45 weekends and fined $5,300. William Eleckholt, a US resident and Dutch citizen, had his sailboat confiscated in Florida in 1993 after a trip to Cuba.
Later that year, 50 US groups formed a coalition called Freedom to Travel and sent 175 North Americans on their first rebellious tourist trip. Upon returning to different US airports, 60 of them had their passports confiscated and most were deprived of objects bought or given them in Cuba: tee-shirts, candies, posters, books, newspapers and sovenirs. Freedom to Travel is coordinated by the San Francisco-based Global Exchange solidarity organization and continues to arrange periodic tourist trips to challenge the travel ban.
Since the "double blockade," as Cubans call it, began with the fall of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the US has captured control of the UN security council and the general assembly's many commissions, including the commission on human rights.
Prior to the collapse of CMEA, the US won few political battles in the UN, but part of the price of the failure of Soviet-style socialism and its rush to capitalism has been to play the US foreign policy card. The former socialist countries now vote with most of  US policy in the UN, including condemning Cuba for "violating human rights." The "double-blockade" has cost Cuba the loss of 85 per cent of its trade and its political-military partnership. Fidel Castro gave details at the fourth congress of the Communist Party ,in October 1991, and subsequent consequences of CMEA's disappearance have since been forthcoming:
--Cuba had sold sugar to CMEA for the equivalent of 800 roubles a ton, when it would have cost the Soviets 1,000 roubles to produce its own. The price was reduced to 300 roubles in 1991 and then to capitalist world market prices in 1992.
     --Oil imports fell from 13 million tons to six million in 1992. The price is now in dollars, costing four times as much.

     --By mid-1991, only a small percentage of the agreed-upon 5.13 billion roubles in export items to Cuba had been sent: almost none of the 1.5 million tons of grain, none of the 90,000 tons of rice and 60,000 tons of peas, none of the 70,000 tons of raw vegetables and 49,000 tons of lard, none of the powdered and condensed milk, canned meat and butter, and only 41,000 tons of the 1.1 (million) tons of fertilizers agreed upon had arrived.
Without demanding any US concessions, such as the withdrawal of the naval base, the former Soviet Union bent to US pressure and withdrew its military brigade in 1993, leaving Cuba without foreign military protection, and did so without consulting Cuba, once again.
On April 4, 1992, Fidel spoke to the UJC congress:
"What remains of that beautiful socialism that was to emerge from their perfection process? What type of idiots, but be careful with the idiots, because idiocy can be a mask to hide other things, pseudorevolutionarism, which also can hide strategies of poor ventures. What we can see is that, despite everything, we have known how to defend ourselves ... (we have not) self-destructed."
(If Cuba had followed perestroika) "what kind of democracy could there be with a country fragmented 	
in 100 pieces, with our youth fragmented into a thousand pieces?"
"What are they offering Cuba? ... when imperialism offers a gift, it is because it fears something ... we 	
don't want to be converted into a Miami, a neocolony, and we know that, additionally, the neocolony 	
brings unhappiness to mankind, pain, suffering, inequality, injustice, humiliation. Those who have 	         known dignity do not forget it, nor will they ever renounce it."

       Two weeks later, George Bush said:
"My administration has pursued an effective policy of economic and political isolation of the Castro 	
regime ... Today we are closer than ever to our goal of returning freedom to Cuba ... Castro is on his 	
own. Cuba has just lost a source of economic and military aid ... My administration  will continue to 	
press governments around the world on the need to isolate economically the Castro regime."

President Clinton continues to carry out the same policies.
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 3
	RECTIFICATION
"We´re rectifying all those things--and there are many--that strayed from the revolutionary spirit, from revolutionary work...virtue...effort...responsibility; all those things that strayed from the spirit of solidarity among people. We´re rectifying all the shoddiness and mediocrity that is precisely the negation of Che´s ideas, his revolutionary thought...style...spirit, and his example..." (Fidel´s speech on 20th year of Che´s murder)

Fidel and Raul Castro began criticizing bureaucratic centralist patterns in the late 1970s; Fidel began  speaking about "rectifying errors and negative tendencies" in late 1984, and a new direction took hold in early 1986. The negative tendencies were: a) unearned income, such as workers collecting for two jobs while working only an eight-hour day and companies falsifying their earnings; b) poor worker and management discipline, casual acceptance of tardiness and absenteeism; c) gross corruption, from the privileged taking advantage of their administrative or functionary positions to the ordinary thievery of supplies from work centers.
The economic growth (some 6 to 7%) in the first-half of the 1980s was rapidly falling as the foreign debt was causing a crisis in hard currency and the excessive focus of individual enterprises to earn maximum material gains at the expense of the needs of the nation. Domestic problems and popular discontent was escalating.
Fidel officially kicked off the rectification process at his April 19, 1986 speech on the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs. He focused on internal problems and warned against blaming the US blockade for all the ills of  the national economy. He said that Cuba was in a moral crisis as the practice of diverting public resources for private gain was widespread. At a series of meetings held throughout 1986, proposals to restructure management-labor relations were discussed. 
 At the Communist party´s third congress, held in December, Fidel reported that the new policy was aimed at balancing moral and material incentives; introducing foreign capital; relying once again on centralized planning with greater controls and, hopefully, greater efficiency; substituting imports with nationally produced items and massive projects to grow sufficient food; and improving distribution.
Rectification also sought to unify union, administration and party forces, while experimenting with some elements of decentralization; developing foreign tourism; and meeting social and individual needs by construction  housing, family medical centers and nursery schools with a mixture of professional and voluntary labor.

In Fidel´s December 2 report, he complained that managers had "competed among themselves to get the best workers, paid the best salaries, were less demanding, played the role of populists, paternalists, what have you, making no demand." He aserted that "a consciousness, a communist spirit, a revolutionary will and vocation were, are, and always will be a thousand times more powerful than money."
Unlike Perestroika, which Mikhail Gorbachev initiated in March 1985, purportingly aiming to improve socialism by providing greater market mechanisms, rectification rejected all market mechanisms and sought to emulate Che´s ideas. To put the economy back on a more equitable basis while balancing the budget, some cutbacks in consumer items and price adjustments were necessary. A series of austerity measures began at the beginning of 1987, and included a few reductions in rationed foodstuff and consumer items, plus a rise in bus fares from .05 to .10 centavos. Rationed quantities of private vehicle fuel were cut too. Per diem payments, foreign travel budgets and assignments of state-owned cars for government officials were reduced. By December 1986, more than 400 administrators in Havana, including 120 enterprise and work center managers, were removed from their posts, as were nearly 100 party leaders.
The most important step in the rectification process was to close down the free farmers' markets. An opinion poll taken, in the summer of 1986, by the party central committee's Research Center of Socio-political Studies and Opinion, showed 91% support. Seventy-five per cent were in complete agreement, while 15 % based their agreement on condition that the state would better organize the distribution of goods and guarantee better quality products.
The state continued supplementing the rations with its parallel market, and tried to prevent consumers from buying food privately from farmers at their farms, although this custom continued.
Other measures taken included:
   --Raising the minimum wage from 85 to 100 pesos.
        --Instituting stricter work production norms with controls, and decreasing payments for over-production.          --Party commissions were set up to hire and fire in some cases, in order to prevent managers from                      hoarding labor. Four hundred Havana-based administrators and 120 enterprise and work center managers           were removed. Some new professionals replaced "old cadre."
--Top leadership tightened control over SDPE planning, and allowed some firms to discuss their upcoming       production plans before JUCEPLAN (Central Planning Commission) handed out its plan. When national       planners presented theirs it could be adjusted according to what individual managements considered              possible. About one-third of the productive sector eventually employed this dual approach.
    --The army began its Revolutionary Armed Forces Economic Initiative in 1987 with management techniques to rationalize its production enterprises. By upping work norms, cutting excess personnel, establishing quality control, production in FAR´s (army) enterprises augmented by 30% in 18 months.

  Lt. Col. Armando Pérez betancourt, head of FAR´s economic initiative, said that his commission had adopted production mechanisms and procedures from the developed world. These adjustments included greater worker opinion in the drawing up of work plans and production goals. Bonuses were given to workers who met between 75 and 100% of the goal. Extra bonuses were awarded those who surpassed the goal. 
Another major program was implemented in 1986-7: special work brigades, called contingents, created on a volunteer basis to make construction enterprises economically viable, to build more rapidly and with greater quality. These workers were trained anew, to be more flexible,  multi-skilled and multi-tasked, breaking from the one-worker, one-task mould. They identified with the final product through this interchange of work and were paid on the basis of collective effort without unnecessary absenteeism. Contingents also saved on resources and built better and faster. These men lived at the work site, if their homes were too far to travel back and forth. Temporary barrack housing was built and equipped with color television sets. They received a better diet than the population and constant medical observation. Bonuses often included trips to beach resorts and nightclub outings. These men, and a few women, became characterized as hero workers.
The initial brigade of 164 men was named Blas Roca Calderio Contingents, after a deceased former CP leader. It started in October 1987. In two years, there were 62 groups, organized in different contingents, incorporating 30,000 workers (eventually there were 100,000). Their production value doubled that of the regular construction workers. They also earned higher incomes. These workers, assisted by thousands of amateur volunteers, were responsible for the massive Pan American Games projects that constructed two score stadiums, and an entire village for athletes. Half these apartments were later given to the most distinguished and needy workers.	
While the contingents were  slated for massive works, volunteer brigades were reestablished to build  small apartment buildings. There were two kinds. The micro-brigades were made up of workers from a particular work place who volunteered while those remaining at the firm took up their slack.The state continued to pay volunteers' wages to the firms. There were also social-brigades made up of housewives and youths between school and job. They were assisted with some technical aid from the Ministry of Construction.  Half the units built went to the volunteers and others at their work centers, while the other half were allocated by the state to the most in need out of the general population.

During the previous development stage, housing construction had been based on large projects under the cumbersome Ministry of Construction, where there was still a competitive ideology at work. Volunteer micro-brigades, inspired by Che, had been formed in 1971. Before they were phased out in 1978, they had built 75,000 homes. This combination of idealism, working for the social good, and work force redundancy, was substituted by the SDPE technocrats who reemphasized professional builders, along with individuals paying for private housing. Under this method, construction actually augmented six-fold: from an annual average of 15,000 homes in 1979 to 90,000 in 1983, the revolution's record.
Nevertheless, some party leaders realized that those who most needed housing were being neglected or they were being forced to live in gigantic, faceless buildings, which soon deteriorated because of lack of maintenance, poor construction and resident inertia. Alamar housing settlement, east of Havana, was such a project. Started in 1971, the 15-kilometer square area contains 90,000 look-alike living units , many of which are in constant need of maintenance and repair. JUCEPLAN leader Humberto Perez admitted, in a "Bohemia" magazine interview (February 19, 1979), that because of inattention to the state of repairs, around 25,000 housing units were destroyed annually. Only 16,700 new units had been built in 1978.
Housing was still "the problem of all problems" in 1989, according to a  Communist party survey. Official estimates that year considered that only half of Havana´s 528,000 dwellings were in decent condition, and one-fourth were considered to be in bad condition. The National Assembly was told by experts that 3,000 people were living in homeless shelters, another 16,000 should be living in shelters but preferred to stay in their condemned residencies, yet another 268,000 were living in 7,000 tentaments and other areas considered as poor or unhealthy dwellings, and 248,000 lived in "slums" in "very poor state of repair." The state of housing in Sanitago de Cuba was not reported but many places are in the same shape.	
One of rectificaton's achievements was to revive the use of volunteer labor in constructing smaller, more liveable unit. While many projects were completed, the majority took much longer than planned and some never did get completed. Once built, the majority already needed serious repairs within three to five years. I worked on one building that did not get completed when employed by Cuba's foreign language publishing house, Jose Marti, for nearly  four years. In 1987, it started a three-story apartment building with family-doctor quarters. When most of the personnel were rationalized, between 1993 and 1994, the building was less than half  built. A lack of skilled labor, worker  indiscipline, and sporadic delivery of needed building materials are some of the common causes for poor results in voluntary projects.
Other features of rectification included combating double standards, cronyism and corruption in enteprises and ministries, and breaking with dogmatism by introducing a more creative climate of debate, though still controlled by the party.

Rectification, in contrast to the previous period of five-year plans, did not entail a preconceived integral plan. Its development was based on the hope of comprehending what to do "on the march." Its style was considered to be indigenous, spontaneous and Latin, rather than European rigidity. Rectification sought to apply reality to the country, rather than the reverse.
My initiation to a Fidel speech was at a convention of jurists on September 17, 1987, during my introductory visit to the island. He delivered a two-hour roaming speech without a pause, not even for a sip of water. I was spellbound. He spoke of the need to resurrect the moral vision and the economic ideas of Che. A month later, I heard Fidel´s address in Pinar del Rio on the 20th anniversary of Che´s death. He pointed to the hospital within sight, which he had inaugurated earlier in the day, as an example of "bad work habits," the tendency to say, "´I fulfilled my plan as to value but I didn´t finish a single building,´ which made us waste hundreds of millions, billions..."
The hospital had taken 11 years to complete.
Fidel expressed what Che stood for and against and spoke at length about the meaning of Rectification:
"Che would have been appalled if he'd been told that production norms were so slack, so weak, so immoral ...that money was becoming man´s concern, man´s fundamental motivation...the mentality of our workers was being corrupted ...Were he to have seen a group of enterprises teeming with two-bit capitalists--as we call them--playing at capitalism, begining to think and act like capitalists, foregetting about the country, the people, and high standards...He would be happy about what we are doing these days, just like he would have felt very unhappy during that unstable period, that disgraceful period of building socialism...(in which) voluntary work, the brainchild of Che...was steadily on the decline...(in which) we had fallen into the bog of bureaucracy, of overstaffing...the bog of deceit, of untruth...(in which) enterprises prepared to steal to pretend they were profitable...this happened in the fifteen municipalities in the capital of the republic, in the fifteen enterprises responsible for house repairs, and that´s only one example."

It was a hard speech, a principal´s spanking, and one that spiritually inspired. For me, it was a splendid challenge as I had just been asked to live and work in Havana by the Ministry of Culture. I would be advising the English language department and writing a book (Backfire), while doing voluntary work whenever I could.
Rectification brought with it a fresh air of critical expression. People even openly criticized Soviet leadership. When I arrived in Havana, in September 1987, one could hear people make the following claim : "Gorbachev has done the work that the entire CIA couldn´t accomplish. I wouldn´t put it past the United States government to take advantage of the weak-kneed Russian government to conduct another blockade around us. With Gorbachev´s ass greased for Bush´s midnight snack, he´ll run out on us."
Such language to describe the new evolving reality in superpower relations was used by an oiler I sailed with a short while later. I eventually sailed for half a year on five Cuban tankers and cargo ships. The captain of the Gold Star, Humberto Arangueren,  spoke to me about Soviet-Cuban relations.

"Unlike other nations, we never gave one inch of territory to the Soviet Union. Although we became too dependent on them, we remained our own country, but we made one big mistake: we didn´t take the necessary measures to be self-sufficient in food production, and in other areas when we could and should have. It´s hard to know why, and it´s painful to say, but we became accustomed to what we received so easily from the Soviets and CMEA. We had all we needed, really. It´s like father always providing  for his children. They don´t worry about getting their own; you never think your father is going to die. It was a great error. But I believe the measures we´re taking now will pull us through."
While party and state rectifiers focused on weeding out lazy, corrupt and greedy directors, they were also engaged in a secret plan to break through the US blockade. The Ministry of Interior was authorized by the Council of State, in 1982, to set up a new department, called MC, to engage in clandestine commercial operations to buy products from US sources: medical and lab equipment, medicines and sanitary material, computer resources, components and equipment accessories from the United States. Unfortunately, those who engaged in this blockade-busting work fell into the devil´s temptations. 
General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez was one of three military persons awarded the status of  Hero of the Revolution. He, one of his subordinates, and Ministry of Interior Coronel Tony de la Guardia and his MC team of 11 were tried and sentenced for swindling the state and army, and the most serious crime of drug-trafficking.
Gen. Ochoa, Col. La Guardia and two others were sentenced to death in the summer of 1989.  The other ten were sentenced to long prison terms. Two ministers and various administrators were fired. Some were sentenced to prison terms for negligence, abuse of their positions and corruption. The Minister of the Interior was imprisoned for 20 years for failure to check the MC group. He died in prison.
The state prosecutor, Minister of Justice Juan Escalona Reguera said that the MC team had a "blank check".  In his trial summary, Grigadier Gen. Escalona said that the "country's airways (were) at their disposal; (la Guardia) had the authority to violate all the migration provisions; he allowed notorious criminals to enter the country and hid them here; and he was capable of preventing the authorities from taking action." 
In Fidel´s interventions during the trial and at Council of State meetings, that were broadcast, he said that MC had made contacts with unsavory characters in the US, Panama, Colombia and elsewhere in their wide-ranging commercial deals. They were expressedly forbidden to make links with elements involved in drug dealings and from organizing "transnational corporations with the pretext of breaking the blockade." In fact, Fidel said, the "MC gang" had been stopped earlier from running a business called MEX Commerce because of "lavish and frivolous dealings."

It was also revealed at trial that Gen. Ochoa was engaged in smuggling ivory and diamonds; black marketing some of his troop's food, which was transported from Cuba to Angola where he was in command of Cuban operations; making illicit money deals in hardwood, salt, sugar and scarce parts; money laundering, and unauthorized sale of arms to Sandinista allies for his private gain. Ochoa once had been stationed in Nicaragua as an advisor.
 After Ochoa's corrupt operations had gone so well for so long without questioning, he sought to become a drug czar but failed miserably. Not one attempt that he made to transport Colombian cocaine from the Pablo Escobar cartel paid off. But his rivals in MININT´s MC group netted 3.4 million dollars for their part in the sale and transport of six tons of cocaine and two shipments of marijuana. The deals involved Jamaican marijuana, Escobar cocaine, Panamania  money laundering--with the help of a Cuban exile--and secret bank accounts. No drugs were used or sold inside Cuba but were helped along to the US by the MC group which kept other Cuban officials from intervening in drop operations.
These unscrupulous and greedy officers indelibly smeared the reputation of Fidel and Raul Castro and blighted the revolution. New measures were now taken to prohibit ministers and other leaders from enjoying  special hotels, resorts and restaurants at will, or to run their own businesses. Some ministers´ luxurious homes and private cars were confiscated.
I made the following notes at the time of the scandal. 
The moral climate is sad. People talk about nothing else. The public feels a loss of revolutionary honor. Cronyism-favoritism, one of the elements that rectification is fighting, seems to have played a role in the individualism that gripped these leading revolutionaries. People ask how was this allowed to happen? "How could our Hero Ochoa end up so corrupt, and have so much uncontrolled power?" 
An  editorial colleague, Jorge de la Paz, told me that Ochoa´s corruption went way back, at least from the time he was Cuba´s top army man in Ethiopia.
"I was Ochoa´s chief translator in 1977. For three months I slept in his mansion. We were aiding Ethiopia in its defense against Somolia aggression. He had me see to it that the prettiest girls became his translator aides so that he had a constant stable of bed partners. But that was normal. What wasn´t so normal was all the private stock Chivas Regal whiskey , and expensive Parker pens and Seko watches, that he gave out  like so much water and toys. He even gave me a Seko," Jorge said, showing me the silver-platted watch on his wrist.
"Once he took me to the main port to help him get his private Mercedes Benz brought ashore ahead of three ships filled with war materials and food. The ship with his special made car coming from the factory in France was fourth in line to be docked. But his power was such that he demanded and got service that very day. I´ll never forget the angry faces as his car was swung onto the wharf and we got into it."
I asked Jorge why he didn´t do something.
"Do what?"

"Inform on him?"
"To whom? We never know who is connected to this sort of corruption. He was, afterall, the number one Cuban in Ethiopia and I had no hotline to Fidel in Havana. And when Fidel visited Africa, in 1977, Ochoa was at his side. They were very chummy. It was assumed that Ochoa was untouchable."
The Ochoa-La Guardia proceedings developed after Fidel read a US wire story in which a Cuban exile claimed, in a US court, that he worked with high Cuban military officials in drug deals. Fidel ordered a thorough investigation, which led to the case. There was no evidence that Ochoa-La Guardia represented a political attempt to overthrow Fidel or the system, as US propaganda contended without presenting any proof.
How much did rectification achieve?
There is no agreement on how much, but practically everyone--from leader to economist, political scientist and the ordinary man and woman--agree that it opened up important avenues.  Beside a somewhat healthier climate for expression,  the family doctor program spread throughout society,  more housing and massive construction projects were completed, electricity and telephone lines were brought to outermost regions, and  some decentralization of power was extended to local government levels and enterprises. 
Soon after the Ochoa-la Guardia scandal, however, CMEA fell apart, and the US invaded Panama , cutting off an important source of supply for Cuba. Hurricane Kate caused a great deal of economic damage. The deterioration of the world economy with lowered prices for Cuba's products and raw materials also hurt Cuba´s finances. Between 1986 and 1989, Cuba´s growth fell lower than ever before. GSP average annual increase stood at .038%, and actual per capital income dropped by .065%, according to published national statistics. 
JUCEPLAN figures of December 1989 showed slow progress with the volunteer micro-brigades that had  built 16,515 apartments in Havana over the four-year rectification period. A big plus was the construction of 111 childcare centers in the capital city, as well as 20 polyclinics and 25 schools. Outside of Havana, nine hospitals were built and 24 were expanded in the nation. In additions, 27 polyclinics, 6,500 family-doctor home-clinics, 324 childcare centers, 154 schools and thousands of apartments were constructed.
 	"Rectification, unlike perestroika, heightens morale and vitality among Cubans," Dario Machado, director of the Party socio-political opinion center, told me.

"Our rectification is experimentally conceived unlike Russia's rigid system of abandoning social property. Ours enhances socialist ideology and humanitarian morale. We utilize science and technology more in broad sectors of the economy. We have no historic debt with co-operativization and privatization of land--20 per cent of our land is in co-operative and private hands. Our system has not led to chaos, uprising, or a Mafia. We have maintained unity and the masses know that their opinions are heard," said Machado, who is a member of the central committee.
Can the fundamental economic problems be resolved suffciently to maintain that unity? Fidel mused about some of Cuba's vital problems during a speech to construction workers in early 1990.
      "The idea that by eradicating private ownership over the means of production we have already achieved socialism is just an illusion. We must change man's mentality, man's ethics and inculcate a new ethic." 

	END CHAPTER 

	CHAPTER 4
	SPECIAL PERIOD

"The dream of the imperialists is that the Soviet Union will disintegrate, which could convert three-quarters of humanity once again into colonies. If we awake to the news that the Soviet Union has disintegrated, Cuba and the Cuban revolution will continue fighting and continue resisting." (Fidel Castro. July 26, 1989 speech in Camaguey)

Rather than solving the problems of socialism, perestroika unleashed rapid deterioration and chaos. Angry voices were raised courtesy of the transparency of glasnost writers who called for the end of socialism and unprofitable alliances with the likes of Cuba.
Cuba owed the USSR more than any other ally--15 billion roubles--with an annual imbalance in payments amounting to two billion pesos/rubles (roughly equivalent to one dollar per peso/ruble, at the time). This does not include the fair prices paid for Cuba´s products, based on actual costs and socialist principles.
The streets were alive with  jokes about glasnost. One had it that Fidel visits his barber, who asks him what he thinks of glasnost.Fidel remains silent. After several visits with the same question and silence, Fidel finally responds: "Why do you keep asking me that damn question?" The barber replies: "It makes your hair stand on end and it´s easier to cut that way."
Fidel delivered a major speech to delegates at the FMC congress, on March 7, 1990, on events underway in the USSR and Eastern Europe and its consequences to Cuba.
"We´re slowly getting into a situation just like in the early years of the Revolution, when the United States imposed their blockade on us: there weren´t any  spare parts for our machinery...equipment...factories...except now its on account of the attitude of those Eastern European countries which have joined with the United States...Now we will see, now they will compete, they want to be like the Western countries. Who will buy their junk?...(for example) Hungarian (Ikarus) buses get six kilometers to the gallon...(the) gearbox only has two speeds...(they) fill the city with exhaust fumes, poisoning everybody."

At his December 7, 1989 speech for the fallen internationalists, Fidel referred to glasnost media:

"They want the USSR to begin practicing unequal trade with Cuba...selling its products to us at ever higher prices and buying our agricultural products and raw materials at ever lower prices, just as the United States does with other Third World countries--in short, they want the USSR to join the U.S. blockade against Cuba...Why must the so-called reforms be along capitalist lines? If those ideas are truly revolutionary, as some claim, why do they receive the imperialist leaders´ unanimous, enthusiastic support?...the president of the United States describes himself as the number-one advocate of (these) doctrines."

Cuba also owed Western governments and firms $6.5 billion dollars, and had not paid on its debt since 1985. The next year, credits were stopped.
The Cuban government was forced to adopt unwanted economic reforms and cutbacks because of the impossibility of compensating the losses with national production. Imports, which had provided half the nation's consumed goods at the end of the 1980s, began to fall drastically. Wages and social security amounted to more than three times the value of goods and services offered in the later 1980s.
The Cuban Communist Party began using the western province of Pinar del Rio as a self-sufficiency laboratory shortly after Fidel's foreboding Camaguey speech. The Special Period in Times of Peace was declared in September 1990, the first of  four planned stages of the government's survival program. The fourth phase, "zero option," in which Cuba would have to rely on its own production entirely, would occur only in the event of a total blockade with no foreign trade. Such a blockade had been militarily imposed during the Kennedy-manufactured missile crisis and was once again on the drawing boards of the Pentagon and the CIA, this time without a USSR-backed "military threat."
The reforms' chief characteristics were: equitable division of the costs of the crisis, infuse the essential sectors to earn hard currency, adjust the economy to world conditions by reinserting it into the world market and reorganize the internal economy with greater efficiency and less bureaucracy.
The special period began with a series of cutbacks--20 per cent, 50, then 70 per cent less petrol for vehicles; 10 per cent, then 30 and 50 per cent less electricity, resulting in sporadic and planned blackouts from four to 16 hours a day.
The state parallel market, with goods sold freely at non-subsidized prices, was closed for lack of supply. Those basic items already rationed were limited in quantity and everything was put on ration, with many items no longer available.
Newspapers, periodicals and books were reduced in number and circulation. A book of mine, ready for printing, was cancelled as were 90 percent of those planned. Some factories were closed for lack of materials, parts and markets. Public transportation was gradually reduced to one-third the number of  city bus trips.
Two years into the special period, goods offered fell by 30 per cent and money circulating in the streets rose 47 per cent. There had been no pork or turkey sold legally all this time. Only two bottles of beer per person, or family, were sold during some national holidays. Rum was sporadically sold from metal containers or one bottle per family every few months. Cosmetics, shampoo, cooking gas, toilet paper, cheese, yoghurt, butter, deodorant and many other products were never or almost never available.
At the 1990 FMC congress, Fidel closed his remarks this way:

"I was going to tell you to take good care of your clothes, because it´s possible that in the special period there will be considerable reduction of those articles. We would only be producing for children, for new borns and growing children. But with the beautiful and elegant clothes you have, you may have clothes for the special period; you may not need a meter of cloth for two, three, four or five years. I am sure that if five years of the special period pass and we meet again, you will be just as beautiful and elegant as you are tonight."

 Ever the charmer, Fidel so flattered the thousands of women that they stood in long applause. As the Afro-Cuban proverb teaches: "A mal tiempo, buena cara." (In bad times, wear a good face).
 In a short time, practically all the textile factories were closed down and it became nearly  impossible for a number of years to get adult clothing legally in pesos.
Measures were taken  to encourage administrators and workers to find national solutions to problems, to use native raw materials and fashion Cuban-made parts to replace imported equipment and spares. The CDRs periodically collected discards, paper and containers for recycling at specific centers.
One million Chinese bicycles were introduced to replace much of public transportation. A national bicycle industry is now making Cuban models. Far fewer  cattle were officially  being slaughtered for food. Instead they were trained and used as work animals. Eventually, one hundred thousand yokes of oxen replaced fuel-driven machinery.  Horses, mules, burros and even goats were increasingly used for taxi service.
The special period also signifies cultivating an attitude of self-reliance, an understanding that survival means that independence and socialism are one, and encourages a renewed, extensive volunteer spirit.
Most people put in a few hours each month training in the militia and/or cleaning and guarding their block. Beginning in November 1990, tens of thousands of Havanans also began participating in the new self-sufficiency food plan (plan alimentario), taking periodic 15-day turns to labor in the fields. They ploughed new land allocated to crops and previously cultivated but often neglected soil.
Others dedicated themselves to working for two years in new farm contingents,  living in the community and working collectively for long hours. These agriculture contingents, made up of men and women from the cities and towns, were fashioned after the construction contingents.
This is a massive effort to increase production, also aimed at decreasing alienation of labor by changing work relations so that all participate in one big family, identifying more with the final product and participating more in some worksite decisions. Personal  experience shows diverse possibilities and levels of participation, but the opportunity exists to make some advances.

The main goal of the food plan was for Havanans to feed themselves, thereby freeing the provinces to consume what they produce. Some rural provinces already produce enough to feed themselves, but have always had to send large portions to the capital. The plan aimed at self-sufficiency in many food items--by 1994 or 1995-- with meat, grains and dairy products excepted.
For Havana province, including the city of Havana, providing daily rations for three million people plus public institutions, is no simple task.
The amount of hectares devoted to sugar cane (1.8 million) was cut slightly and 67,000 hectares were transferred to food crops nationwide, with a total of 42,000 for Havana.
By the end of 1993, nearly one million city-dwellers had participated at least once in the 15-day volunteer field work and 100,000 volunteered seven turns or more. Upwards of 10,000 passed through the 55 contingent camps near Havana, but only a minority stuck out the two-year turns; a few decided to stay on permanently.
More food was sown and harvested and some people ate greater quantities of green vegetables, root crops and bananas than ever before, but a casual observer would not believe it by listening to city folk, who merely complained about what they lack.
Many fields were equipped with sophisticated micro-jet installations--plastic tubing hung above banana trees or placed on the earth which function as sprinklers, spraying just the required amount of water.
New healthy elements were added to the Cuban diet, such as soy beans and eggplant.
Harvests of potatoes, corn, tomatoes and cabbage increased by 10 to 15% in the first two years and bananas by 50%. That was still too little growth compared with decreased foods of other kinds. And the costs were staggering as the labor force increased with the extra volunteers, most of whom were unstable and unskilled. City  folk complained that much of the food increase went to the volunteers who ate more than the rationed amount, which was a reason why some people volunteered.
Waste and inefficiency were not insignificant, given the many unskilled people coming and going. Thousands of young soldiers were called up to supplement civilians as well. Their production was much greater, a factor that Raul Castro noted and complained about.

The Young Workers Army (Ejército Juventud de Trabajadores/EJT) was introduced in the early 1980s as part of the army´s attempt to feed itself, and develop tree cover by planting millions of trees in the reforestration Plan Manatí, which also benefited the soil and farm lands. The young soldiers worked for wages and trained in military tactics part time. They also tended state lands in coffee and cacao, and later on many agricultural crops. They were used as the main work force for Plan Turquino, begun in 1987, the integral mountain development project to complete infrastructures in the most isolated areas. Plan Turquino hoped to encourage mountain people to remain and not flee to cities. Once roads, water and sewage, electricity and communication were brought to nearly all  mountain dwellers, the EJT began building recreational centers and housing. Many decided to stay on once their two-year military service was over. Their efforts did stop the flow of people to the cities.
 Once the alimentary plan got off  the ground, the state concentrated on the nearly forgotten 1982 law that  permitted economic partnerships between Cuban and foreign firms on national territory. The law had hardly been used until 1987 with the creation of Cubanacan,  a new tourist enterprise operating exclusively in hard currency. 	The Council of State extended the law in 1992, making joint ventures and mixed associations easier and more profitable to operate in Cuba. Joint-stock corporations usually call for the foreign part to make the capital investment, bring marketing skills and markets, offer technology and technical know-how.The Cuban firm offers infrastructure, skilled workforce, natural resources and factories. Terms are usually on a 50-50 basis, but there can be greater percentages for the foreign part.
The new enterprise has complete freedom to designate its board of directors and managers, shape its production plan, fix prices and plan sales, export and import directly, determine staff size and select personnel, sign contracts and decide on a system of accounting and financial policy--all in convertible currency. Foreigners can take their profits and salaries out of the country. Profits are taxed at 30 per cent, but exemptions are made for several years in practically all cases. The contracts can last  for 25 years and can be extended. When the foreign partner wishes to bow out of the joint venture, the properties remain in Cuban hands.
The state regeared some of its nickel mining--the third source of export earnings--with Sherritt, a Canadian firm, which introduced modern technology.
Cuba granted high-risk drilling rights to French and Canadian firms to discover and produce greater quantities of heavy oil and small amounts of newly discovered lighter crude oil. It also made a deal with Cemex, a major Mexican firm, to operate the large paralysed cement factory in Mariel, and share profits.
Cuba´s trade with Western companies in hard currency had only amounted to 1.7 billion dollars in 1988. In 1992, this trade rose to 6.5 billion, four billion of which was in imports.
The main cash industry is the new and controversial tourism program. In 1984, two years after the law permitting limited foreign investment, dollar tourism amounted to only 80 million dollars. It was six times that in 1991, and the number of Western visitors quadrupled between 1992 and the end of 1993. The forecast for 1996 was one million tourists. The net income from this pleasure industry  replaced sugar as the number one source in 1994. But the social costs are great. A new class of workers, who work atypically hard for good wages in pesos and dollars, has emerged. They can  buy products, and gain privileges, that most of their neighbors cannot obtain.

Tourism has also solidified a new group of thieves, jineteros  ("jockey" hustlers), and a Cuban brand of prostitute, jinetera, who seeks a good time on the town and luxury items rather than cash for sex. (Classical prostitutes trading sex for cash were soon to develop.)
Most Cubans are disgusted with these new social divisions, vices and hustlers, although they abide them. Cubans are proud of their revolution, which provided the real opportunity for all to enjoy everything that society offers, and which eradicated prostitution and servility.
Now, most of the hotels and resorts are limited to those holding dollars. Nevertheless,  Cubans are allowed to enter and imbibe in dollar spots if they pay in dollars or are paid for. (This policy fluctuates, however, given the mood of  officials and management. Sometimes Cubans are not permitted to enter luxury hotels).
All industries are affected by the special period and many factories closed. Cuba began selling some of its older vessels for scrap. "My" old ship, the 9th of April--which became the Seaweed when Mambisa changed ships names, making it easier for foreign shippers to charter and get them registered in foreign countries with minimal restrictions and few taxes--was one of those scrapped. Crew sizes were reduced, and some merchant marines had to seek work elsewhere. They were offered land-locked jobs in agriculture, which many could not stomach. 	Jineterismo and thievery became common on ships and the docks, as elsewhere. Underground sale of clothes, shoes, perfumes and cosmetics netted maritime and dock worker thieves millions of pesos and dollars, which state enterprises would have otherwise realized in dollar shop sales. Police stepped up vigilance. In December 1990, a major maritime scam was broken up. Forty-two dock workers, customs inspectors and truck drivers were arrested for the thievery of eight large containers filled with imported merchandise. 
My shipmates lamented this turn of events.
"I never used to lock my cabin," Eduardo told me sadly. "We were all one big, solid family aboard ship. Now, there is a jinetero elment everywhere you go. They aren´t sailors by tradition or love, but out for materialistic lust. They are the worst kind. They steal from their own shipmates."
  Economists, political scientists and political  leaders interviewed between 1992 and 1994, however, did not believe that the basic fabric of society was tearing apart, despite escalating thievery and double standards in social values. One young economist and the sub-director of the Cuban Economic Research Center, Omar Everleny, admitted that he bought  "some things on the black market. It is unavoidable. We don't know how to eliminate it. Although I am worried, society is not decomposing."

Any rational evaluation of Cuba's economic problems must take into account the economies of the rest of the Third World and international conditions in general. World aid organizations call the 1980s the "lost decade" for the third world. But none of the severe social disorders--rampant hunger and starvation,  unemployment without social security, out-of-control violence and wars--prevalent elsewhere occur in Cuba.
Carlos Lage, Communist Party economic head and political bureau member, put it this way:
"Any country that has suffered the economic impact that Cuba has in such a short time would explode. I believe that what our country has been able to do in the special period demonstrates the solidarity of a real socialist project...we are understanding with greater clarity that what is not efficient is not socialist..Virtues flower in hard times."

	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 5
	VOLUNTEER WORK

"To build communism, you must build new man, as well as the economic base...the instrument for mobilizing the masses...must be moral in character...Work must cease being what it still is today, a compulsory social obligation, and be transformed into a social duty...voluntary work constitutes...a school that creates consciousness...that allows us to speed up the transition process towards communism...Our goal is that the individual feel the need to perform voluntary labor out of internal motivation, as well as because of the special atmosphere that exists." (Che speaking to workers as the Minister of Industry.)

At the crack of dawn one humid July morning, I mounted my iron horse and pedaled off to La Julia in Batabano municipality, 40 kilometers south of Havana, on my way to participate in what Che described as that "special atmosphere" of collective voluntary labor.
Two hours and a bit later, a small sign marking GIA-2 appeared on the flat horizon saturated with banana plants and vegetable crops. This camp looked like the others I had just passed: one-story, white-painted, concrete dormitory buildings neatly arranged in rows, interspered with shrubs, flowers and garden vegetables.
GIA-2´s director, Oscar Geerken, a chemistry teacher and school administrator in his mid-40s, greeted me and led the way  to his cubicle where I´d be staying. It had four, two-tiered bunk beds with thin foam rubber mattresses and pillows. Each person has a small  closet. Two ventilators whirl overhead to cool the room and chase away persistent mosquitos. Sometimes a mosquito net is also provided.
"We built this camp ourselves, with help from local constructors," proudly proclaimed the handsome, mustachioed teacher. "And we did it in just 29 days."
Geerken came with the original 120 founders in the first days of  November 1990. He, like the others, will get his job back when his two years are up, or before if he decides to quit earlier. Now there are 220 workers at the Colonel Mambi Juan Delgado Contingent, named after an officer from Havana remembered for having rescued the cadaver of hero Antonio Maceo, killed in battle near Havana in 1896.
In the front row of cubicles housing the 50 women workers is a space used for the polyclinic attended by a permanent nurse and or doctor. Most of the ailments here are minor: machete cuts, colds, flews, asthma and hypertension, for which the new sugar cane-based pharmaceutical pill, PPG, is administered to regulate cholesterol. Its "magical" properties include the purported side-effect of stimulating sexual drives, especially in the elderly and impotent,  which has scant call for in Cuba.

A recreation building across the courtyard is divided into two large rooms. One has two television sets at opposite ends so that viewers can choose between one of the two channels. The other room affords space for a ping-pong table and card tables for dominos, checkers and chess. The room is brightly dotted with art works painted by volunteer-worker artists. This room is also used for Saturday night dances.
One long building--divided by gender--contains the toilets, wash basins and showers. Although the toilets are flushable, and even though there is a permanent cleaning staff, a putrid odor constantly lingers in the air. Numerous corrugated laundry sinks are attached to the front of the bathroom facilities. As often as not it is the women who do the washing for male lovers or friends, which is the reason given why women go to the front of the chow line, that and out of common chivalry. The only complaint one hears about gender arrangements is that contingent policy makes it difficult to copulate because the sexes cannot be together in  cubicles.
"We can´t afford to have domestic relations spill over into collective quarrels, or cause people to get up late for work. Furthermore, some would object on moral grounds. But people find ways to link up," Geerken explained, smiling broadly.
We entered the brightly decorated cafeteria and were handed metal  trays heaped with morros y cristianos (beans and rice, named after dark-skinned Moors and white Christians), steaming bean soup, hot dogs, a sweet made from freshly picked egg plant, and soda. The menu on the wall projected cod fish for dinner. Breakfast is usually the same: hot milk, coffee and a small piece of hard bread. Breakfast and a hot dinner are free of charge, and lunch costs .50 centavos.
After the two-hour lunch break, Geerken introduced me to the head of  finca 13, the 73-hectare banana plantation. Oscar Rodríguez is  a history and philosophy professor. As he was the only man here raised on a farm, and with a knowledge of growing bananas, the brigade assigned to initiate the plantation elected him their chief.
With Oscar as my guide into the banana "jungle", and by periodically working over the next two years alongside a series of partners, I learned some of the mysteries of growing this beautiful, utilitarian and tasty fruit, one of the few fruits that is good for stomach problems. The plant itself can be used for many things: work animal food, protection from sunshine, roasting meat. Some cultures use the fibers for textiles.
Finca 13 is comprised of 150,000 "silk" banana trees surrounded by two rows of strudy, protective burro plants, whose squatty banana is used in a variety of dishes: boiled, mashed, roasted and fried. Most Cubans don´t like to eat burros raw as a fruit, preferring the silk banana--and other types--which can also be cooked when green. These two types of fruit-vegetables are what the Alimentary Plan is mass producing in many provinces, because they are less susceptible to plagues than other fruit bananas, such as the: indian, guineo, apple, dwarf and the large vegetable banana called macho.

Once the banana plant matures, it sprouts a large purple bud, popularly knows as a "tit." The tit weighs half-a-kilo and is half-a-meter long, dropping heavily from the pendulous stalk. The tit´s bracts easily roll back to expose a glossy lining, like silk, emitting a perfume fragrance. Beneath each bract lay overlapping rows of cream-colored, unisexual flowers. First to appear on the tit´s corded spike are several rows of female flowers, whose ovaries develop into "hands" of  bananas.
"We used to cultivate only one crop a year," Oscar said, "and our banana production was way under demand. There were so many plagues, so much resources and attention required that we never caught up with demand. With this new technology and increased manpower, we´ll soon have more bananas than we can eat.
"Imagine! If we´d been planting our own food all along we wouldn´t have any significant economic problems now, while the rest of the Third and former Second worlds are in decay. We made a grave error relying on foreign friends to feed us. But we´re correcting that now."
The Communist party--to which Oscar and Geerken belong--announced in early 1990 that the microjet irrigation system, which Israel first developed  for growing citrus fruits in deserts, could be used for bananas as well as other crops. It became one of Fidel´s pet projects (along with PPG production). He predicted that within three years of installation yields would quadruple to an average of two million pounds per caballeria, with bunches of a score of hands weighing 150 pounds, over twice what the average tree was then yielding.
At the end of Col. Delgada´s contingent´s second harvest, their yields were 1.5 million pounds per caballeria, with bunches varying between 60 and 120 pounds.
The microjet system requires a substantial investment, about 140,000 pesos (part of that in hard currency) per caballeria. Once installed, it can last between up to 15 years with minimal upkeep expenses. Cuba imported the first materials from France and then began making its own posts, hoses and sprinklers from imported plastic.
I experienced the first phase of banana farming with Benito. A combination of heavy winds and the nematodos virus had wiped out a section of the plantation. Our team dug new holes for the chopos (pods of young plants). Recent rains left the earth muddy and difficult to hoe. My clothes and body became caked in mud. It rained and we slipped and slid. After a while it didn´t matter. What bothered me, and everyone else, were the biting insects: mosquitos, ants and a gnat-like fly called gegen, which bites like horseflies. Once the green plant is cut off, the chopos smell like fresh rubber and attract a tiny black ant, whose bite stings for minutes.

It was actually fun planting the chopos. I walked alongside a yoke--careful not to get too close to Guacamayo´s thick hooves--catching the pods from a female worker, who threw them from the steadily slow-moving cart, and I placed them two meters apart in the earth. After seeding a dozen rows, we took hoes and topped the pods with loose soil.
Working with women can either slow down production--due to inevitable flirtation and different gender capacities--or sometimes speed it up, because men like to show off and women often sing stimulating songs. Love songs and swinging hips induce faster work motions as a distraction to rising passions.
Sitting next to a tractor driver the next day, I was shocked to watch a dozen mature banana trees get rudely eliminated by the monster as it tore through four rows, its steel assortments breaking off bunches or felling trees because of inadequate space or careless driving. This experience made it clear to me that using oxen and hand-work with knives and machetes is far more economical, concerning resources, and more respectful of  nature´s gifts, although perhaps six times as slow as using machinery.
I got off this mechanical brute and cut dried parts of trunk leaves with a short-bladed machete. Once the innersides  are exposed, one frequently can find a tiny frog therein. It is a slimy but harmless, cute creature that incomprehensively frightens most Cuban women and many men.
Spraying plant diseases with chemicals is still employed even under special period limitations and heightened ecological awareness. Sigatoka (sugar cane rust and smut/micofarella musicola) spreads so radily and is so lethal that airplanes are used to spray nauseating, imported chemicals.
 Fumigating new sprouts of weeds growing close to plants is a constant task of  brigadistas, who apply the Belgian-made Monsanto herbicide from a tank carried on their backs. The instructions call for extreme caution and use of goggles, which is ignored.
The natural fungus, verticullium lecani, is used against the ruinous white fly, but many farmers still use the ancient method of mixing tobacco leaf leftovers with water as a harmless but time-consuming way of combating the white fly, which attacks fronds. Another fungus, trichoderma, is used effectively against injurious fungi in other crops, and even an ant (lion ant) is helpful against some plagues. It will be a long time, however, before biological methods will replace the need for unfavorable chemicals to control farmers´ many menacers.
Entering the mature plantation in the early morning dew is a holy experience. The shadowy silence and fresh moisture embraces and comforts. Under the taller fruit and burro trees, the sun does not penetrate to human height and fronds protect one from rain. Here, all is pleasantly green and tranquil.
My adrenalin begins to churn as I scout for the marked bunches. One man cuts the bunches, which a technician designates as ready to be cut,  and carries them to the edge of the "street" (a series of rows), where the ox cart passes by, and another man loads them.

Some trees have fallen down from the force of the last cyclone. A few cords were snapped and some overhead wires were broken, but we got off lucky this time.
Cutting banana bunches is heavy but fun work. One holds the bunch with one arm and swings the machete at the top of  the trunk with the other. When the bunch falls onto one´s chest, he swings once more at the vine just above the bunch to cut off the tree top, and then carries the fruit to the street, or dumps the bunch gently into the ox cart, if it is passing by. A cart attendant covers the bunches with fronds to protect them from the sun.
Dripping sap stains not only clothes but also the body, yet the same plant produces a watery liquid that washes body stains away. At the day´s end, we dip our fingers in the liquid where trunk layers turn brown. These juices miraculously clean the sap stains.
We were working with Contrario and Asabache. The cyclone had left the earth muddy. The yoke got stuck in a dip and wouldn´t budge. The driver cussed and struck the oxen with his flimsy whip, which they ignored. Someone called for Nelson. When he showed up, his jaws were tight and he hit Contrario in his ticklish ribs and the beast stepped sideways. Nelson wanted him to step forward. He slapped Contrario´s rear with the flat of a machete, and threw dirt into his mouth: "To dry the foam and get rid of his agitation by giving him a new one." 
The animal roared forward and Asabache came along, pulling the heavy cart out of the mud. No amount of prodding and logic could have so convinced a motor vehicle.
After lunch, I worked with Gildy, a dynamic 22-year old former factory worker. She had suddenly found herself out of a job, when the radio assembly plant where she was working reduced its labor force. She went to the local government labor office and they suggested she try the contingente.
"This is secure work and double my previous pay. It appealed to me and still does after nearly a year. The food is better than you get in the city on rations, and all the essentials are provided. Furthermore, I feel useful.
"Because of our natural amiability, we have no real social problems here, other than a bit of jealousy from time to time. But that happens wherever there are men and women together."
Near quitting time, workers rushed excitedly from the field shouting, "Fidel is coming! Fidel! Vive Fidel!"
Three black Mercedes limosines sped by, a blue mini-van at either end filled with armed security  men. Fidel  didn´t stop this time, but he had visited GIA-2 before.
It was Saturday and cabaret time. A few women had decorated the recreation hall and prepared snacks of salad, toasted bread and fried burro bananas. Some men had gone off to find "draught" rum at the only state liquor counter-store. If they were out, which they were, the men would find black market rum at double the price in someone´s house, which they did.

Tonight was special. Contingente Colonel Mambi Juan Delgado´s own band, the "Microjets," was performing for the first time. It was strange, yet quite natural on this island, to see muscular banana workers dressed up in spick and span white clothes, beating out sensual rhythms on congos, drums, trumpets, vibes, an organ and clave sticks, while other brigadistas gyrated to salsa and humped to son music. The women were decked out in sexy clothing and sparkling jewelry. Some could have been models or Tropicana dancers.
The music played on well past midnight as dancers hugged and smooched, some a bit tipsy. But no matter, at 6:00  everyone would be awakened by the loudly broadcasted radio music and fall out for the morning assembly (matutino), ready to partake in participatory democracy and hard labor.    
"A contingente without a matutino is not a contingente," wrote a Cuban journalist, also working there.
Indeed, without the matutino, workers´ imput into decision-making had been indirect, after-the-fact. At these daily assemblies, the leadership informs workers what agricultural developments are taking place, as they learn about them from higher authorities. The previous day´s work is quickly evaluated, and the current day´s tasks are outlined. The floor is then opened for questions and comments. At the end of this interchange, the destacados  (distinguished workers), chosen by all the workers from the previous day, are named by brigade leaders. Every few months, certain bonuses or vacations are awarded those most frequently chosen as destacados. 
At this matutino, Geerken explained that he´d been to see the Ministry of Internal Commerce staff about  sorely needed work clothing. Many workers had holes in their work shoes, and few had no shoes, not to mention tattered shirts and pants. Socks were already a rarity.
"It´s well past time to deliver work clothing," Geerken said. "We know that most textile factories are shut down, and the ministry has few reserves.They told me they´d be distributing some soon. They couldn´t say when."
A fallen look came across many faces. No one spoke.
Big Roberto responded, though, when Agüero--the general production chief--said that brigade 8 was behind in planting potatoes and would have to speed up.
"Give us more hands. Finca 13 is overstaffed right now and we are undermanned."
No one contradicted this assessment, and Agüero agreed to shift part of the banana plantation personnel over to potatoes for a while.
Someone held up a tooth brush and towel. "Did anyone lose these? I found them in the bathroom."
A man raised his hand and gladly took the hard-to-replace items.
It was time to go to work.
ALL IS NOT ROSES AND BANANAS

Wherever food scarcity exists, crime increases. Cuba is no different. With the special period cutbacks, general scarcity, and shaky morality, crime soared so alarmingly that the Communist party took the issue up publically. Thievery was so common, especially in the food area, that stealing was not considered stealing, simply "resolving a problem." 
In the fields it had become customary for passerbyers to take what they could. Farm workers did likewise. In the state warehouses and markets "indolence and neglect is rampant," Fidel said. At a meeting with the vice-minister of agriculture and ICRT programmers, the minister said that, in 1989, one million chickens had been robbed from aviaries. People arrive in the night with machetes and kill chickens, and  cattle as well. And this was before hard times set in. 
With the special period and the alimentary plan, guards were posted in farm areas. At GIA-2, only two guards patroled at night, in the beginning. Then the first ox was slaughtered and carted away. Crops began to disappear. Sixteen men were now assigned as watchmen around the clock. This entailed six circulating and six stationary guards at all times.  Shots fired in the air to scare away would-be thieves could be heard, before authorities took the bullets away from guards. This happened because a youth had been shot by one guard-worker, in another provice, in what the local people believed was unnecessary punishment. Armed or not, banana bunches kept disappearing from our plantation.
The most painful of thievery occurs at GIA-2 as well. Every once in a while some clothing or precious soap is taken. The worst theft was that of a brand new Chinese bicycle. Pedro had left his bicycle in his cubicle without locking it. When he returned from the tomato field it was missing. Geerken suspected someone and confronted him,  threating to send the police to check his family´s house. The suspect then admitted he´d taken the bicycle during work hours and driven it to his nearby home. The disciplinary committee unanimously voted for his expulsion, accompanied by a report of his deed that would follow him in his work henceforth. They did not seek to put him in jail.
Personnel turnover was another destabilizing problem. Of the original 120 founders, nearly 100 stuck out their two year commitment, but those who came afterward were not so consequential. About one thousand had come and gone in that same period. Yet GIA-2 general performance and production levels were among the very best. Agüero tried to make sense out of this apparent contradiction.
"According to our accounts, the majority leave simply because the work is too hard and the sun too hot. Some leave because they would prefer another task than the one they were assigned. Others leave because of illnesses.Family troubles sometimes cause departures. Married couples split up for so much time places a drain on the relationship. My own marriage is on rocky terrain," Agüero said.

"A few people have left because they weren´t real volunteers. Not many, but a score or so have been encouraged to come because they had no other work, or it was a condition for parole from prison.  About 100 have been booted out for bad behavior: excessive drunkedness leading to anti-social behavior; slapping women and similar acts of violence; a couple cases of thievery; and a few for having sexual relations in cubicles.
"It´s true, the leadership is strict, but not rigid or foolishly formalistic. We are strict enough to get the job done and win a few `best´ awards," Agüero said.
Batabano´s state vegetable and fruit farms are a microcosm of  government-run collective farms the nation over. In a frank interview with the party-appointed, municipality agricultural director, Aldolfo Montalvo, he told me how farming had been and was developing. Before the alimentary plan, his zone had between 150 and 200 caballerias sown, and cultivated by 105 permanent farm workers.
"Extra hands have always been brought in to help out, but these are mostly school children who are hardly proficient and dedicated producers," Montalvo said. "With the current special period and emphasis on self-sufficiency, we´ve gotten more hands than we ever dreamed. My permanent work force grew to 150 and they received a wage hike. They were reenforced by about 2,000 volunteer workers, at any one time--both the 15-day and contingent types. And work-school students still come to volunteer. Moreover,  army soldiers are sent in to assist, at peak times."
Like the other municipalities in Havana province farm areas, Batabano zone received improved backup from the various ministries involved. That included: fertilizers, herbicides, farm equipment, much less petroleum but more oxen.
At the end of the first year of the new direction, Batabano´s yield increased from 12,000 tons to 20,075 tons of total crops harvested in 200 caballerias.The second year, production was netting about the same yield average, but 60 more caballerias were sown. The work force was constant in numbers, which amounted to 25 times the amount of workers before the special period and the plan alimentario.
Montalvo admitted that "the numbers of workers and actual costs of production are abnormally high and tremendously outweigh what we can produce, nor do I see a break-even point in the near future. However, right now we are most concerned about feeding the entire city and province of  Havana."
Also beyond Montalvo hands, and all farm directors, was the distribution problem. At the first national assembly meeting concerning  plan alimentario´s progress, since decreed by the Communist partry, Candido Palmero, Contingente Blas Roca chief and also head of the agricultural contingents, told the deputies that he could guarantee that the plan for next year would be met, as far as "production and harvesting is concerned."

 From where I sat in the convention center, during this assembly, I could clearly see Palmero, with his large and calloused hands now fallen at his side, pause and look at Fidel. The president gestured for him to continue.  	"What I can´t guarantee is that you will eat all the crops, because we don´t have our own trucks to distribute."
Palmero stated that the farm workers should have the responsibility and authority, and the tools and equipment necessary, to do the entire job, from breakling ground to delivery.
Fidel enthusiastically agreed, and the deputies decided that each state farm would get its own transportation to deliver to new central markets in each of Havana´s 15 municipalities, and, eventually, directly to retail markets. The idea was that the consumer would buy crops harvested 24 hours before.
Two years later, the Acopio was still sending trucks to pick up harvested crops. Upon returning to Havana, they would be unloaded and set to wait for other, smaller trucks to come. Then the food would be reloaded and transported to market. The delays and abusive handling always amounted to great losses.
A Cuban colleague of mine, Clemente, was working at GIA-2 and writing about what he saw. We agreed to a plan for him to work on a distributing truck and take notes for an article. His newspaper printed only small portions of the most important revelations. What went unpublished was that "some bananas were sold illegally on route and at the market place; about 1,400 pounds of the 30,000 to 32,000 pounds of bananas loaded at the field never reached the targeted consumers on rations; some 50 warehousemen were sitting on their hands as we pulled up with the truck, delaying the unloading process."
Clemente´s newspaper did print that he had observed scale discrepancies of 2,000 pounds, and that some quantities of  bananas did reach each of the 12 designated stores.
My own random investigation into wastes in my local market, at this time, revealed 128 boxes of rotten mangoes--5,760 pounds--of a total of 553 boxes delivered two days before. The store manager and accountant explained that this is "normal." They said they can reject overripe or bruised produce but they can´t physically check each box upon arrival.
"Furthermore, who wins if the markets don´t accept produce they can´t sell?" asked the accountant. "If the trucker has to return the product it just goes to waste anyway."
A neighbor, who shops at the same store, complained to me about a common distribution dilemma.
"They flood the markets for a week or so with mangoes or tomatoes, whatever. Half of them are rotten or unedible in other ways. Then we don´t see this produce again for months."
A year had passed between my last 15-day stint at Col. Mambisa Juan Delgado Contingent before I returned, in the spring of 1994, to hear that Oscar Geerken had defected. Someone had paid thousands of dollars for him and his wife to be whisked away on a speed-boat to Miami from the small beach community of Cojimar, also noted as the fishing village in Hemingway´s Old Man and the Sea. 

It was becoming common to hear of someone you knew who left Cuba for "greener pastures," some of them in this clandestine fashion. But we were especially surprised to learn that Geerken had succumbed to this solution for frustrations.  He had been so unusually good as an administrator and companero. I later heard from Rene Zeyer, a European journalist who knew both of us, that the distinguished, amateur agriculture director and professional professor was working at minimum wage in Miami as a local tourist guide.
"Geerken said he was happy," my colleague reported.  "He said that he had never believed in what he was doing or in the Communist party. What seemed to have caused his initial bitterness is that when he entered the university the quota for classes in the area of his desire were filled and he had to accept teaching, which he said he never cared for. I thought that was a poor reason to give up one´s country and choose enemy territory."

	END CHAPTER 

	CHAPTER 6
	POPULAR POWER RESTRUCTURED

"We are asking the people, in a way never asked before, to judge all that we have done and to propose what we should do now." (Carlos Aldana, secretary of the Communist party, speaking about the upcoming 4th congress.)

Economic downturns effect all other major sectors of society, and sometimes reveal discrepancies in political structures. Cubans readily complain about their lot, and negative attitudes about the functioning of Popular Power government escalated to such an extent that the party central committee decided "to tackle in a practical and concrete way the rectification of  the country´s political and institutional system." This statement was made on February 16, 1990, when the Communist party declared intentions to hold its fourth congress.
Four days later, the National Assembly of  People´s Power announced that it had elected a new Assembly president, General Juan Escalona Regueira. As Minister of Justice, he had prosecuted the Ochoa-la Guardia trial. Educator Zoila Benitez de Mendoza was chosen as vice-president. The hope was to instill fresh life into the Assembly and strengthen its role.
On March 15, while Fidel was being hailed in Brazil on a state visit to the inauguration of President Fernando Collor de Mello, Raul Castro was televised reading the central committee´s call to the fourth congress, (to be held in October 1991). 
For the first time in party history, the Communists invited the entire nation to participate in discussing its policies, concentrating on the food plan, the economy in general, rectification of errors, Popular Power and party organization. The party invited people to meet in their neighborhoods, mass organizations and work sites to express complaints and make suggestions to improve the socialist system.
The call recognized internal deficiencies and criticized itself for errors. It said the party had created an "unreal image of unanimity," one which is often "false, mechanical and formalistic." The party must give space to "diversity of criteria; " the media must "continue propitiating a climate of openness," become more "profound, analytical and critical," to advance "the knowledge and participation of the people in all fronts of the Revolution."
At the first public meetings, the party´s appeal was met with resounding silence. Those few who did attend nodded approval and did not venture forth with anything themselves. Their experience had led them to believe that the party did not truly want to hear criticisms or new ideas.

Public meetings were suspended and discussion turned inward with television coverage. Once the public saw members speaking out--within bounds yet more open than customarily--non-members were more prepared to discuss the party document. Eventually, 89,000 assemblies were held, mostly at work centers. Three and one-half million people met, and one million complaints and proposals were said to have been noted and processed by a congress commission. Some were taken up at the congress.
The United States´ reaction to Cuba´s response to CMEA atrophy was a new aggravation: Television Martí. The station--whose very name was an offense to Cubans, nearly all of whom view Martí as their "apostle" and the initial protector against  US imperialism--beamed its first signal on March 27, 1990. Within a few minutes the Ministry of  Communications had effectively jammed the first television transmission imposed by one nation upon another. Cuba does not jam legal transmissions from the US, or other countries, on short-wave, which practically all Cubans have on their radios and everyone has radios. What it objects to is the beaming of rancorous propaganda, including calls to sabotage, over illegal medium-wave circuits and the new US television station´s occupation of a Cuban channel that the state sometimes uses. Furthermore, it is a question of sovereign rights. No other nation would tolerate such intrusion, and certainly not the United States of America. 
The United Nations-affiliated International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which regulates the international use of radio and television, ruled on two occasions that the use of the signal was "not compatible with the standard land practices on VHF and UHF bands," and that TV Martí violates ITU article 158. Its call on Washington to stop beaming was ignored. In that year alone, US taxpayers spent 20 million dollars on a signal that was never seen by Cubans. By now, hundreds of millions of dollars have been gratuitiously thrown away.
The reason why Cuba could render useless this powerful communication weapon was the tenacity of its intelligence operators, namely: José Ramon Fernandez Brenes. He had apparently defected from Cuba in 1988, when, in fact, he was working on a specific mission to infiltrate the television network then beginning to come together, at the behest of Más Canosa and the far right in US politics.
In July 1991, Cuban media informed the world that it had once again fooled the CIA and protected the nation against another Yankee attack. José Brenes had been a director, producer, writer and editor for ICRT, and a drama teacher since the revolutionary triumph. Brenes had also been known as "Orion" to a select few in DSE. He had been one of security´s eyes and ears on the work site for a quarter-century when assigned the dangerous mission in the heart of enemy territory.

Brenes boarded a Cuban ship, in the spring of 1988, on the pretext of making a TV novel about Cuban shipping. The captain boasted to him the night before docking at a Canadian port that no one had "defected on me." The next day, agent Orion jumped ship. Three weeks later he had found his way to Miami. While teaching courses in drama at the Miami Dade Community College, he began planting seeds for a job with Radio Martí directors in Washington. A year later, Brenes was contacted to work on TV Martí.
Brenes moved to Arlington, Virginia, into Crystal House, a plush apartment building where Pentagon officials live. The United States Information Service, the CIA-friendly government body in charge of anti-Cuba broadcasting, hired Brenes at 37,000 dollars a year on contract services. Although the CIA had been severely burned just two years before by the public denunciation of 27 double agents, it did not take serious precautions with Brenes, not even the usual lie detection methods. The Agency probably believed that since the Cuban moles had overcome detection, the polygraphs weren´t worth being used anymore. Deeply engrained superiority complexes--nationality and personally rooted--left CIA officials vulnerable to continued penetration.
The CIA asked Brenes to corroborate evaluations of the television station´s daily leadership, while promoting Carlos Alberto Montaner and Jorge Más Canosa, and the latter´s Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF). Until his handlers called him back, Brenes worked for 15 months as a programmer, writer, editor, producer and director for the enemy´s "No se ve TV" (TV you don´t see).
On the first day of broadcasting, program director Alberto Roldan read text prepared by agent Orion: "Mensaje especial para todos los cubanos. Queremos anunciarles que en este mismo momento sale al aire TV..." (Special message for all Cubans. We wish to announce that at this moment TV...).
A week later, Fidel Castro gave a rare news conference. He explained that Cuba had the technology to jam TV Martí forever, as well as send programming into the US. It had, in fact, demonstrated this capacity with radio when Radio Martí first began broadcasting on medium wave, but eventually decided against using this counter-offensive tactic. 
On July 23, I joined a group of national and foreign reporters, at three a.m., at the Ministry of Communications to witness the jamming process of this signal.
Following a briefing by Minister Manuel Castillo, he looked at me when he asked for a volunteer to give the order to intervene. A colleague from the Sandinista daily "Barricada" and I agreed on what we would say when the signal appeared. There were two television sets in the ministry salon. Jamming technicians were in another part of the buidling. One TV set would continue showing the foreign signal after jamming, while the other would show the jamming.

I waited 30 seconds after the TV Martí announcer came on before picking up the phone to a technician. Two seconds after I gave the order to "terminate", the signal ceased on the set, which one sees in Cuba. Afterwards, the journalists were invited to go to any part of Havana, with transportation provided, to judge for themselves if inhabitants were receiving the signal. Many of us did. Even though dawn had yet to surface at the first house, which we chose at random, we were welcomed. The station we saw had the same buzzing, wavy lines that we had just seen at the ministry. And so it was for the other reporters in the various homes visited that morning, and so it has been ever since. Nevertheless, at the beginning of 1996, management for both radio and television intrusions were granted even more funds by the "Democrat" President Clinton to increase their power and programming to Cubans who still do not receive the signals.
Most Cubans I know recognize that the nation´s media programming is slanted and restricted, but they also reject attempts by foreigners to "show" them how they should do media. The radio and television programs oriented toward Cubans, or about them--especially those from the United States have a specific slant, too: reject your government, your way of life, and accept ours.
Such blatant chauvinist manipulation only serves to draw the wagons closer, and Cubans naturally tend to unite all the more around their government, even when otherwise reluctant.
The normally uncritical Cuban media began to print and sometimes broadcast some inquietudes about the Popular Power governing process. This could happen now, first and foremost, because the highest powers  sought reform, and also because ordinary people felt disgruntled by scarcity and even more under attack from the US.   Media directors, therefore, thought that some aperature in the media would assure people that they were being listened to.
The only mass circulating magazine left after special period cutbacks was the popular weekly "Bohemia". In three consecutive issues of July 1990, it ran articles confirming that the Popular Power apparatus had far too little power and effective functions. "Bohemia´s" survey found that half the people felt their represenatives had no authority to resolve even the few problems they do confront; forty percent felt they were not permitted to share in governing the country; and delegates interviewed didn´t understand what they were supposed to be doing.
The Communist party´s key think tank, Research Center of the Americas (CEA), created in 1978, was given a bit of independence to conduct research and publish its journal, Cuadernos de Nuestra America. In this period, a CEA research team conducted a study on Popular Power, ciritiquing it and offering suggestions for restructuring and popular empowerment.
The Communist party´s congress organizing commission responded to some of  the most acute complaints during the congressional buildup process. Its aim was to "eliminate dualism", to make party  work more integral, bring it closer to the "masses", and do away with "excess personnel" and "sluggishness of leadership bodies."

On October 5, 1990, a full year before the congress, the party reorganized itself. The organizing commission abolished the secretariat, an intermediary, unelected power  body. The Poitbureau was expanded to 26 voting members, who would head up all party commissions. Sixty percent of the central committee staff was re-assigned or fired.
Five days later, the party commission gave the green light to organize nearly 100 Consejos Populares (Popular Councils) in Havana. This intermediary, informal body had been experimented with in a few outlaying areas with popular success. The idea was to push local government and enterprises into action by taking some initiatives in inspection and sanctioning thievery and negligence, especially in gastronomy and rations distribution.
The Popular Council presidents were appointed by top government directly under Fidel, in the beginning. The president is a paid staff person with an executive council made up of CDR presidents, other mass organization representatives, some directors of local business and municipal government delegates. The Council has no legislative capacity nor does it replace municipal government, although overlapping of  functions is inevitable.  The Councils spread throughout the island and most people feel that some local problems of inefficiency and thievery are, at least, being addressed.
Personal examples illustrate that Popular Councils, once pressured from above or below, can get some local  jobs done. One experience concerned an empty lot on my block, which  was a constant source of irritation to the closest neighbors because many people threw trash in it, creating a stench and attracting rats, cockroaches and other vermin. I wanted to put an end to this and have the lot used as a neighborhood kitchen garden. Suffice it to say that numerous attempts to realize something worthwhile was met by deaf  ears at all the normal channels. When I finally approached the new Popular Council appointee, "my" project was officially approved within a few days, which allowed me and a neighbor to set up "police" signs prohibitting trash discards, and we roped it off,  with the help of a worker sent by the Council, for a garden. Over the next three years, the garden functioned well and much less trash was thrown into the area.
The CTC held a national congress in response to the party call and took initiatives to weed out some bureaucratic hindrances. The CTC congress decided to move towards direct elections in all but the top level of the labor organization. Most shop stewards, and municipal and provincial staff would now be elected by members, rather than appointed. The new national leader, Pedro Ross, had been appointed, in 1989,  by the Politbureau to replace Robert Vega, an old-timer not in tune with rectification.
The CDRs, FMC and youth organizations also took steps to bring their staffs and leaders closer to the base, and to limit the number of matters they were often assigned to undertake by the party.

In the thousands of meetings held to discuss problems, similar complaints emerged to those in the post-ten million tons sugar harvest disaster: formalistic management in politics and the economy, white-collar and street crime as part of daily life, poor service and work quality, abuse of power and luxury living for the top layer.
Still, most people supported the socialist state and Fidel as president, while there was criticism of those around him in powerful positions. A party summary of complaints recorded these expressions as those most consistently heard in the Havana meetings.
I attended two such meetings, one at my regular work center, José Martí Publishing House, and one while I was at sea on the tanker Seaweed.
We were sailing from Caibarién to Santiago de Cuba to reload with petroleum, when the workers´ meetings began. I was assisting in the engine room. At a production and "atencíon al hombre"  (attention to the worker) meeting, it was announced that we would be discussing the party call when we docked  at the eastern city.
Attendance was voluntary. A few sailors had to be on duty, but all others were encouraged by Captain Juan Marrón to participate. I estimated that about half did so. A party representative from headquarters, always present at such meetings, had come from Havana. She, our work center party  secretary, and the "political" officer aboard ship, read the call and explained that we were to say what we thought would be helpful in making decisions about how best to guide the nation.
The union steward opened up by criticizing the shipping company´s "poor coordination, which causes fuel wastes and unnecessary delays." The captain responded that the discussion should be held to "larger issues and not on details." A helmsman picked up his lead and said Cuba should develop "its own economy and not rely on others, nor offer so much assistance to others." A machinist challenged the captain´s intervention: "Anyone should say what he wishes, be it a ´detail´ or not. The captain should not feel he must respond to every crew member or lead the discussion."
Captain Marrón did not respond to this challenge.
Although the meeting was directed in a stiff manner, a bold seaman,  livened it up from time to time. The first mate, Sigi, participated sharply.
"We live with slogans as part of our diet. `Save´ is now in vogue. But we don´t live by it; we don´t internalize the real need to save energy, to turn off unused lights, shut off water values. Why not? Because we know that the leadership takes us on one marathon after another without ever reaching the goal. There is so little true analysis of structures, methods, results. True incentives to take initiative, to be creative, must be developed and popularized so that we can construct a real socialist democracy. The government opens doors for foreign capitalism, for mixed companies and economies. Why not for us?"

Though he offered no concrete proposal, he struck a responsive cord throughout the room. The men nodded in approval. Several pointed out that the unions were "party facades." Leadership was appointed from outside the ranks. The captain intervened to say that some local unions were beginning to elect their immediate representatives. He defended the way socialist unions are  "necessarily supportive of our administrations. We are the owners. In capitalism, strikes, conflictive discussions and special interests must be defended against the ruling class, but not here."
No one disagreed with this viewpoint, but those who spoke wanted their unions to have more clout, and that "improvements" should not only come when the party so decides.
"The captain, for example, can forbid our union representative from leaving ship to try to resolve a problem for us. And the captain is even a member of the union," protested one seaman.
Even the ship´s party secretary was critical.
"Union functionaries and representatives, all too often, have little interest in real union matters; but the workers are to blame, as well."
I spoke about the role of the media in promoting a worker´s democratic socialist state, and contended that the media was neither professional nor fulfilling its constitutional role in representing people.
"The people are not heard in the media. There is no such thing as investigative reportage, independent news analysis, opinion page editorials, debates, letters-to-the-editor, undirected man-on-the-street interviews. All we get is hip hip hurrah, false unaminity, simulation."
I proposed that the assembly adopt a motion calling upon the party, which controls all media, to implement  concrete steps to open the media by starting with public imput. The chair ruled my motion out of order as it "is not in the area of seamanship issues. Furthermore, the government is under attack by the foreign media, and this is a touchy theme."
I objected.
 "We have already discussed areas not related to the maritime industry, and the constitution clearly states that the media is everyone´s concern. Moreover, we are always under attack by the foreign media and if that is the rationale for avoiding ´touchy themes´, we will never begin to address touchy themes."
There was a quick huddle at the dias and the chair relented.
Sigi supported my motion.
"The party must cease controlling and monopolizing the media. The people don´t have power, neither in the media nor in their mass organizations and Popular Power government. Everyone knows it is best to shut his mouth."

My motion passed unanimously. So did Sigi´s subsequent proposal calling for "democratizing the mass  organizations and Popular Power government, conduct real elections, and elect young people and women."
With that the meeting ended. I asked several participants for their evaluation of the assembly. "Words and motions are meaningless;" "nothing will come of it;" "empty rhetoric," was the concensus. Some conceded that this one had been more open than most meetings. Nevertheless, they felt that, "It makes no difference whether we held this meeting or not. It is window dressing, mass therapy."
Neither Sigi nor I ever heard what happened to our proposals. They were not in the fourth congress report.
While party delegates were meeting at the congress, the US conducted war games nearby from the Guantanamo Naval base. Defense Minister General Raul Castro was absent from much of the week-long proceedings to attend to defense.
Congressional delegates--for the first time a third of  them  were elected from the base--endorsed what the organizing commission had decreed: internal party restructuring and Popular Councils, among the most important changes. They also decided to accept religious believers into party ranks, after strong appeals from Fidel, and readopt the 1960s practice of selecting some party members from nominees made by assemblies of  all workers at job centers. I attended one such session at "my" farm contingent and can verify that it was a true grass roots experience. Several of those nominated I knew to be good, conscientious workers. Only one person nominated was not accepted by the majority. The party respected these proposals.
Fifty-three percent of the 225-member central committee was replaced by congressional delegates. The average age remained about the same, 47, but only 29 percent were now party founders, compared with nearly half at the third congress, in 1986.
More young people took on important posts in the Politbureau and in ministries: Robert Robaina, recent UJC head, soon became foreign minister; Carlos Lage, also a recent youth leader and a doctor, was made the party´s key man in the economy and soon became a  first vice-president; Abel Prieto, an intellectual writer and president of the Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC),  joined the Politbureau along with three women, including the co-discoverer of the meningitis-B vaccine, Concepción Campa. Still, women and dark-skinned Cubans were underrepresented in the highest bodies, though they are more commonly leaders of enterprises, educational and health institutions, and , naturally, in entertainment arts and sports. Two captains of the five ships I sailed on and four of the chief engineers were black. 
The Communist party congress recommended to the National Assembly changes in the constitution that would broaden the Assembly´s role, and it laid the bases for a mixed economy with emphasis on tourism and foreign investment.

The party decided to adopt direct, secret ballotting for inter-party elections. In the first such vote, half the party secretaries at the local level and three of the 14 provincial leaders were replaced.
            Gloria Analco, Cuba correspondent for Mexico´s leading newspaper, "Excelsior", interviewed me about this process. She asked what I thought was the key difference between Cubans and others who had attempted to break away from US domination and comprador capitalism. Why had the Cubans largely succeeded where all others had failed? My unhesitating answer was:
"The leadership has not given the enemy the first concession, and, in this, it is backed by the people as  a whole. Secondly, Fidel combines the Martí strategy of consolidating the revolution in one political party with the ballsy bravery of Maceo at Baragua--never surrender!"
	LOS CABALLOS
Standing before the spanking new, 16-meter-tall titantic statute of Antonio Maceo (the Bronze Titan), and his horse reared on hind legs, and surrounded by 23 bigger-than-life steel machetes, the imposing guerrilla president delivered his view of the party congress to 250,000 countrymen crowded into the Antonio Maceo Revolutionary Square.
"This is an historic, heroic congress...the best and broadest, most frank and most democratic we have held...the most democratic political congress ever held in the world."
Fidel condemned parliamentary democracy in capitalist countries as "complete garbage," and said that "only a socialist system can be democratic."
"There will never be peace with the Empire without our sovereignty and independence intact. We are the descendents of Antonio Maceo...and will never accept their hegemony."
"We are invincible, because if all the political bureau had to die, we would die, and we wouldn´t be weaker for that...and if  to destroy the Revolution they had to kill all the people, then the people, behind its leadership and its party, would be ready to die."
Maya winced and her body jerked forward from the armchair, breaking my concentration on Fidel´s preaching. 
"Why all this blood? Enough! Enough!"
Winds blew fiercely now in Santiago de Cuba and the clouds shed heavy tears on the cheering masses. Fidel´s strident voice cracked momentarily and deepened on rebound.
"People can die, but their examples do not die, never; People can die, but their ideas never die!"
The crowd roared and clapped wet hands.
"We´re ready to water our ideas with blood."

The big "comandante" concluded by calling out to General Maceo and his "invincible spirit" that the "Cuban people and its political party has not and never will defraud."
I switched off the TV, finished note-taking, and made strong coffee with liquor for Maya--a friend and literature professor--and poured a shot of  7-year aged rum with beer chaser for me.
"Fidel´s so strong and brave," Maya almost whispered, "but he´s too damn stubborn, too hard-mouthed sometimes," her voice rising as the professor in her took over. "Stubborness is good. It´s a very Cuban characteristic that he personifies. When he´s tenacious then  it´s positive. But sometimes his obstinacy turns rapid, like with all this blood talk. Sure, we´ll defend our country as we always have, but why exaggerate and fixate on that theme--all the people dying? Repeating over and over. That ends up being all of us, you know!"
"I know Fidel means to inspire enthusiasm for the revolution, for the country´s defense. But he is too tropically pigheaded sometimes. When things don´t go well, he sets his heels down. He puts too much emphasis on one priority, like the microjet bananas today, for instance. How many roofs and entire houses aren´t being reparied because all the concrete, steel rods and other materials necessary for millions of posts to keep the plants from falling down are not available for anything else? What will happen when a cyclone tears them all down? Or what if next year we have so many bananas they´re coming out of our ears but we don´t have anything else? No, it´s just like when I was a teenager ´volunteering´ in the ten million ton sugar harvest--all or nothing. He´s just too headstrong, too extremist, and he doesn´t learn."
A foreign ministry friend, Santiago, felt encouraged by the congress, however.
"I had access to information not available to the public, and I can tell you that there was significant debate and criticism among the delegates. There were many who openly opposed admission to Christians, despite Fidel´s strong support, and some voted against this question. Many argued against foreign capital investments, fearing that it was a contradiction with our socialist economy, and that it would cause unrest because of distinctive manners of doing business. Some delegates supported the free farmers market, although this issue was not reflected as such in the media--I suppose on the theory of not spreading disunity.
"As I see it, the majority of  party members, including myself, don´t want any capitalism. We want to see that state organs function. If they implement what they adopted, we can feed ourselves. The question is to get the apparatus oiled, to get the workers motivated, to get the resources necessary to do the job.

"The fundamental  fact is that the party  is getting more flexible. Leadership is no longer  unchallenged.  They just have to let the people know it is opening up. But that will come," Santiago asserted. He reluctantly admitted, however, that he wasn´t as optimistic about party leadership confidence in media freedoms.
	CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES
At the next meeting of the 510-member National Assembly, December 1991, the Communist party´s recommendations were discussed. One of the most important was the direct popular vote for provincial delegates and National Assembly deputies. Fidel spoke cautiously about this measure.
"Election by a collegiate body, by an assembly is much more democratic, and much more practical because the individual who is selected by direct ballot has enormous power, that person can be idolized and feel above everyone else. That person is invested with power in an election after which he or she is responsible to no one...what people with a lot of responsibility in the government and the state need in a socialist and democratic country is not an excess of power but limited power."

At the July 18, 1992 National Assembly meeting, deputies adopted changes in the 1976 constitution.
Some led to electoral law modifications. Changes included the following:
--Direct, secret vote for province delegates and National Assembly deputies; extending the office to five years for province delegates.
--Economic changes included establishing joint ventures, and the leasing of state property.
--References basing Cuba´s relations with the Soviet Union and other socialist states were stricken.
--References to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" were removed, and the term "people" was substituted for "workers" in describing the composition of the state and society.
--Emphasis on Marxism-Leninism was shifted to Jose Martí thought, both of which now guide science and education.
--The nation´s integration into Latin America and the Caribbean  became a priority.
--The natural ecology is protected.
--Freedom of religious belief is reinforced.
--The president´s duties are clearly outlined and extended, giving him the power to call states of emergency and preside over a newly created Council of National Defense.
These latter presidential duties were implied before, but codification in the constitution had been  neglected,  Escalona explained.

Fidel Castro is still in the preamble as the head of the revolution, as is the Marixst-Leninist basis for the state. The Communist party continues to be viewed as the vanguard of the Cuban nation, and the only political party, while the National Assembly remains the supreme power as the exclusive legislative body.
One change allows for potential property ownership transformation. Escalona said that any transfer of  state property to private hands could only be justified "if it aids economic development for the entire nation," and, he added, "nothing is now in the works."
"Another, more subtle, but just as important change (as direct elections) is that the Communist party is removed from the electoral process--it no longer has a role in the nomination of candidates," wrote Gail Reed, a US citizen and long-time Cuban resident, who heads the English department of Radio Havana.
Nevertheless, when the October 1992 electoral law came out, the direct voting reform had its teeth extracted. Provincial and National Assembly candidates are no longer nominated, as are municipal candidates, by the constituents. They are proposed by candidacy committees made up of representatives of the mass organizations and headed by a CTC leader. The party no longer plays a direct role, but remains instrumental in the mass organizations. Furthermore, the candidates nominated fill the exact number of slots, that is, a single slate is presented to the voting public. This is a step backwards for democratic representation.
In the next municipal elections, held in December, there were still contested candadacies among the 13,835 delegates elected, although fewer than in previous elections. Each delegate represents 500 voters. On the provincial level, each delegate represents 10,000 inhabitants, and the ratio is one national deputy per 20,000.
The first elections for provincial delegates and national assembly delegates (now 590), under the reform, took place in February, 1993. It was preceeded by heavy campaigning by Más Canosa, from Miami, backed by Washington and anti-Castro media propaganda. Fidel also campaigned for everyone to go to the polls, while Canosa called for staying home or handing in blank ballots. The duel was portrayed as a choice between Miami and the revolution, which only assured a reinforcement of Fidel as the savior of the revolution. That is the way most Cubans saw the situation.
Election results were an astounding defeat for presumed US interests.Over 99 percent of voters went to the polls; 92% chose the official candidates. Only seven percent of the nation either returned a blank ballot or a spoiled one. In Havana, that segment was 14%.
Voting in Cuba is a right and highly encouraged, but is not compulsory. No one is punished if he or she does not vote, as is the case in many "democratic" countries, such as Turkey and Cyprus, but also in the heart of the Western democracies, such as Belgium and Australia. The National Assembly, acting as an electoral college, still selects the Council of State and the president, similar to Switzerland´s process.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the Communist party remains the dominating and unifying force, and its functions are still not clearly separate from the state´s.
I choose two scholars to quote, in order to illucidate the basic dilemmas in government. Carollee Bengelsdorf, author of The Problem of Democracy in Cuba (Oxford Press, NY, Oxford, 1994) is professor of politics at Hampshire College in the United States. Her book is the culmination of years of studying the Popular Power system from within.
"The fusion of Party and state (is) the chief ambiguity and perhaps the major factor undermining the authority of Popular Power as a genuine institution of popular government. The overlap between Party and state, succinctly captured in the fact that every National Assembly deputy has been a Party member, remains unrecognized as in any fashion (as) a problem by the leadership...which will continue to haunt (the Revolution)."

Bengelsdorf also points to the issue of candidate campaigning as inadequate for democracy. Structuring competition among candidates simply on their volunteer achievements and jobs held has little to do with knowing who is better capable to govern.
No Cuban leader has been willing to address the need for candidates, or delegates and deputies for that matter, to possess policy ideas or programmatic notions for advancement. Once elected, representatives´ roles are limited to receiving ideas and programs from the Council of State for which they are to vote.
Election campaigns need not be only conceived of as "really  vicious things" of  the past from which Cubans have "liberated" themselves, as Fidel said at the December 1991 National Assembly. There could be campaigns in which candidates debate ideas without money or phony advertizements involved.
Instead of opening up to true debate on politics, on programmatic policy, the new reforms were surrounded in an atmosphere discouraging to differences of opinions. The provocative film, "Alice in Wonderland" ("Alicia en el Pueblo de las Maravillas"), for example, was banned after a run of four days in Havana. Its Communist party director was not run out of the film industry, but the message delivered was not to criticize the party. At the same time, party leaders instituted the unpopular "rapid response detachments", whose task was to jeer and throw objects at the few dissidents living in Cuba. Party members andCDR activists were supposed to compose them--at first obligatorily--but most I know refused to participate and were not recriminated against.

The only significant critique of the new Popular Power changes coming from Cubans, which was published (four years after the Popular Power reforms were adopted) was an analysis by CEA director Luiz Suárez Salazar. He wrote "La Democracia en Cuba y el diferendo con los EE.UU" (Democracy in Cuba and the Dispute with the United States), which appeared in the June 1995 issue of  "Cuban Review". This monthly is edited in Spanish and English in Cuba, but the central committee only permits its publication and distribution abroad. The agreement, to which I am  privy, means, in effect, that an unofficial magazine, with sympathetic tone and lightly critical content is considered  permisssable for foreigners outside of Cuba to read but not for the Cuban people.
Suárez´ article later came out in Cuba, in the CEA´s limited-circulating Cuadernos de Nuestra America, which was, perhaps, part of the cause for Suárez losing his job and the CEA being signaled for attack by the Politbureau. That development will be discussed in a later context (see chapters 20 and 21).
Suárez wrote that the new reforms introduced "important doctrinal changes," advancing democracy.
"In my view, the most important...was the establishment of a voluntary, universal, free, secret and direct vote for the delegates...and the Deputies." But there were two dangers incorporated in these changes that "modified the norms which state that, for the first rounds of elections to be valid, at least 50 percent of the voters had to participate in them...(and for Province and National Assembly representatives) the fact is that the final slate is a closed and frozen list containing a number that corresponds exactly to the number of posts to be filed...These last two changes in the electoral norms should be rethought, since they are inconsistent with all the rest of the electoral  legislation produced by the Cuban Revolution..." There now exists "the possibility that the elective state bodies may be formed by a minority of the voters...contrary to the respect for the will of the majority which characterizes the rest of the Cuban Revolution."
"Another of the inconsistencies I note in Law 72/92 is the capacity it gives the Council of State to decide whether or not to convoke elections (and of what kind) and to elect delegates to the Provincial Assemblies of People´s Power or Deputies to the National Assembly if, for whatever reason, the direct elections of those posts should not have clearly defined results in the first electoral round."

The Communist political scientist probed further.
"Another inconsistency that I note in Election Law 72/92 is its limited definition of illicit electoral acts."
Suárez asserted that interference in the work of the electoral and slate commissions by members of the Communist party or the UJC was not delineated as an illicit offense but should be. He also thought that it was of dubious value for the Cuban constitution to "give its stamp of approval" to the Communist party of Cuba, and when codifying the state as a socialist one, it must be understood that "the ways of interpreting and implementing those precepts may be many and differ from one representative of the people to another." 
He added that one of the goals of a "people´s democracy" is to allow for "maximum possibility of altering its temporary rulers." Nor should the party and state, he said, "obstruct the possibility that new organizations which express the interests and aspirations of specific sectors of the people may appear from society...Cuba´s political-juridical system should open institutional spaces that will facilitate the systematic expression of plurality."

"Plurality"! Fidel and Raul "temporary rulers", not permanent fixtures! I was surprised and encouraged that there was, apparently, such aperature to new thinking, whether one agreed with "plurality" as a good position for Cuba, given the circumstances with the US, or not. For the first time in my years in Cuba, a director of a party institute--although nominally a non-governmental agency, whose staff is still paid by the party-state--went on public record, inside Cuba, with a point of view that Communists can have differences about how to rule and about what policies to adopt. This essay was especially  unique in its objective manner of considering the very top, i.e., Fidel and Raul Castro. However, I did not know one ordinary Cuban who knew that one of their own was writing these ideas. Only a handful of intellectuals, and some top party functionaries did.
The National Assembly was taking on a new character. It established ten  working commissions to study  laws and make recommendations for change. The new Assembly president, Ricardo Alarcón, is the nation´s top expert on US affairs, having represented Cuba in the United Nations and as Vice-Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He saw the necessity for more deputies to be full-timers,  including working commission leaders and an executive staff. 
The head of the Constitutional and Juridical Affairs Commission, Dr. Ramon de la Cruz Ochoa, had been the attorney general. His new task was to prepare bills about the functioning of the National Assembly with the objective of adopting more powers for itself, based on the party´s congressional recommendations. The stated aim was for the supreme political power to "become more significant to the population," de la Cruz told me.
"The National Assembly has not had the transcendence, the potency that is now desired,"  he  said. "Now we have more flexibility to appoint paid deputies to commissions, which serve as 'mini-parliaments'  between sessions."
Another declared aim of the current reform process, de la Cruz stated,  is to limit the necessity of the Council of State to make practically all the political, economic and even legal decisions of importance. Shortly after our interview, however, the Council of State issued important reforms, through its decree law process, which broached another stage in the special period.
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 7
	SPECIAL PERIOD,  STAGE 11

"Today, we have to make a concession. Many of these measures we are taking and studying are antipathetic, undesirable, but we must do what is necessary to save the fatherland, the revolution and the gains of socialism." (Fidel Castro, July 26, 1993 speech)

It was a sad day when a solemn Fidel Castro addressed the expectant nation on the 40th anniversary of the guerrilla attack on Moncada barracks.
He explained that "our grave shortage of hard currency" had led to decreeing the "descriminalization of the possession of hard currency.".
.	"We do not and will never renounce socialism, but we cannot perfect socialism today...It would be best if we could receive and use dollars...if tourism could be developed for ourselves and not almost exclusively for foreigners, but it is not possible.
With these succinct words, employed in one of Fidel´s briefest and gravest speeches, the head of state and the Communist party took the breath out of millions of Cubans who have nurtured the ideals and practice of social justice and equality for all. As I watched the speech on the television set, goose bumps rose on my skin. This is it, I thought, the beginning of a new era, another stage of  the special period. Once the dollar is unleashed, there is no holding it back. We could only hope that some of the hard currency that would separate the haves and have nots would benefit the public as a whole.
This was the hardest year of all in revolutionary history, not only economically but  because Cuba was totally alone. Socialism in one state, on one small island? Not possible? Morale was lower than ever.
Though the 1992 sugar harvest was decent, seven million tons despite oil imports of only six million tons, earnings were cut  to a quarter regular intake because capitalist market-pricing now determined trading terms. Capitalist monopolies set the lowest prices ever for many other important sources of income: sinter and nickel oxide fell $1,500 a ton, nickel sulphide fell $2,000 a ton (down to one-third of 1989 prices), shrimps went down by $1,600 a ton, lobsters by $500.	

Then nature whipped its winds through fields and homes. With the March 1993 "storm of the century," half of Cuba was uprooted. Three million banana trees and expensive micro-jet irrigation infrastructure were destroyed, vast quantities of export cash crops were ruined and 100,000 people were left homeless. That was followed by severe floods in the east, which destroyed more food crops, houses and a few lives.
On top of these natural catastrophes, the population suffered a mysterious neuritis epidemic, eventually  making 50,000 sick with faulty eye sight and weakness. The US government again refused to sell medicine that Cuba did not have, but individual medical scientists came to help with research and solution-solving.
Power cuts became intolerable - 16 hours a day was not uncommon and, in some areas, entire days and nights went without  lights, causing food to rot, sleep made impossible by mosquito bites and electrical apparatuses burning out because of sudden switch-offs.
In the unusually dry and hot summer, it seemed that crime was getting out of control, from unheard-of-before violent muggings to household break-ins and theft of food on way to market.
The party leadership had to take drastic measures.
Announcing the currency reform, Fidel said that greater sums of dollars were coming into private hands without the state acquiring these revenues. Instead of Cubans abroad sending dollars to Cuban banks for conversion to pesos or certificate currencies for special product sales, as had been customary for 15 years, they were bringing them personally as tourists, leaving the state, and thus the people at large, without benefit.
Other new sources of dollars were foreigners' salaries in Cuba. Some Cubans--merchant seafarers, airline crews, scientists, professors, artists, athletes and others who sell their services and talents abroad--earn dollars legitimately and the state could acquire more of them through decriminalization.
The president said that excessive cash in circulation had to be curtailed, and put into general use to liven up the economy. It had doubled in three years time, equalling the annual wages of the entire working class.
Fidel admitted that the socialist state had to make "a concession," the first ever pronounced, in an effort to promote policies, production and service activities that generate hard currency.
He said that the "dramatic world situation, this unipolar world, obliges us to do things we would never have done if we had the necessary capital and technology."
Fidel forecast that other difficult measures would be announced forthwith and hinted at their nature:
            --Greater possibilities for family visit permits for Cubans living abroad, and vice versa;
            --Even more flexible opportunities for foreign investment;
--Promotion of all productive activities and services which generate hard currency;
--Stepping-up of construction and use of tourist installations;
--Speeding up of trade and export of pharmaceutical and biotechnology products.
The new reforms are characterized by their "realism" and departures from previous equalitarian policies:

--Less equitable division of the costs of the crisis (a new elite with dollars, self-employment opening the way for relative wealth for a few and unemployment with less state protection);
--Revamping most state enterprises and all new firms into profitable operations by eliminating (or seriously reducing) state subsidies, decentralizing power in the hands of managers, enforcing cost accountability far and wide, utilizing multi-task work relations (resulting in new unemployment);
--Readjusting internal finances to balance the budget (introducing many methods step by step, including eventual taxation).
These dual economic measures, however, differ qualitatively from many of those taken by other states undergoing radical change.
Cuba is not selling any land or buildings outright to foreigners; the state assures its citizens that wages and prices of essential items will remain in national currency; there will be no privatization of national institutions and social services; health and education will continue to be gratis; and the Communist Party will continue to run society, with increased popular input.
In spite of  these assurances, people wonder what more concessions will be forthcoming? Some look upon  this aperature with glee and hope for greater individual opportunities, for money to buy things. Others are worried that the evils of pre-socialist times might return. Could Fidel, and the state really pull off what he is predicting?
"We have now determined our priority: to save the nation, the revolution and the gains of socialism. I say the gains of socialism, because that is what we can fight for today without ever renouncing socialism."
Scents of perestroika's origins?
"One day, history will take the responsibility for deciding what role each (Soviet leader) played and the part that the CIA played in destroying the USSR, the part imperialist propaganda played ... I am flabbergasted that those who said that perestroika was to improve socialism should now be saying that socialism is an unattainable utopia," he said.
"And what harm they have done to the world! What harm they have done to this little country called Cuba, in particular, which was so constant, so loyal, so internationalist!
"Cuba cannot make these mistakes ... Now we have had to go forth on our own ... 
"People are waiting to hear about miracles. There are none; we have no magic, but the Yankees cannot expect us to fall apart, nor that we will go the capitalist way!"
Eighteen days after Fidel's historic "concession" speech, the Council of State issued Decree-Law 140, authorizing the decriminalization of the possession of convertible currency.

New stores will now open to sell products only  in dollars, and new suppliers willing to sell to Cuba will have to be found. Dollar store prices were doubled with Fidel's announcement, in order to rapidly extract higher revenues because foreign suppliers usually charge 30 per cent above normal world prices to offset possible economic retaliation by the US, and to make the new dollar elite share their wealth with the rest of society.
Fidel said that a convertible Cuban currency certificate would probably be issued in the future so that Cubans holding dollars would be forced to trade them in national banks, allowing the state to garner funds directly and curb some speculation.
How are these measures--some divergences, some radical extensions of earlier steps taken--viewed?
Fidel  keeps tabs on the public pulse. He does so through  frequent forays into fields and factories, through his special team of adviser-problem solvers, and the party's opinion-taking polls and studies.
Fidel admitted: "Some of these measures are unpopular. We don't like them. We have become used to equality, and rightly so. We have become so used to equity that we suffer when we see someone enjoying a privilege."
He estimated that about one-tenth the population would be directly enjoying such privileges because they will  be able to obtain dollars, legitimately or otherwise.
"We want to arrange things so what is used by the speculators today becomes a source of income going directly into the national economy for everyone's benfits."
When the national assembly met late in December, this theme was broached. While some delegates complained of the greater number of hustlers, prostitutes and thieves seeking dollars, no one opposed confirming the dollar decree.
The central committee's socio-political center director Dario Machado said that the most recent study indicated that 80 per cent favor the decriminalization of possession of hard currency. 
"A large majority back it, because they know they will also benefit," said Machado.
Banks began attracting more savings in pesos and some Cubans opened their first accounts in dollars. A new dollar banking operation was launched, the first foreign operated bank in revolutionary history.
Will this lead to a dollarization of the economy?
"I can see the danger. It can be regulated, though, and the majority want it to be. It is a calculated risk," explained Fidel.
When Cuba began its dual economy policies, Fidel had told the Washington Post (December 15, 1991):

"I am disposed to ... admit that there are elements ... of capitalism in certain areas of our socialist system, but no book of Marx, Engels or Lenin says that it is possible to construct socialism without capital, technology and markets ... It is for this reason that we have no alternative but to associate with foreign companies."
Responding to journalists in Havana, he said: "What will be the consequences in the political and social life of our country? That is to be seen ... that there will be a capitalist ideological influence? Nobody denies that ... It is a battle we have to face and from which we have to emerge victorious."
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 8
	SOCIALIST FARM COOPERATIVES

"Although the nation´s wealth is collectively owned and the workers are in control of the state, we haven´t always  felt like owners, so now we must reorganize in agriculture so that we do feel as owners." (Juan Redonavich, a municipal Communist party leader).

Politically and economically--in the peso sector--the most important reform stresses the fundamentally socialist character of placing the farm worker at the center in productive relations.
On September 15, 1993, the Communist party Politibureau spelled out new formulas "to motivate people  ...to produce more with fewer resources." A week later, the Council of State issued Decree-law 142, which legally established Basic Units of Co-operative Production (UBPC). This is a new type of state farm cooperative, reorganizing a section of  the traditional state farm collectives in ways similar to the agricultural production co-operatives (CPA), which own 12 per cent of the land. 
The key features of the decree are:
--Co-operative members will have full use of the land without owning it, unlike CPA co-operators, who are full owners.
--They will be owners of production, as in the CPAs, in that they are free to work and organize as they choose and must sell their production to the state at agreed prices.
--Farm equipment, seed, fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, petroleum, parts, irrigation and other supplies are provided by the state on credit.
--Labor is paid by profit-sharing, but the state will advance an average monthly wage and capital to get started, repayable on sale of harvests.
--UBPCs must be cost-accountable, profitable enterprises.
--They will elect their leadership, subject to recall, which will represent them before state firm managers and financial groups.
--Co-operators will eventually be sold new homes near the fields in complete communities, to be constructed soon.

The hope is that this restructuring will eliminate obstacles which hobble agriculture and sugar cane state enterprises, and cut subsidies, which account for 54 per cent of state losses.The health of the nation should improve because of  that and because the huge plantations will be more manageable, smaller farms of  200 to 500 hectares, or a quarter of current sizes. Also the new material and political incentives for workers and their families should be of help.
After new studies of  the CPAs, state leaders concluded that co-operators'  relationship to their own land and style of work is superior to that of state farm workers. Co-operators are more pleased with their work; they create more and better quality crops with  fewer resources--often three times greater production than the state farms--and they earn more money. State leaders did not say, however, why it had decided not to sell the land to UBPC users, which does not apparently coincide with the conclusion that a major incentive for the CPA co-operators is their ownership status.
Individual private farmers, organized in the National Association of Small Farmers , comprise the third form of tilling the soil. Private, family-owned land represents eight per cent of  the total cultivated land.
Between the 1,400 CPAs and 75,000 private farmers in ANAP, plus a few unaffiliated small farmers, 225,000 farmers own  20 per cent of the cultivated land.  On  this 1.1 million  hectares of land,  slightly more than 20 per cent of the nation's food is produced, plus these farmers feed their own families a much healthier amount and diversity of food than what is available on the rations. None of the co-operatives or individually-owned land can be sold to any entity other than the state. Nevertheless, family inheritance is permitted if the inheritor tills the soil and has lived on the land before the owner´s death.
The new form of production applies to state collectivized sugar cane (80 per cent of all cane), coffee (30 per cent), tobacco (20 per cent), vegetables, root crops, fruit, forests and cattle--the majority is state farmed. Of the nearly 900,000 workers in state agriculture and sugar industries, it is estimated that 800,000 will eventually be organized into about 4,000 UBPCs. That would mean 3.2 million people, including families, living on 4 million hectares of cultivated land, and, in part, feeding themselves. If all goes well, it is hoped that this sector of society could get off the rations system someday. While that would be a relief to the state burden of subsidizing food rations to all 11 million people, the state will continue to provide these families with food rations until the UBPCs are flourishing and profitable.
The plan was rushed into effect as the autumn season began, with land rotation and planting of cane, other key cash crops and the population's food crops. Following 1993`s disastrous sugar harvest (4.2 million tons), the ministries of sugar and agriculture function more in tandem under new ministers, Nelson Torres and Alfredo Jordan, respectively. Both are members of the political bureau.

Alienation of  labor and rapid farm-worker turnover should diminish with steps underway, because the workers ought to be more directly linked to the earth and its fruits. Some skeptics say,  however, that much of the UBPC program amounts to little more than name-changing  because the fundamental aspect of good farming has not been accepted, that is, private property and free marketing. The question of ownership of land and the sale of produce is an age-old debate within the socialist-communist-anarchist world of thought. Can  private farmers be converted from "natural" reactionaries to revolutionaries, and can socialized farming ever become as fruitful as private farming? I do not  pretend to have the answers here, but those questions remain unanswered, satisfactorily, in Cuba´s development. 
Does the UBPC reorganization plan mean that state collective farms and the recently mobilized contingent and 15-day volunteer labor scheme have been  flops?
According to the Communist Party's economic leader, Carlos Lage, and other experts interviewed, it does not. Political leaders say that the state farms have not declined in the percentage of  food harvested relative to the CPAs and ANAPs. But they point out that co-operatives and private ownership motivate people to be more careful about precious resources.
The cost of running the volunteer camps is very high, as are subsidies to collective farming. In these special times, when machinery is idle and spare parts are scarce, when oil imports are 40 percent of what they were, it is imperative to find ways of rationalizing the reduced resources.
In 1994, nearly three years after I first interviewed Batabano state farm enterprise director Adolfo Montalvo, he told me that agriculture has used half  the state subsidy expenses in production spheres, and that daily costs per volunteer (of all kinds) came to 13 or 14 pesos, while their production value amounted to three or four pesos. Moreover,  since the emphasis on urban volunteers began in 1990-91, agriculture manpower grew to 10 times what it had been when rural farm workers were the principal labor power.
"With the creation of the co-operatives, and emphasizing material incentives, we depart a bit from Marx," said Humberto González Lao, director of  Cuba's largest tobacco farm, (Lazaro Peña). "But it will resolve the food problems, at least, for the three million involved in the process."
Lazaro Peña was one of the first farms to adopt the UBPC approach to productive relations. I spent a week here just after the new law was decreed.
Juan Redonavich, Communist party  leader of  the local municipal San Antonio de los Baños, where Lazaro Peña is located,  said that the party took the decision to create UBPCs because of  the "urgency of the times. We saw that the summer drought would adversely effect our crop next year, along with ever-declining oil imports. We had to act quickly."

Redonavich frankly offered the opinion that "the co-operatives have advantages over state farms that we want to utilize with the new UBPC concept. Although the nation's wealth is collectively owned and the workers are in control of the state, we haven't always felt like owners, so now we must reorganize in  agriculture so that we do feel as owners.We've made many mistakes,  errors of idealism and paternalism." 
One key problem concerning the nation's consumption of what food is grown--just 37 per cent of 1990 consumption--is distribution. Crops are still  transported to giant gathering points, then reloaded and redistributed. The national assembly approved the UBPC decree in December without addressing the distribution problems.
Director González has no idea what will happen, but Melchior Velázquez, production chief of one of Lazaro Peña's first UBPCs--The September 5--commented:
"We hope that in the future the co-ops can distribute directly to consumers. By rotating crop plantings, consumers could always have variety. The quota quantity, produced by some co-ops and state farms, would serve selected areas that they could supply. But to do this, we need steady production with many more trucks, spare parts and petroleum. That simply does not exist today."
Velázquez was elected production chief by the formerly permanent state farm workers, when they voted to reorganize. Besides a production head, the UBPCs elect their own economist and president. The three form the executive leadership and are the only non-producers.
"Before, the enterprise sent one technician-director  to various plots to conduct routine checks. Now, we have a specialist who is always here, alongside the workers," Velázquez said.
"Each co-operator now performs many of  the tasks needed, instead of doing one routine job. That way, they are more stimulated, become better skilled, and identify with the final product.
"The workers are also excited about ploughing their own plot," Velázquez said. "We know that there is not enough area alloted to feed all of us, but we'll have our diet supplemented. And if we produce a surplus over the quota, the state will sell us back some to further supplement our diet. One day, we may get off rations."
The new law forbids selling any crops on a private basis. No "free farmers market" will be revived, says Fidel and co-op directors. 
Co-operative farmers were supportive of the new changes, but some expressed doubts.
"We didn't have any warning about these changes and no time to discuss before the orientation. At the same meeting when the UBPC was explained, we were told to vote for or against it,  and, then, to elect our executive,"  Rogelio Cedano explained. "We basically just raised our hands when the state farm director explained the new process and called on us to decide. He also proposed who the new leaders might be."

 While these farm workers now have the right  to elect their leadership, and even to decide what kind of farm system they want, at least between a state collective farm and the UBPC concept, they were not historically prepared to think about what might be best, or who might be best leadership, nor how to organize. All these matters had been decided for them by far-away planners. This dilemma began to be broached in "Trabjadores" (discussed in a later chapter). As time went by, more decisions at some farms were being made by workers. 
Thirty-seven year-old Cedano, and his partner, earned good wages  in 1993: between 300 to 800 pesos a month, depending on the task performed at the former state collective. They doubted that they would make that much on the profit-sharing basis. Nevertheless, they saw the advantages of  being their own bosses, "although we have to work longer hours without the previous guarantees," says Cedano.
"And if the state doesn't provide us with adequate fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and petroleum, our  crop could suffer and also our intake."
"September 5" had 60 members now and was growing. Most of them were permanent state farm workers before. Only a handful of the contingent volunteers living at a nearby camp-site had decided to join up. The co-op members decide how many members they should take on and who they should be.
One of the early contingent volunteers to apply and be accepted was Manuel Ibanez.
"I moved here from the city. I feel better, healthier in every way, working in agriculture,  but the conditions at the camp are lousy. I hope the new housing community begins soon."
One of  the contingent volunteers, who decided not to join, is Pedro Castro, 55.
"Look,  I make good money and have travelled from one farm to another at will," said Castro.
"I won't incorporate in a UBPC because I like the freedom I have now and because income is going to go down, at least in tobacco. This delicate plant requires too much care, too many resources and the co-ops aren't going to get them. Maybe this new organizational method could be profitable in vegetables and cattle. But in tobacco and maybe cane, I doubt that it will.
"Moreover, the area allotted for self-consumption is too small, the hours are too long, and who knows when or if  the new housing communities will actually get built?"
Pedro was happy being paid a regular wage as part of the support group of contingent volunteers. No one could say if such volunteers will continue to be needed. More contingentists were no longer being recruited. Other people shared Pedro´s  doubts about the UBPCs´ ability to be cost effective.
Cuba's youth newspaper, "Juventud Rebelde", and  "Trabajadores", view the need to "change mentality" as key to success.

Columnists stressed the necessity to follow through on the rhetoric of creating a new consciousness in workers. The old patterns of  "formalism and ritual must end," insisted "Trabajadores", in a December 20, 1993 editorial. "The unions," it said, "must play a definitive role in changing too much elevated centralism."
Orlando Tamargo, an economist at the Research Center on the Cuban Economy (CEEC), whowas following agricultural  changes, told me after one year into UBPC restructuring, that they were "not meeting expectations, certainly not in any consistent pattern. Only a few seem to be doing well...The key to success will be in the quality of true independence that this new farmer will have."
Despite the difficulties the UBPCs face, there is general hope that they will be successful. A central committee opinion poll, taken shortly after the new cooperatives started up, showed that three-quarters of the 2,300 persons surveyed believe that they would produce more and better food.
Research director, Dario Machado, said:  "Concrete results show that fewer resources have been used in these first months to plant the initial crops. Cost-effectiveness is off to a good start."
	"MY"  FARM
       "Guajiro" country music ( indigenous to Cuba's rural areas) whines atonally like the hillbilly twang of the  northern, unneighborly neighbor, and Radio Rebelde plays it full blast at 5.50am. Though the singing is shrill and the guitar squeaky, the message is aimed at reaching rural mentality with information--singing news and music  to stir awake.
       The  GIA-2 state farm, where I do volunteer work, comes alive.  Edgardo slowly lifts an acrylic blanket from his face and swings his legs off the lower bunk bed. Edgardo lumbers out into the star-lit morning and over to his wife´s cubicle. Guillermina embraces him and hands over the empty beer cans for him to fill with their breakfast--a mixture of powdered milk and cereal--at the dining hall.
        This middle-aged couple left their grown children in Santiago de Cuba to seek new horizons. Edgardo had a maintenance job at a secondary school where Guillermina was a school cook. They have been here six months, since the Col. Mambi Juan Delgado Contingent began converting into a UBPC. There are 200 men and 100 women now to work the new Jose A. Fernandez  900-hectare co-operative, named after a local  martyr. The major crops are bananas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage and tomatoes, with 26 hectares planted in vegetables for  co-operators´ consumption.
       Edgardo is off to plough with his assigned steel-tracked Russian tractor, which must be pull-started by one of the few vehicles with a functioning battery. The open, red cab is roofed with empty Dutch Desire potato sacks. Cuba imports this brand and Canadian potatoes as seed. 

       As we bounce over rough earth, flights of herons glide down behind Edgardo on the newly formed rows. The "farmer's friends" line up like snow-white sentries surveying for mice, which they devour by the dozen.
      After a couple of hours, we stop with the motor running to replace a broken bolt. It takes another driver an hour to fetch one.
      "I like the co-operative idea," Edgardo says. "We feel more connected to the soil, to our product. But there are still problems of discipline, bureaucratic slowness and lack of sufficient resources.
     "The revolution has been too generous, too paternalistic. We've got to learn to produce what we should," the Angola war veteran philosophizes.
    "Too many people are here only for the material benefits, like soap and the 15 packs of cigarettes a month." (compared with four on the ration card).
     Edgardo gazes off into the savana. One half-expects giraffes to appear through the semi-tropical grassland, but the only animals in sight are yoked oxen. The flat land is dotted with avenues of stately royal palms swaying splendorously erect.
      I walk over to the familiar  finca 13, and talk with a new UBPC member who could be Edgardo´s son. Seventeen-year old Noel Perez moved here from his parents' comfortable home outside Havana six months ago. He says that he wants to help grow the nation's food and get himself a pair of blue jeans.
      "I decided to work in agriculture for my own independence, and I earn more than at my last city job. I'm saving to buy blue jeans. Then I can look smart and go out dancing," Noel says.
       Cubans are no longer guaranteed that they can buy clothing, Cuban-made or imports, in their own currency at affordable prices. It will take Noel  all his wages over four months to buy his imported "dream pants", which he will probably  buy on the black market.  But Noel doesn't care. He looks forward to impressing his friends and,  perhaps, a new girl friend.
      He stops spreading the chemical fertilizer whenever he wants to and sometimes his youth group sneaks a drink of moonshine rum while on the job.
      Next to where they work are a hundred 12 to 15-year-olds picking weeds and pulling up carrots, just like Noel did for one month each year of junior high school. After three decades, the class-work program still aims to teach youth where food comes from. The kids also enjoy the social life at their campsite near GIA-2 camp.
       I find Guillermina in another  banana plantation brushing dried leaves away from the microjet tubings with her long machete blade. This zestful grandmother moves at a rapid pace, pausing sporadically to secure or replace a broken sprinkler tip and cut dried parts of the trunk leaves.

      Both raised on farms, Guillermina and Edgardo have returned to farm life and are glad to be back in the fields. She recounts her past during breaks that she takes liberally.
      "I was born beside Cuba's tallest mountain, Turquino, in the east. My father was a peasant, a strong man who fathered 22 or 23 children, 17 by my mother. He went to the mountains to fight with Fidel," she says proudly.
      "The revolution gave me everything. Without Fidel, I don't know what would have happened. He unites us. I wish the US would stop their blockade, conduct their own revolution like ours and live as fraternally as we do," she dreams aloud.
            " My kids are grown now. One has a baby. I got tired of the routine and decided to seek adventure, to start anew. We grandparents left our house to their children. This way, we can help the nation get more food, earn more money and get our own house here. I want to raise chickens and vegetables."
          When the self-sufficiency food plan was devised, the state announced that it would build 44 complete communities in  Havana province, providing 12,000 residences to the farm workers, plus thousands more elsewhere in the countryside. The government knew that petroleum to run construction vehicles and machinery would be scarce, but with typical Cuban optimism it embellished on real possibilities. This gap between desire and reality  resulted in many volunteer workers returning to their city homes and jobs, who may not have otherwise.
        Two years after the planned deadline, not one community has been completed. Only 50 residences had been finished in this province and 7,000 elsewhere.
        A small, two-story building stands within sight of the dining hall,  the first six flats out of 400 promised here. A genuinely elected workers' commission decided on the six "most distinguished workers" from 40 applicants for the flats. Its proposal was voted on by the entire workers' assembly.
         Mileydis Casanova, a 28-year old mother and wife of another brigadista turned cooperativist, is the proud owner  of  one of the attractive, three-bedroom apartments. Her husband, 30 year-old Rolando Fajardo, was elected as one of the most distinguished workers. The terms for buying the house are extremely liberal. The two pay a combined ten percent of their wages for 12 years. As long as they stay on this farm the house is theirs, and once the last payment is made, it is theirs regardless of where they work. The state also sells them furniture, a refrigerator and a small kerosene-burning, two-plate "stove"--all at cost, and paid on a time plan. These are the normal terms for new housing going up in the farmlands, although in a few special cases, there is no cost to the workers, if they stay on and produce well. When there are house payments, they range from 10 to 20 years. 
         Eduardo and Guillermina hope to be among those homeowners chosen soon, but founding members of the contingent have preference.

        At noon, Edgardo and Guillermina eat a basic hot lunch together. Edgardo´s cinnamon-colored face is topped with kinky black hair. His wife´s complexion is the same mulatto mix.
      "We are one culture with one identity. Cuban blacks do not identify so much with blacks in other countries," Guillermina explains, when questioned if race is an issue in the country. "My parents told me how they were treated before the revolution. My mother was a maid for a while for a rich family; my father a chaffeur. They couldn´t do many things or go many places that whites could."
          "It would never occur to any of us that we wouldn´t be able to live in any place, in any neighborhood due to skin color. Racism doesn´t exist any longer," Guillermina´s soft-spoken man interjects.
          My experience is that there are some blacks today who do look up to, or at least at, how blacks act in the United States, especially concerning entertainment and dress styles. The dreadlocks look is in for some.
       While blacks are not discriminated against, Cuban women have not yet gained full equality, despite constitutional guarantees.
         A male co-worker suggested to Guillermina that she take over the important responsibility of running "his" water pump. She was pleased by the confidence, but the leadership turned her down on the grounds that it wasn't "women's work." The all-male executive was concerned that constantly working in water would harm "women's works," especially during menstruation.
         The camp doctor and nurse, both women in their twenties, considered that notion to be "an old wives' tale." However, neither they, nor the women's brigade leader demanded any changes, either in perception or action, because, "No woman had insisted on her equal rights."
         That evening, Guillermina changed from sweaty work clothes, boots and scraf into a white, flowered dress and plastic decoration in her natty black hair. She was going out to dinner.
          "Out" was just 25 meters from her cubicle to the dining hall. She sat with a dozen men, all chosen by their brigades as the distinguished workers for the last two-week period. Edgardo was not with his wife for this dinner; he had been chosen before.
            At table-clothed tables, they ate the general dinner of rice and beans, sweet potato, and thin soup, plus chicken. On this occasion, expected rum and desert were absent, and food preparation lacked "a loving touch," Guillermina lamented.

        Edgardo and Guillermina spend most of their free time watching TV or playing checkers. He is also a good chess player, and she likes to smack a volleyball with men and a few other scrappy women. The couple´s sex life has suffered since arriving at the camp. Contingent rules against chatting in each other´s rooms has relaxed somewhat, but cohabitating at the camp is still forbidden, on pain of expulsion.
        "It is uncomfortable without our normal sex life," Edgardo says timidly, "but I won´t take my woman down on the ground or in one of those water pump concrete bases, like many do. I feel it demeans the woman and the act of love-making."
          They prefer to wait for their three-day pass, every second weekend, to travel to Old Havana, where they can be alone in a relative´s apartment room. Moreover, they often choose to work extra weekends for the pay but also because transportation is so discouraging.
         Guillermina feels, however, that "waiting too long is just too much. Sometimes, I look at Edgardo and say, `How long can a woman wait?´"
         Entwined in each other´s arms, Guillermina and Edgardo huddle under a blanket to fend off winter´s wind, wheezing through unshuttered port-like window holes. With a score more cooperativists, the couple watch the Sunday matinee movie on TV, "Memories of the Invisible Man."
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 9
	SELF-EMPLOYMENT LAW OPENS PANDORA´S BOX

"We created a locomotive without coaches," National Assembly delegate, speaking about the Decree Law 141, extending self-employment.

President Fidel Castro signed Decree-law no.141, on September 17, 1993, extending self-employment, or cuenta propia (literally, "one`s own account"), far beyond the 1978 law limiting individual enterprise for a few thousand artisans, seamstresses, blade-sharpeners and shoe-shinners.
With the new law, 117 enterprises are permitted in six categories of production, trade and services. Some of the areas clash with state activities, although the law states that there should be no decrease in state functions or power.
Among overlapping categories are: transport using private vehicles and animals, house repair, light food vendors, barbers, hair stylists and beauticians, and some agriculture-related activities, such as: sellers of harvested agricultural  products, flower vendors, ox-drivers, millers, threshers, farriers, dairy goods producers, conserves producers, and "light food" producers (refreshments and fritters).
While the much discussed "free farmers market" was not reopened, contradictions that could lead to something similar appear to exist in some self-employment activities now allowed.
The law requires the new private sector to pay the state monthly license fees, ranging from 20 to 60 pesos and to be inspected. 
"The prices and conditions, as a rule, are decided between buyer and seller," the law states, although it forbids "clearly excessive prices." There is no criteria of "excessive" nor any mention of the exchange of hard currencies. A variety of state commissions, local government bodies, and the popular councils are to inspect and control the law, the payment of  fees, inspect health conditions and wherewithal of materials and resources in order to curtail thievery.
The law does not, however, provide for supplies. There are no warehouses or stores that sell materials necessary to perform much of the private initiatives now allowed, such as: plumbing, carpentry, electrical wiring, locksmithing, ironsmithing, glazing, roofing, bricklaying, marbling, dairy products and sweets manufacturers,  and dozens more.
This fits in with a pattern of declaring laws or new regulations and creating changes in economic spheres, without establishing the mechanisms and resources to implement them.

Inspection and control should have accompanied the defunct free farmers market but were not forthcoming, thus allowing speculation at the sellers' will--precisely why the state rescinded that reform. This current modification opens a Pandora`s box of problems and corruption because of ill preparation and organization, and because there are too few legal, honest means of obtaining the necessities required for many of these new activities.
"Basically, the state is encouraging theft of its resources," said Aurora, a worried shipping company accountant, who records enterprise losses. "There is no other way for a plumber, for instance, to obtain pipes, nuts and bolts than from his state workplace, a state warehouse or off the docks."
In just three months time, 130,000 self-employed became licensed--there had been 40,000 at the time of the decree. Mass organizations and the National Assembly began discussing results of cuenta propia. The decree and its problematic development were the subject of an entire day's evaluation at the parliament´s December 1993 session. The discussion was unusually critical.
Most delegates, like Maria Ducas, an activist in a Havana Consejo Popular , were upset by many aspects of the decree. Ducas, a middle-aged, black worker, complained that parliament members had not been consulted and had only been "oriented" the day before the decree was published in  "Granma". She said that there were no inspections and controls and that people were arbitrarily being granted licenses, opening the way to unscrupulous characters.
Other delegates pointed out that some categories cried out for criminals to take advantage.Where does the petrol come from for private chauffeurs to operate, several asked? The new messengers, who deliver people's food rations to their homes--for those who cannot meet store hours or long queues--are stealing rations. Some messengers are becoming rich without even receiving fees or wages, by reselling rations, Genoveva Morales noted.
Hacin Chasbbar asserted that some of the few inspectors operating "are enriching themselves" by subjecting artisans and other enterpreneurs to bribery.
An army officer delegate mused that "we created a locomotive without coaches." He feared that with more inspectors there would only be more state employees seeking riches. He had heard of some inspectors taking 600 pesos a month in bribes, so that some tradesmen and vendors could operate without being licensed, thus permitting them to deal with illicitly acquired parts and goods, and even dangerous products. The officer also criticized the "light food" category for opening up thievery of society's scarce food and creating an unhealthy situation.

Cuba had never permitted street sales of food, with minor exceptions under strict health controls and operated by the state. The belief was that doing so would encourage individualism and reduce health standards, causing more sickness. Just two weeks before the assembly met, the city of Havana rescinded some of the new regulations, which specified saleable "light food" products, and forbade the licensing of more such operators. It also prohibited further licensing of dairy product makers, private chauffeurs, and a few more criticized areas. The city did not, however, rescind licences already granted.
Carlos Lage said that "The economic opening is not finally defined, but it is a permanent process of adopting the country`s economy to the new circumstances...What is not permissable at one moment may well be so later."
Francisco Linares, president of the State Committee for Work and Social Security, the co-ordinating organ for the law, said: "No other law in our history has sparked such concern, criteria and interest."
He replied to criticism that there had not been mass input prior to extending the 1978 self-employment law by pointing out that many meetings had been held between state organs and provincial people's councils. Linares admitted that the law had been declared without immediately implanting a system of controls and inspection, conceding that "it can get out of hand."
Linares said that the law had been conceived to offer employment to those recently out of work, to women who normally stay at home and the retired; to alleviate the scarcity of products and services and to add revenue to the state budget.
No delegate advocated abrogating the decree, but one offered the only "conceptual" critique. Lazaro Barredo, the outgoing vice-president of the Union of Cuban Journalists and a commentator for the union newspaper "Trabajadores," suggested that the law was "not consistent with our ethics," with the social justice pillar of the revolution. He thought that some of the new operations could be co-operativized, in keeping with revolutionary values and not compete with state forms.
Fidel interjected to ask if Barredo was opposed to approving the law. He replied in the negative, that he only wanted more reflection. Fidel agreed and reflected for an hour. The president took up the complaints and admitted that many were valid.
Fidel said that the law was necessary in "these abnormal times." During his last July 26 speech, when he announced the legal possession of hard currency, Fidel pointed out that "we are not going to set the police to track down everyone who fixes jalopies and wants to ask for dollars or everyone who pays in dollars.There is no obligation to pay in dollars ... but it will be very much up to each citizen whether he or she is going to let someone cheat him or her."
Many delegates had stressed that government controls would prevent problems, but the president replied that, while some control was necessary, it could become an obfuscation.

"Control is a magical word for some. We have to realize that not everything is controllable...We have to realize that the state has been successful in great tasks on large scale, but our efficiency has been lacking in organizing small jobs."
The commander-in-chief raised his own doubts about some of the categories permitted.
"Makers of sweets, for instance. With a disastrous sugar harvest, with limited sugar rations, where does the sugar come from to make sweets?"
Fidel lamented that the necessity to engage in dollar tourism brought many pressures with the influx of convertible currency. One pressure is the attraction to obtain them through illegal activities.
He gave the "parlour" (paladar, or home restaurant) as an example, although this clandestine activity had been a submerged reality before. He cited a case of an operator bringing in one thousand dollars a day from his 25-table paladar.
Nevertheless, Fidel thought that becoming rich in honest ways was permissible. He cited the useful example of drivers of draught animals, becoming common in many areas, who make 2,000-4,000 pesos a month.
When Fidel finished, the delegates voted unanimously to accept the decree law as parliamentary law.
On any given day thereafter, a dozen or so vendors stopped at my front gate. Most of them were young people offering food for sale in dollars. As I live in pesos, I was irritated by their hustle. Only a few would offer anything in pesos, but who can afford to pay 250 pesos for a skinny, unplucked chicken, 20 pesos to sharpen a machete (it used to be two), or 4,000 pesos (or $25) for an 80-pound pig--the equivalent of three years wages for the lowest paid? And if you can afford the outrageous prices, what happens to your conscience? Once I secured a sign on my front gate, declaring myself opposed to "doing business", the solicitors ceased bothering me.
A central committee poll indicated that 80 per cent of a cross-section of Cubans favored the law, and it found that significant numbers of people had been transformed from unproductive to productive and profit-making persons because of the law. The survey also showed that many were worried about the consequent decline in morals, thievery, and even more money circulating in the streets. 
This, and other economic reforms, is changing the face of Cuban socialist society.
Sara is a conscientious patriot, a former cashier and bank accountant, and a neighbor. She did all the right things to set up a hairdressers' shop.
"I went to the people's council. The president is a nice man. He helped me with his enthusiasm and suggestions."

Sara paid 45 pesos for the license and renovated a former pig pen area. The pig had cost more food and headache than it was worth.
Sara charges 3.50 to 5 pesos for a simple haircut--state barbers charge one peso. But what most women want at the hairdresser's, and what makes the business profitable, is shampooing and tinting, for which Sara takes  27 pesos. But the state has no supplies. The only place to buy these liquids is in the dollar stores. Sara was "lucky" in that a relative abroad sent her some dollars.
In her best of three months in this new trade, Sara earned 425 pesos. Not bad, relative to her previous wage range of 125 to 161 pesos, but unrealistic if she can only acquire supplies in dollars.
"I can't keep up with it financially. But I refuse to get into the dollar hustle. I hate it morally and it is a hassle. Personally, I don't like this law, and least of all the decriminalization of dollars. If the state had enough supplies so that there was no black market and dollar hustling, well, the self-employment thing might be OK."
Sara took a deep sigh.
"Look, I'll be frank with you. I'll tell you what I'd say to Fidel  if  he were before me now. I respect this man. I admire and love him dearly, but I'd tell him: `This dollarization thing is a great error. It creates social division and hunger for dollars. Our money disappears. It creates even more scarcity for most of us who can't get or don't want to get dollars. It demoralizes'."
Others involved in this new private business world are quite satisfied. Humberto Santiago, for instance, is a gardner who earn his fee in either pesos or dollars. "I used to be a teacher," he says, "but there is a lot more money in this and less hassle. I eat and drink a lot better now."
Many Cubans with yards complain that their gardners will no longer work for pesos, or for a reasonable amount, as there are increasing numbers of foreigners taking over houses formerly rented in pesos and they pay for services in dollars or in products not available in normal state stores.	
Marxist philosopher, Tereza Muñoz, dean of the University of Havana faculty of philosophy-history-sociology, remarked on the current strategy: "There are different needs and principles at play now. We aren`t and won`t be throwing people on the streets, even though this would be more 'efficient'...Market socialism is contradictory and can`t survive as such. It must go in one direction or another."

Philosopher Gustavo Pita agrees that market socialism is contradictory, and added, "there is no other way. It is logical that in an exclusively capitalist world, one country cannot avoid being contaminated. This means that we must confront the historical reality,  applying Marxism...What we are trying to do is build a bridge between  our economy and the capitalist world, implying that we must assume capitalist standards while maintaining continuity of our process...more importantly our independence...Despite the desire on the part of men to accelerate history, there is always a history with a logic that man must consider. Man can, and must, dialogue--interact--and challenge this history, subjectively, but one must also take into account and respect objective laws." 
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 10
	CUBA´S MEAN STREETS
"Crime is a mini-world that reflects or refracts what occurs in a society´s micro-world...I can say that our penal  population is one of the highest in the world." (Dr. Fernando Barral, Cuban criminologist-psychiatrist.)
 
 Socialist Cuba has always had a serious crime problem, except for a few early years, albeit organized violence has not been characteristic. But with the "Special Period in Times of Peace", crime has become a daily feature of  life.
 The state and the media do not publish comprehensive or systematic crime statistics (the media rarely reports information about crime), but any citizen can attest to its effects on their personal life. Almost everyone has had his own property stolen or knows someone who has.
Burgling homes, stealing bicycles, often with assault, and slaughtering animals have become common. In my neighborhood, more tranquil than most, a break-in is nearly a weekly occurrence. I know several people who have had their bicycles stolen. A work colleague nearly lost his life when two young men beat him with iron pipes to get him off his bicycle. The teenage son of Cuba´s leading meterologist and TV weather forecaster was murdered in a bicycle theft. 
A new police vigilance structure was organized, in the early 1990s, called the unified system of vigilance and protection, incorporating all law enforcement entities, backed by reserves and civilian volunteers and co-ordinated by the Communist Party. Over 2,000 armed detachments, including 116,532 private and co-operative farmers, with 28,097 police auxiliaries, were created to help the police. The judicial process was criticized for lagging prosecutions and handing out lenient sentences to offenders. Sentencing stiffened and the time lapse between arrest and trial shortened.
In the summer of 1993, Havana and other relatively large cities were hit by a crime wave. It was extraordinarily hot and dry, consumer goods and food were in increasingly short order,  power cuts had increased to 12 or 16 hours a day--with some areas blacked out for entire days and nights.
It had become fashionable to desire unobtainable consumer goods, available only  for dollars. Young people want  foreign clothing, video sets, ghetto blasters and bicycles with gears, which aren't produced in Cuba. Black marketing proliferated, especially in dollars since its decriminalization.

The union newspaper "Trabajadores" reported  (September 20, 1993) that 30 per cent of  food designated for Havana is stolen. Foreign tourists have become the object of attack, usually "hit and run" thievery, but muggings now occur too. And Cuban citizens are not safe from such attacks in some areas.Women frequently lament that they no longer walk in many areas, or anywhere after dark. People caution one another to watch out for their bicycles, their homes and animals.
 On August 2, 1993, a new type of crime in Cuba was committed. Bus passengers were beaten, terrorized and stripped of their clothing by 23 youths, aged 16 to 25. They were black and white boys and a few girls. They jumped aboard a sparsely occupied No. 84 bus late at night near the Plaza de la Revolucion. They vandalized and frightened people. One 17-year-old resisted. He and another youth were severly beaten and he was thrown off the bus onto the pavement. Upon impact, the teenager received grave head damage and died.
Police nearby were alerted and stopped the bus. Within 24 hours, all 23 culprits, including girls, were captured, "Granma" reported  on September 4. The newspaper did not explain why it took a month for this to be publicly reported, but it did speculate that the gang was motivated to use such brutality because the youths would have used the clothes for personal wear and sold some on the black market.
Cuba now has its own anaesthetized youth, another first for the revolution. "Trabajadores" wrote that "social indiscipline" is on the rise and that a "vicious circle" is taking place--lack of goods, increased theft of goods. The media took up "law and order" as a main theme. The  CDRs met throughout the nation to discuss the necessity of strengthening vigilance against crime, the anti-social elements and counterrevolutionaries. Many people urged "revolutionary justice" measures against criminals.
The 84 bus trial  lasted one day. All were founded guilty on November 1. The gang leader was sentenced to the firing squad. The rest were sentenced to from six months to 30-year prison terms.
Two other significant crimes were reported in October.
In the Havana municipality of Regla, a group of criminals bribed guards at the main cooking oil silo with a sum of  200,000 pesos to allow them to steal oil. Most of the 75 tons of oil lost was contaminated in the process.
The amount stolen and the greater amount spoiled are the equivalent of the entire quota of cooking oil for all Havanans for several months.
In the other rare case, also in Regla, one youth was accidentally shot to death by pursuing police, when he failed to respond to their demand to halt. A tractor was transporting him and others together with a rubber tube they were going to use to illegally leave the country.

 Sources who live near the family of the dead youth told me that the police had not asked the parents to identify the body.  The mother first saw her son, following his death, at the funeral. She claimed that there was no bullet hole in him and that he had been beaten to death. Those attending the funeral beat the chauffeur of the funeral car and drove to the local police station with the dead body. They staged a demonstration, denouncing the police as "assassins" and some called for the end of the "Castro regime." Police and "rapid deployment forces"  put down the disturbance. On the following day, there was another demonstration by these "anti-social forces" and several were arrested.
Yet another new crime, counterfeiting of petrol coupons and dollars had been detected, with local printing presses being used in most cases. Police made arrests of administrators and workers at Fuel Union, which is responsible for distributing petrol. They discovered unused forged coupons amounting to 135,535 liters.
Their scheme was to sell the coupons to fences, who sold them on the streets for between two and 10 pesos per liter. Service stations went without petrol for two months until the coupon design could be changed and distributed and before more petroleum could be bought.
Television news reported, on November 4, that counterfeit dollars had been captured in a house in Old Havana. The bills, in denominations of  five, 10 and 20, were reportedly printed in Havana, but not all counterfeit dollars are locally produced.
A Greek ship, Alma, docked in Mariel port near Havana, brought in $100,000 in counterfeit bills last July, according to a source in Mambisa, who saw information about this undisclosed case. The use of counterfeit money by foreign powers to destabilize their enemies' economy has been employed at various times. The German nazis tried to do this to Britain and the CIA has done so on occasion.
Mario Garcia Kohly was one of the many Cubans who fled the revolution for Miami where he tried to organize a government in exile in the 1960s. Kohly worked for the CIA and became a friend of Vice-President Richard Nixon. According to the book Deadly Secrets,  by Warren Hinckle and William Turner, Kohly and his CIA handler, Robert D. Morrow, attempted to channel "large batches of bogus pesos" and "blow the Cuban economy off the face of the map!" But Fidel and Che outsmarted them by printing new currency, and the operation fell through.
One particular type of crime revived from pre-revolutionary days is the private restaurant-bars, sometimes used as cabaret and bordello.
In Havana's lush Playa municipality, further west in Santa Fe as well as in Old and central Havana, such clandestine enterprises became established, all charging dollars. The police did not intervene in these clandestine night spots,routinely, perhaps because few people seemed upset about them. But one anti-crime measure taken by the state--a decree on "dangerousness"-- caused diverse reactions. Some felt that the campaign to rid the streets of  "anti-social" youths, under the "dangerousness" code, was justified, while others complained that innocent people, sometimes their sons, are picked up and sentenced to one to four years in prison.
Dr. Ramon de la Cruz Ochoa talked to me about the state of crime in early 1994.

"There is an increase in crimes, not a spectacular increase, but more crimes against property and animals are occurring." However, he added, "the people still feel secure."
" One can´t  compare the situation of crime in Latin America, generally, and Cuba. I think that we can't be utopian about crime, however. We had thought that crime would dissappear once socialism took root, but we must be realistic and realize that the fight against crime is a long one. Crime is a social phenomenon influenced by the economic situation," the president of the National Assembly commission on juridical affairs told me.
He said that the Council of State has made procedural changes in the criminal codes and has "strengthened sanctions against certain crimes." One of those modifications was the "dangerousness" Decree 128. This procedural code of the penal law allows for lawbreakers to be tried at municipal court level and to be judged and sentenced without accusers or defense counsel present.
At first glance, there appears to be a contradiction with the constitution, whose article 59 states: "Every accused person has the right to a defense."
"Decree 128 modified the procedure for trying cases on the municipal level," the former attorney general explained. "It is not compulsory for a lawyer's presence in cases of minor sanctions.This is not to say that if you, the accused, name an attorney that he wouldn't be accepted. On the contrary, he must always be accepted, if  you name one.
"The difference between the municipal and the provincial tribunals is that on the provincial level, a lawyer's defense is obligatory. If you don't have one,  the state provides a lawyer, even if you don´t want one. On the municipal level, if you don't name a lawyer, the state doesn't present one for you. You have the total right to name an attorney."
Unlike in capitalist societies, lawyers work for state agencies and one can hire one for a modest, affordable fee. Ramon de la Cruz said that in cases of "dangerousness" municipal judges must appoint defense counsel, because Decree 128 does not apply to this old "crime," which dates back to 1936 in Cuba.
"The state of dangerousness is not a crime, per se. Measures of security are imposed and the law establishes the obligatory defense of an attorney and prosecutor." 
Article 72 of the penal code defines the "state of dangerousness" as the "special proclivity...of a person... to commit crimes, demonstrated by the observed conduct in manifested contradiction to the norms of socialist morality."
Article 73 states that a subject can be a violator by reason of  "habitual intoxication," "narcotic" intake or "anti-social conduct." The latter  is defined as "habitually breaking the rules of social  living, using acts of violence, or by other provocative acts, violating the rights of others...or living like a social parasite."
Dr. de la Cruz denies that youths are arrested just for being unemployed and out of school, as is frequently heard on the streets.

"Those arrested  would be those who meet known criminals or anti-social elements, who have a proclivity to commit crimes," he says. "There could be a poorly evaluated case, as your example. I do not dispute that there have been bad evaluations."
The National Assembly  judicial commission president did not know how many people have been arrested in recent months for "dangerousness", but cases on appeal are posted on the front door of Havana's provincial tribunal building. The average number of cases up for appeal during one week in October was 50. De la Cruz said that 10 per cent of these appeals are usually granted.
The Ministry of Interior launched a major anti-crime campaign (1990-91),  including official corruption, along with black marketing and street crime. The sweep, called Operation Cascabel (Bell the Cat), caught hundreds of administrators with stolen goods. They received stiff sentences, and the issue was publicized as a warning. Then in late 1994, the government announced that it was processing 427 cases law 149, decreed on May 4, specifically aimed at confiscating goods and wealth that cannot be accounted for in legal ways. Two hundred automobiles, a hundred motor cycles, 50 trucks, dozens of tractors, 100 residences, 12 boats--totally 24 million pesos in value--and three million pesos in cash were expropriated in 88 raids. Yet few criminals were jailed.
	THE ROOTS OF CRIME
Shortly after speaking with de la Cruz, the Council of State decreed the new, flexibile law, following public discussions about the state of economy and crime. Leaders were taken by surprise by the forcefulness of popular anti-crime sentiment and insistence on taking stern measures against the proliferation of thieves, especially violent ones, and the rich macetas (literally, "flower pot," referring to where money used to be hidden, also "handle", referring to those who fence hot merchandise and money).
Dr. de la Cruz had not gone further than to describe the problem of crime as a "social phenomenon influenced by the economic situation." That explanation lacked comprehension. I made acquaintance with one of Cuba´s top criminologist for many years, Dr. Fernando Barral. He had organized and coordinated the only study about the definition and causes of crime in socialist Cuba, and analyzed 220 penal cases.	
Dr. Barral  has an interesting background. For a quarter-century he worked directly for the minister of the Ministry of Interior as a psychiatrist and later as a criminologist. Minister Ramiro Valdes hired him, in 1963, to set up the ministry´s first psychiatric clinic. Barral evaluated the security force members' mental state, conducted research, and treated patients, until his retirement, in 1989, as a Lt. Col.

Born in Madrid, in 1928, his artist father was killed fighting Franco. When Fernando was eight years old his mother took him to Argentina, where he later studied medicine, and fought the military regime. Fernando knew Che Guevara in those days. Barral was forced to flee once again, this time to socialist Hungary, where he finished his doctor´s education and took up practice. But he did not feel good in Hungary nor with the USSR´s intervention in 1956. When Che arrived in Budapest on an official visit, in 1961, Dr. Barral was on hand to help with translation. Che helped him get to Cuba to work for the revolution. Dr. Barral practiced medicine at the Calixto Garcia Hospital and finished his psychiatry studies in Havana. He realized a military operation during the October 1962 missile crisis and a subsequent "cleanup operation", weeding out paramilitarists. Dr. Barral became a Cuban citizen in 1978, and a member of the Communist party in 1980.
Dr. Barral´s three-year study--1986-89--concludes that crime cannot be reduced by long jail terms, nor is it caused by scarcity or cultural lag, that is, left over consequences of the immoral capitalist society. He is worried about the future of socialism in Cuba, as elsewhere, and believes that emerging new classes will deepen the current crisis in morality and lead to even more crime. "The perpetration of mercantilism is central," he told me during a two-day interview, in early 1995. 
	------------
The Academy of Science sponsored our study, which sought to determine the causes of crime in Cuba. After we presented our results, the Academy leadership shelved it and forbad its circulation, even to the central Committee.
 We had begun our study  by examining the scant literature on crime in Cuba, as well as looking into Soviet criminology. What we soon learned was that there wasn´t even a sociological definition of crime in socialism. No theory had been established. Crime was simply viewed as a residue of capitalism. Only legal aspects were considered. Crime was seen as parasitic, with or without violence, and, in a few cases, caused by passion.
In reality, crime is a miniworld that reflects or refracts what occurs in society´s macroworld.
We made a materialistic, scientific generalization of the relevant data. We had access to the Ministry of Interior´s crime statistics. Although they are never made public, because they are considered national security secret information, I can say that our penal population is one of the highest in the world.
We came to the conclusion that crime is always increasing. The legal aspect goes through phases, with more or less repression, but after brief periods of decreased crime it spirals upwards again. At the end of the 1970s, for instance, crime was very high and the Ministry began to round up lots of marginal people under the "dangerous" code. Hard jail sentences were handed down and the streets returned to "normal." But when those who had been in jail got out, they were more criminal than ever and crime rose again. By 1986, when "rectification" began, the jails were full again.

What causes crime? It is not poverty, per se. The countries with the greatest indices of crime are the richest ones. Crimes of the poor are the least important.
Crime is two-fold here. One type is self-reproductive. A marginal group is the carrier of a criminal life style handed down from generation to generation. In Cuba, it began with black slavery, with feudalism and then capitalism. But this is not that Soviet view of  "cultural lag."  No, this crime is alive. This social group has more vitality, in certain ways, than the rest of society. It has its own economy, one that is wild and spontaneous, with an adaptive life style. This group expands, amply reproducing more children than others. Their children are raised in the streets, becoming agile and street wise.
If you repress them, they reproduce faster. In jail, they harden all the more, establish more criminal relations, which alientates them further from society. When they return to society, they are more criminally wise. Their prime motivation is to acquire money to spend on pleasurable things. Crime is more profitable than working.
Although in socialist Cuba forced unemployment did not exist, until recently,  there have been and still are many people who refuse to work, who have not developed work habits. Those who don´t want to work don´t. That is the marginal group.
The other group of criminals, one that we brought into existence, is the occupational criminal. These are persons who utilize their work authority and the possibilities of their employment to keep some of the goods of the state. In capitalism this is called "white collar crime." Here, it is somewhat different as all of us are, theoretically, owners of  the social product. Whether true or not, many people do have access to society´s wealth, and because of  many irregularities in the changing economic system, with little real control, it is relatively easy to misapply state goods.
One good example is the famous case of the millionaire administrator of the "Ward" ice cream palour in Havana. He organized the workers to systematically underserve ice cream scoops by passing out smaller spoons to the workers. All customers were systematically cheated of the quantity they were paying for and each worker earned more money in the skimming scheme than from their wages. The administrator became wealthy. After the scam  was discovered, and he was dismissed, the new administrator, a Communist party militant, resumed the same practice after a time. He was caught and fired. The next appointed adminstrator repeated the scheme.
The underground economy carries a great deal of corrupting force with it. It is a way of cheating that does not have significant social recrimination. This type of corruption is a common phenomenon in all sorts of stores and warehouses, in transportation, in restaurants and bakeries, etc.

It also exists at high levels. Luis Orlando Domínquez, the former president of the Civil Aeronautic Institute, who had his hands dip into the till, and Col. de la Guardia of the important MC department of MININT are classic examples.
Until Decree No. 149, followed by 150 and 151, there were few and little effective legal instruments to combat occupational crime. Sanctions were not strong, the necessary proof was more difficult to obtain, the court process was cumbersome, and there was not a great deal of rejection by the population, partially because a great number of people were involved.
We had wanted to study the extensiveness of this phenomenon in the population, but we were prohibited from doing so by the Minister of Interior at the time.
There had been an historic duplicity. Many needed or desired items were never on sale but could be obtained, under the table, from the work site. The practice of "taking things" became generalized. This created a social habit of cheating, a double morality, and resulted in a lack of rigor to combat the phenomenon.
Occupational crime really took off at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s. Moral values had been strong in the 1960s. There was a successful preaching of the revolution for some years. People actually lost interest in material goods. This was the era that Fidel later criticized as an "error of idealism." Some wanted to create socialism and communism simultaneously, and over-evaluated the role of consciousness.
Well, this phase did have positive results in the consciousness of many, but then Che was killed. He was the promulgator of the ideal. Moreover, the economy  wasn´t advancing adequately. Then, the nation´s  economic independence was viewed to rest on the 1970 sugar harvest of ten million tons.Political mechanisms got left out; ideological control over production and the economy suffered. At the same time, there were deficiencies that complicated things: too much blind trust in automatic mechanisms that led to a technocratism that was almost so stupid as to defy logical explanations.
This deviation was propagated by Raul Castro and his right-hand man, Humberto Perez, a Marxist professor in FAR, who ran JUCEPLAN. I was a witness to this. A top Soviet advisor, Osipov, was brought in to look at problems of social science. Another Soviet, the vice-president of Soviet central planning bureau GOSPLAN, was advisor to the new economic model here. At the same time, Fidel stopped attending many  meetings of the executive committee and the Council of Ministers. The new formalism was alien to him.

The emergence of this stratum, that we might characterize as neo-capitalist, provided a very strong stimulus to the mechanisms by which criminality is reproduced. This is how the jinetero system developed. It can be one young man or a group organizing the buying and selling circuit. But it can also be a salesperson on commission or the direct employee of a maceta. They also put young women in the role of prostitutes, in order to attract tourists. The prostitutes benefit personally and facilitate  jinetero activities.
The Soviet-inspired priority of making money coincided with the Cuban government´s change of attitutde toward the Cuban community living in the United States. In 1978, the state facilitated visits of relatives living abroad, encouraging them to send remittances, and to spend dollars here and bring gifts. Another double message was created by the Communist party, which forbad its members to have such interchanges. Thus, it was largely marginal persons, not in favor of revolutionary ideology, who benefitted economically from the new influx of dollars and products unavailable in pesos. This facilitated the buying-selling sub-culture that included interchanges of accumulated dollars legally obtained by privileged workers and functionaries. Some marginals and white collar wheeler-dealers reinvested money in the acquisition of new goods, reselling and ever-increasing their earnings. An extensive black market became a permanent feature of life with the maceta in the center as speculator, clandestine banker and street crime coordinator. The more money the fence accumulates the more he stimulates thievery as the thief always has a buyer.
A combination of stolen goods from state entities, robbery of  homes and vehicles, plus the remittances created the commercialization of crime, converting many thieves and fences into the new petty bourgeoisie--the new rich as Fidel already characterized them in 1986.
I think that it is the officially defined and sanctioned economic policy that determines the possible behavior of the illicit economy. If a handicraftsman, for example, can´t get materials to do a job on his own--but is officially encouraged to work privately--he´s likely to get them from the work site that he is connected to, that is, the state. At this point, the illegal tangles with the legal.
The most serious problem lays in the conjunction of marignal with occupational criminality, when, for example, a warehouse truck driver and an unemployed lumpen collaborate to steal a container. Then they arrange with a store manager to sell the products, stolen from the state, as if they were legal. A point comes when illegal buying and selling looks indistinquishable from the legal version.
In 1986, Fidel was not only a strong critic of this, but acted as a social investigator in the way he questioned people, the informal interviews he conducted with workers, farmers, functionaries and party cadre. Then he hit on a group of aspects that had to do with my work with this new rich. He saw how they would have mechanics fix their cars, for instance, with parts that mechanics would steal from other cars they were supposed to repair. Fidel explained with concrete examples how the economy and many administrators were related with crime. This was a source of inspiration for my work.

What we also learned about society and crime is that penal persecution does not result in a decrease of crime, but the reverse. It reenforces both types of crime. Occupational crime is not purely a problem of criminology but a model of socialism of the country. The cause of crime, then, is the crime itself. Crime is a spontaneous economic system, vital, powerful, where the laws of the market reign. When there is no market, as in the 1960s, common crime is infrequent.
When the mercantile categories are introduced, as they were in the 1970s, then the illegal underground markets begin too, and they grow all the more dynamic.
The ideas of Che could be an inspiration to finding another model of socialism. Commercialism, the laws of supply and demand, should not be placed on the first plain. Mechanisms that generate individualistic and materialistic motivations should be eliminated.
We don´t have to arrive at a plentiful society for all ( at communism) before crime can be combated effectively.  During the imperialist war against Vietnam, for instance, extremely high consciousness values were developed and many soldiers preferred to die from hunger rather than steal food. There was hardly any crime.
Our research team believes that if you begin with the youth in a concerted way, society could cut off the social reproduction of this delinquency, diminish the number of young people who would become adult criminals, and slowly decrease mariginal crime.
No one is a criminal by nature. Crime is always a social product.
Our notion of prevention is based on cooperating bodies of professionals involved in the young person´s  life: the family, the doctor, the teachers, the polyclinic psychologist. School is the principle mechanism of socialization  for these youngsters, whose families aren´t going to socialize them but, instead, voluntarily educate them to become delinquents. The professional team would make concerted efforts to communicate with these youths, to be sensitive to their problems, to do all possible to keep them in school, to help them study and learn properly so they wouldn´t be put back or, the reverse, passed on from grade to grade without knowing anything, merely advanced to keep the statistics up and them out of the teachers´ and administrators´ hair. When that happens the kids drop out and take to the streets.
Another researcher, independent of us, found out the same thing. Elena Diaz discovered that this group of youths had the greatest risk of failing in the first grade. She conducted an experiment based on this strategy of professional cooperation and at the end of one year the dropout rate was reduced by half. 
Our proposals were not carried through, however. The state crime prevention commission wasn´t in agreement but didn´t clarify why. I think it was bureaucratic reasons and professional jealousy.

Fidel´s "rectification" process was short-lived and did not penetrate deeply, partly because the demise of socialism and the collapse of the Soviet Union followed quickly afterwards. And the deformations in the social sciences: political economics, sociology, criminology never were corrected. A profound self-critique was not forthcoming. True social scientific work hardly ever has been done. It could be that the leadership is so tied to its theoretical model that it is hostage to its previous positions. The conservation instinct is at play. There is the fear that when things begin to be questioned, a snowball effect is produced that can´t be stopped. This is what happened with the Soviet´s perestroika and glasnost.
This government is very pragmatic, for good and bad. Good, in that it doesn´t distance itself from practical problems, like the neuritis epidemic that it quickly and effectively combated. Bad, because it doesn´t make long-term studies. It looks exclusively at the moment, more at symptoms than at causes. There is a bit of voluntarism in this leadership. I think this is a personal characteristic of Fidel, too. He is a realist. He doesn´t care for things theoretical. But one has to separate theorization from theory. At the same time, I think that the Cuban leadership quite knowingly has avoided producing any spontaneous phenomenon, out of its control, as occurred in perestroika.
We see, too, that with economic markets fortified by perestroika--and what has occurred since--that crime rose and mafias in distinctive republics became even legal and all-powerful. Crime became institutionalized, dirty money washed clean, and now black capital is behind many cooperatives and Moscow restaurants.

In Cuba, today, the state is engaged in a battle against crime. The demographic group involved in crime is a cancer that we must root out. Its interests are antagonistic to those of the revolution. It constitutes, therefore, a group with a very dangerous potential. I think that decree 149 has a fundamentally correct objective in its fight against macetas. It is correct to pursue black capital, to deprive them of their source of power. I don´t think, however, that this measure is sufficient, but it is well oriented. The law is mainly aimed at speculators with cars and other vehicles and residences, but that is only one aspect. A successful maceta is always selling and reselling to circulate capital, to maintain capital active, ever acquiring greater benefits. The law is not clear in distinquishing between buying and selling of use value and exchange value. Nor will this law curb crime itself. The new rich are in the process of monopolizing, and becoming all the more wealthy with networks throughout society. They have relations in the institutions of production, in all types of economic relations. They have access to information from inside ministries. They know what and where to rob and to whom to sell. Since their interests clash with communist ideology, many of them link up with political interests of the enemy to the north, and they can introduce changes in the socio-classic structure of the population. They are the germ of a new class that this mixed economy--with foreign investment, tourism and concomitant prostitution and hustling--only aids and abets. As inequality grows, as some possess only pesos and others dollars, these new rich criminals become all the more politically dangerous.
I have a tremendous fear of this tendency to divide people. This distancing increases criminal mentality throughout society. Not only are the divisions immoral and anti-socialist, they are in practice counter-productive and will backfire on the state and on socialism. The case of Ochoa-la Guardia was the first example of organized crime in revolutionary Cuba. They were occupational criminals who utilized marginal criminals in Angola, launchers in Miami, and the Medellin cartel. This could well be a paradigm for tomorrow´s crime in Cuba. With greater commercialization, crime could become internationalized.
More weight is granted to the Cuban community abroad, especially in the US. The hope is that this will have positive economic and sociologic consequences, in some ways. But it will have negative ones regarding crime. A prudent policy would analyze both aspects, in order to maximize the former and minimize the latter. But I´m afraid they are not thinking about this, because the leadership always thinks about the moment, first and foremost.
These great assemblies of workers and mass organizations are oriented to move public opinion. But their effect is limited to politics and won´t have much meaning on crime.
I don´t have the solution to the problems of the country and I´m fearful that generally we are not thinking of resolving the causes of problems. This should be where social  scientists enter into the picture. But they haven´t known how to, or they haven´t convinced the state leaders of their points of view. Survival and national independence are the order of the day--not socialism or stamping out crime.
	END CHAPTER 	 

	CHAPTER 11
	SAILING WITH SIGI

"Our merchant marines began to change in the mid-1970s. The began to get corrupted, too...New sailors began  stealing from our ships. The bolder ones extended thievery to foreign vessels and shops, and trading on international and national markets. We began to get a bad reputation in foreign ports." (Sigismund Escalona, first mate on the Cuban tanker Seaweed.)

Incipient rays of sun reflected from the obscure ocean off our port bow, illuminating the aqua Atlantic.
"015 starboard," commands the first mate.
"Aye, 015 degrees starboard," I reply, and steer a new course.
"Fifteen degrees starboard, course now 150," I spell out when the compass registers the new bearing. "Speed 12 knots."
"Steady as she goes," Sigi says.
At the burst of dawn´s light, the stocky first officer, Sigismund Escalona, and I stand side-by-side in the pilot house of the medium-size Soviet-built tanker. Six decks above water line, we watch sardine-size flying fish skipping above the sea. As the eye follows their trajectory, we see the silhouette of a chair-shaped, low mountain standing alone.
"There it is, La Silla de Gibara," Sigi exclaims, "the first Cuban soil that Columbus spied, on October 27, 1492."
We were passing the hill jutting above the Bay of Bariay, in Holguin province, heading southeast toward Santiago de Cuba, where we would load crude oil. Sigi, a balding and graying, erudite and largely self-taught man  is my guide. 
"Columbus, and all his low-breed cohorts, were not discoverers of America; they were simply vulgar invaders. America was alread inhabited by many peoples, who had their own social organizations, economies and cultures," he says, bitterly. Sigi not only knows this history from reference books and the chronicles written by missionaries of the time, but he feels it in the flesh of his forefathers, who were both rapists and raped: Spanish, Taino aborigine and African.

I was on watch with Sigi. He had shown me how to steer the helm, instructed me in sonar and in charting courses, when I was not working in the engine room or on deck. I spent more time with the Seaweed and Sigi than the other ships I sailed. My self-appointed mission, as a writer/merchant marine apprentice, was to make the bojeo on the cabotaje. I wanted to know Cuba from the sea and to understand how Cuban sailors view life and their revolution. Sigi had worked on many jobs during his life, fought many battles, and is what I consider to be an exemplary  worker and revolutionary. Captains asked his advice and crews respected him. He was always frank with me and a great kidder, too. I sailed with him, off and on, over a year´s time, and knew him on land, at his home and in his neighborhood in East Havana. I choose him to tell his story and share his views on the society and changing times because I believe he approximates--as much as is possible--a composite of many Cubans.
	----------------------
I was the third of nine children, and my mother had two more with a different man. I was born in 1937, in Media Luna, what is now Granma province. This is where Celia came from. 
We were humble farmers. My father had three hectares of land with his brother. It was poor soil, and my father and uncle had to work on sugar plantations during much of the year to make ends meet. My old man handed me a hoe when I was eight. From then on I weeded and cultivated our crops: yucca, sweet potatoes, corn. I only  went to the third grade and barely learned to read and write. We didn´t often have shoes or adequate clothes to attend classes. Later, I had to cut sugar cane, too.
It didn´t matter to us about changes of government. They were always the same. Hunger followed every government. Batista troops were everywhere. They flowed over our region. Even our local store had guards posted. I was in the store one day right after the "Granma" landed. A guard stared at me meanly and said, "You look like one of those 'Mau Mau.' You got a good neck to wrap a lasso around."

Batista´s people referred to the guerrillas as "Mau Mau." But, in those days, I wasn´t involved in anything, just surviving. After we heard that Fidel had made it to the Sierra Maestra, one of my brothers and I went off to join them. We just up and lit out. We waited in the mountains quite a while, but there wasn´t any way we could find them and so we headed back home.
Some of us organized in our own areas, and burned sugar cane. We acted on our own. I came face to face with death twice, but the bullets missed me. At that time, there were fewer weapons than fighters and the guerrillas just couldn´t accept us without arms. That was what we were told another time we went up to join them. I felt real bad but there wasn´t anything to do but keep on burning sugar cane. We didn´t have any work either because we were burning it up. Burning the rich man´s sugar was one way of hurting them. It hurt us too, but we preferred that to continue living in the same exploitative situation. When I accepted the rebel life, I decided never to let anyone exploit me again.
I left for Havana in 1957. There was no more cane to burn and I´d tried and failed several times to get with the guerrillas. In the capital, I lived with my sister and her husband. Everybody was watched. Our clandestine movement had them worried alright.
I first heard of the victory over Radio Rebelde, the station that Che started up and was soon to become the nation´s top radio outlet.I cried with joy. Finally, to be free! I also cursed the fact that I hadn´t been able to be with the guerrillas. One of my brothers finally did make it. I tried to join the rebel army, but was again told no, because they had all the recruits they could train. I joined the militia, instead, and during the Bay of Pigs I guarded prisoners at a textile factory, where I worked on yarn machines. Then, I finally got to join the army. I was in the cleanup at Matanzas. sweeping through the hills and sugar fields for counterrevolutionaries.
After my two-year service, I returned to the factory and joined the UJC. Two years later, I was accepted in the Communist party. They asked me to join the merchant marines to strengthen the budding fleet. There had never been a shipping or fishing fleet before the revolution and they became a top priority. So, I became a seaman, a seaman teacher, known as a politico. We didn´t teach Marxism, but I explained Fidel speeches and revolutionary documents.
In those day, we were enthusiastic revolutionaries. I was always ready to participate in any activity. The more the United States government attacked us, the more the people fought back and  the more revolutionary we became. I always thought our leaders made decisions aimed to improve life for all, based on social justice, and to overcome our semi-colonial status under the United States--to achieve complete independence.

I´ve never like seamanship, though I´m still a seaman after more than a quarter century. Many companeros   took on jobs because the country needed them. We were never made to work where we didn´t want to, but we were asked and if we agreed then we did it. I went through the ranks to pilot, guiding ships in and our of harbor. Today, I have a captain´s license but no ship, so I continue on as first mate. It makes no difference to me. There are more captains than there are ships. I´m no romantic. To me, it is just a job. Sure, I can feel some pride in that I´m contributing to the economy, to my country, but I´m only transporting others´ sweat. I don´t produce anything. In my youth, I got more satisfaction out of volunteering to do hard physical labor--the sensation of cutting sugar cane--than in sailing.
 The first 17 years of the revolution the government was run by a few important guerrilla leaders. They had a popular mandate, beyond any doubt. They appointed ministers and top administrators. When the leadership felt that the revolution was safe from direct military attack and from the counterrevolution, it prepared a constitution and parliament; what they call popular power; though it is more rhetoric than reality. Now, with the new consejos populares we can see they´ve made an important policy change. This is a positive step, and should be extended.
The system of electing delegates is alright, but they don´t have any real power and don´t do anything of significance. I don´t agree with the notion of multi-parties and fancy electoral campaigns. It never solved anything for us before the revolution, especially not for workers. No. The Communist party must be the only political party, otherwise there will be nothing but in-fighting and loss of unity. When unity slips, the enemy wins. Nevertheless, the party needs more dynamicism, more true debate, more grass roots representation at top levels. There is no need, however, for direct presidential elections. Our people are Fidelistas, whether Communists or not. The people trust and respect Fidel. A supreme leader is what people always want, in the end.
When it comes to education, we´ve come a long way and yet have big problems. First of all, everybody can read and write. But it´s no secret that kids graduate from high school, and even universities, and are poorly educated--in most professions--and not prepared to perform well on the job. We need to improve our study plans. We have to demand more of the education system. The attitude is that everyone must pass the exams, at any cost. So there is ramptant cheating and fraud. Even when students fail, they get more chances until, somehow or another, they pass. And yet the lessons and the exams are so simple.
The problem is that the teachers get the same jobs, the same salaries whether they are good or not. They  can keep their privileges and work without hassles if they pass all the students. The administrators don´t want to have to explain to the top leaders why students are failing. The school´s ratings might fall and administrators would lose their privileges, maybe a new car they are to be "given," or even their posts. So, sloppy teaching and cheating is tolerated. We return to the same source of the problem: lack of rationalization in the methodology of controls. There are no real criteria that are objectively upheld, no real checks and balances of what is correct, of what is good and bad teaching.

My  daughter studied mostly on her own, at home, and did extra work because the lessons were so simple. She wasn´t challenged, but she wanted to make something of herself. Well, today she is practicing medicine at a hospital. Education really depends on the home environment. I was always fascinated by studying, but I couldn´t under capitalism. Afterwards, I read Greek and Egyptician mythology, and everything I could get my hands on regarding Indian cultures before Columbus' time. If I´d had the opportunity, I would have learned a profession like my daughter did. Everyone has the opportunity  now, whether the educational system is mediocre or not.
Health care is incomparable to what we had under capitalism, and to what most people have in the world today. Yet, we need to perfect our heath care system, just like education. Sure, there are a great many facilities and free care, but attention is terrible in most places, especially in hospitals. The service personnel, the nurses, and many doctors, too, are lazy, careless, indifferent. My mother´s case is a good example. She was hospitalized not long before she died. We had to be there everyday to make sure that she got cared for. The nurses do what they please. There is no regular inspection and rationalization, just like everywhere despite the rhetoric about controls. Once when I had to sail, and my wife had to attend her dying father, my mother lay in bed without a change of sheets for a week. When I came to her bedside, the sheets were bloody and stank. Then it took them two days to get the results of a lab test of her spital, something that can be done in an hour in the same hospital.  It took another two days of constant haranguing to get them to give her the treatment ordered for the swelling in her hands. Now, I´m not talking about the lack  of medicines, which is real, but of things that can be done. And the food! Forget it. If there is any love for the patient by any member of the family, he or she must bring decent food.
Why have the two pillars of our achievements become so shabby? No one cares to control the institution for real. There is no incentive, no initiative.
Now, one area of treatment that is excellent, in the main, is for senior citizens. We get 70 to 80 percent of our wages when we retire, and we retire at 60 for men and 55 for women. The government does everything to keep our old folks alive and active. There are exercise clubs on most blocks, recreational and cultural programs, and old age homes for those that need it. But most everyone is care for by the extended family. Over ten percent of the state budget is spent on pensions and care for the aged.

And we´ve got a lot of culture of all sorts. I´m no intellectual, but I believe our culture is not profound. There is a lot of promotion propaganda, but mainly for mediocre stuff. Our music, for example, has been distored. Anything passes for music these days. The revolution gives everyone a chance to be a musician, or some other type of artist, or an athlete. There is hardly any decent literature, not to mention the media. We´ve made tremendous progress in sports: boxing, baseball, martial arts, volleyball, handball, track and field, even in newer areas for us, such as fencing and diving. We won the 1991 Pan American Games, came in fifth in the 1992 Olympics, and we win many many tournaments. It all starts in school, where every kid plays some sports daily. There are special schools for those who wish to excel and are good. They study half time and do sports half time.  	You see, we are a people in love with pleasure: sports, entertainment, drinking, relaxing, sex. Men are womanizers; women are flirtatious. We are an amiable, joyful people, always in love or soon to be, and caring affectionately for those in our lives. A Cuban is a jodedor, parrandero, bullanguero, arriesgado, guapo.
When possible, Cubans are non-violent, but beware not to ruffle his dignity for he´ll become fierce. It is not by coincidence that we produce the world´s greatest boxers.
Cubans like to criticize but can´t stand being criticized. A Cuban likes to serve those close to him, but dislikes being a servant or waiter. Cubans are proud, decorous, pretentious. They love to dress up in fine clothes, to eat well and plentifully.
We accept whatever responsibility and dangerous situation without concern to our safety, especially in critical, dangerous moments. In these times, Cubans can be quite toilsome, too. In times of crises, we do not loose our sense of humor and animation.
A Cuban is clearly distinctive in a group of non-Cubans. You notice him by his sense of joy, affability, boisterousness, and rapid speech. The Cuban language is an argot unto itself and we are garrulous, and exaggerate the truth routinely.

We are a solidary people at heart, internationalists by ideology, sensitive to injustice and will not tolerate abuse. One of the pillars of our revolution is our sense of brotherhood with the oppressed of the world. We feel honorable.
Cuba is a country of mixed blood, predominately mulatto, like me. We´ve got Spanish, French, a bit of English, African, Chinese and Indian in us. Although my appearance is mulatto, I identify mostly with aborigines. There are still a few descendents in the east, some 2000, and in my family there are still Taino features. My oldest son looks typically Indian, with longer, softer black hair, and copper-colored skin. My grandfather on my mother´s side was of African descent. He was a captain during the war for independence. His wife was Spanish from the Canary Islands, typcially blond and white-skinned. On my other side, they were mostly mulatto.
Blacks were slaves, always exploited. They were the most criminal, too, and it continues to be the case. I think their criminal behavior, their lust for entertainment, their lack of discipline is in the blood. It goes back before slavery, before colonial times. Blacks just don´t like to work. Sure, black sailors work hard, but they must or be booted off the ship. Sailing is special; it´s do or die.Generally, blacks want to play, they seek work in play areas, sports, entertainment. 
Racism continues to exist. You hear us talking about blacks and mulattos--especially mulattas--in the natural course of the day. You know the joke: `Not all blacks are criminals, but all criminals are black.' Well, that´s the way it is, mostly. I don´t know if racism is correct or not, it just is, and it won´t be erased. Sure, I have black friends, but they act white. Not like a bunch of blacks always hanging around, shouting, pushing and shoving. If you see a bus line, you know who´s black by the way they push. And blacks abandon their families. Black men rarely make good family men. The kids are left to founder about; they skip school and begin to steal.
There is no official discrimination; no discrimination when it comes to schooling, jobs, cultural opportunities, housing, health care, etc. But there is individual prejudice, and also in the high echelons. Few leaders are black. The third party congress made recruiting blacks a priority, which is a way of recognizing that racism is a factor.
The majority of whites and mulattos don´t want their kids marrying blacks, especially the girls. It´s alright for the son to fuck them, but not get serious. And so it is with me. Yes, I am a racist, despite the fact that I am a mulatto. I don´t care how smart a black man is, even if he´s on the Politbureau, I won´t have him marrying my daughter. I want my race to develop, and that means getting less black. Even blacks scorn themselves. They are their own worst enemies.
No, I tell you, racism will never end. Blacks will never be fully equal, not even in Cuba.

The revolution´s ideology, and laws, declare that women must be equal, that they should be leaders in all spheres. It´s all beautiful, what is said and written about women´s equality. But reality doesn´t measure up, neither to what is or what is desired. Many women have jobs but few direct. There is much discrimination against women leaders, both from men and women.
I, personally, don´t want to be married to a woman leader. It´s a contradiction with my revolutionary ideology, but life is full of contradictions. My woman stays at home, brings up the children, takes care of  the family. She is, or has been, active in the local CDR and the women´s federation. The FMC is mainly a social welfare association; that´s fine.
I would never allow my wife to volunteer for international missions, because I know what goes on. They end up sleeping around. There are always fewer women than men on these missions, and the men divide up the women, forcing those who don´t want to to have sex with them. Women are expected to please men who crave a woman. Often, a new women is selected by someone with access to know when she is coming. Upon her arrival, the self-appointed man, often a person in leadership, propositions her. If she refuses, he threatens her with  various measures: spread a rumor that she is lesbian; claim she robbed something from the project; arrange for bad reports on her personnel record; arrange to send her back, or threaten to do so, thus putting her character and performance into doubt. These dirty methods often work.
I have confidence in my wife. She has always worked in the home and been faithful. I trust her here, but not out there. I´ve seen women who are perfect wives drop this lady-like attitude once they get out of the country on some mission. Many divorces are caused this way.
Of course, I´ve slept around. But that´s different; I´m a man. We men suffer from this. We believe we have more rights than women, and that we should enjoy more things than they, especially sex. And it is justifiable, because there are more women. A Cuban male, Marxist, Communist, or whatever, does not truly believe that a woman, his woman, has the same rights as he. This is not a matter of principles, but idiosyncrasy. The Latin man is egoistic. Just look at who led our revolution--men, and men who have a heap of women. Just look at the guy who wrote the Family Code statutes. He ran out on his wife for his secretary.
I don´t believe there is a universal moral on this issue. I believe machismo is a Cuban weakness that we can not get rid of. It may well influence how the decision-making process works, in general. In our socialism, the means of production are socially in the hand of the people, but not the decision-making. Everything is done for  the worker. Everyone´s basic needs are met. We are not going to kick anyone on the streets. We are a politically and culturally aware people. That is all marvellous. But socialism also generates its calamities: paternalism, top-down decision-making, privileges for the elite, mistrust, egoism, slow and faulty production. They tell us we have a dictatorship of the proletariat, that we have people´s power. But, in reality, it´s a top layer that has the power.

We came to expect that CMEA would give us all we needed and asked for. So, we put up with a paternalistic administration. To placate people, they let us slacken our work discipline and our production. We got sloppy education, faulty goods, poor services, but nobody got fired. There were only sporadic police campaigns to curtail stealing. So, people steal from the state to "resolve" their problem. This created an attitude of tolerance: no cojes lucha.
Taking an attitude of lucha would lead to criticism. Now, there are two kinds of criticism, with two objectives. One is construction, aimed to improve what we have. The other is destructive, aimed to destroy socialism, or to destroy a person out of envy, or to take his place. But both types of criticism can be viewed in the same light by bureaucrats and the elite. They want to keep their self-interests, so they call critics counterrevolutionaries out to topple socialism. It can get messy, so most keep their mouths shut. People are legitimately concerned that they could get kicked out of their jobs, or demoted or not promoted, or lose bonuses and certificates to buy hard-to-get goods.
If there were real controls, checks and balances, cost accountability, many heads would role. It´s more "convenient" not to rock the boat. I know. I learned the hard way. It didn´t matter to them that because they ignored some things I warned about in my reports, that there were more accidents, corruption and financial losses than were necessary. They used me as a scapegoat.  
In the early revolutionary years, our sailors had an excellent reputation both at home and abroad. We were disciplined, dedicated and honest. We set an example.
Our merchant marines began to change in the mid-70s. They began to get corrupted, for many reasons. The shipping company´s screening became less vigorous. Many recruits came from land-locked country areas and had little political consciousness and no knowledge of sailing, or of other lands. They, and others, became envious of what they saw in foreign films and foreign ports. Consumerism gripped them.
New sailors began stealing from our ships. The bolder ones extended thievery to foreign vessels and shops, and trading on international and national markets. We began to get a bad reputation in foreign ports, sometimes even spat on. Some of us veterans stopped saying we were from Cuba when ashore.This was the main reason I later changed from Mambisa to Caribe, sailing the cabotaje on tankers.
Our sense of  brotherhood, our revolutionary values of equality and mutual aid began disappearing. I remember feeling that under capitalism that there had been a greater sense of  solidarity and brotherhood, because we were struggling together against capitalism, against the Batista-Mafia tyranny, taking great risks. And then, just a few years after our triumph, egoism and ambition took over. I knew what capitalism did to the spirit. But these youngster didn´t, and didn´t care.

I was getting fed up with this criminal tendency by the time Mambisa put me on the Guisa to sail a long voyage to Japan, the Philippines, the Soviet Union, Germany and Holland. It was a bad trip. There were underhanded business deals between the captain, the chief engineer and the purser, and ship chandlers in foreign ports. They conspired to alter prices of goods we bought. The chandler would falsify papers so that he and the ship´s officers would get kickbacks.
In the Philippines, the captain didn´t conduct the ship´s business from the ship but from his lover´s apartment. He was careless, because there was suspicion that she was an informer for some intelligence agency.
Naturally, the crew knew what was going on, to some extent, and many committed immoralities too.
In Rostock, the three officers were arrested by our security agency and restricted to quarters until our return. When we docked in Havana, everybody was placed under investigation. The three went to jail, and many of the crew were fired. The authorities decided to use us as a warning, a scapegoat. Many of those innocent ones  did get their jobs back later, but few of us escaped initial sanctions. They even punished a few who had spoken up against corruption, and I was one of those.
I wrote an extensive report about what I knew to be going on and sent it to the Minister of Transportation, Guillermo García, and the Minister of Interior, Ramiro Valdés. Both were members of the Politbureau at the time. Minister García did not answer. Minister Valdés answered, but didn´t say much. But I heard that my report created a lot of smoke internally. The Communist party, on my municipal level, did respond. When time came to sanction party members aboard the Guisa for corruption, they sanctioned me, as well, for "having allowed it." I was suspended from the party for three months, clearly because I had spoken against the thievery and corruption,and  the lack of vigilance on the party´s part. The irony is that I was one of only two officers not  involved in corruption. But they got me, anyway. Coño!
I appealed to the party province level. They upheld the lower level. I went to the national, and they did the same thing. It was against party rules to sanction comrades without bringing them before the cadre in their  own nucleus. But they ignored their rules. They knew that a discussion amongst my own comrades would have been in my favor. They knew how I am. 
This really disenchanted me. I could have taken it up before the next party congress, but I just didn´t feel like going on. They treated me immorally. I let my membership slip. I decided not to ever me a militant again. I would still take on tasks the party might assign, but it hasn´t asked me to.
After I was sanctioned, party members in my former nucleus continued to speak with me and confide in me. They felt sad by the shameful way I had been treated.

I was allowed to continue sailing without any demotion, when I transferred to Caribe. The party wanted the administration to reconsider my leadership role as an officer. Thanks to the assistent director, who knew me and my reputation, there was no punishment. I was allowed to take my first mate exams, and was promoted a couple years later. Then, I passed my captain´s exam and received the title, but I don´t have my ship. I doubt they´ll ever give me one.
I´m not a Marxist. I was called a Communist when I was in the party, and I still follow the ideas of our country. But I´m not a Communist. I´m a revolutionary. A revolutionary is one who seeks power for the workers, and one who acts his best so that all goes according to the principles of social justice and equality. I try.
	END CHAPTER  

	CHAPTER 12
	WORKER´S DEMOCRACY:
	TALKING SHOP

"Neither at Oxford nor Harvard is there a worker´s parliament." (Carlos Lage said, Jan. 30, 1994.)

Ordinary Cubans are turning into amateur economists.
How to tackle the budgetary deficit (approximately one-third of the undisclosed state budget) and secure the internal finances was one of the most openly discussed matters in Cuban society through much of 1994, following the national assembly session in December 1993. President Fidel Castro and other delegates said the people must discuss what is to be done before another session of parliament would decide what steps to adopt.
In two-and-a-half months, three million workers met for an average of four hours at 80,000 work places, sometimes twice, to talk economics. This is perhaps the first time any working class has had such an opportunity in a massive, organized way to debate this complicated subject, and do so before the experts and political leaders make laws that affect everybody's pocketbook. Probably as many Cubans know who the minister of finance is and what he said at the last parliament session as know Cuba's best baseball batter and what his home-run tally is.
"Neither at Oxford nor Harvard is there a workers' parliament. This is a political process without precedent, a product of the revolution," said Carlos Lage, Communist Party economic chief and Council of Ministers vice-president.
Following the close of CTC´s national evaluation meeting, the state announced that May Day would not be celebrated at a main rally as usual but by convoking an extraordinary session of the People's Power National Assembly to analyse the workers' parliament responses and to make laws.
CTC leader, Pedro Ross, said that the workers must discuss "finding and implementing solutions", in order to "increase work efficiency and greater production." Economic efficiency assemblies have since been instituted at work centers, in order to follow up on plans made and to check on progress.
It  soon became common for CTC leaders and its newspaper, "Trabajadores", to criticize negative tendencies in the work force, using such terms as "inertia" that "kills originality", and "paternalism" that causes "laziness and sloppiness."

"Trabajadores" editorials blasted  interminable waste, uncontrollable thievery and product spoilage, and lack of effective sanctions for those who "subtract state goods", and absenteeism.
Though these realities were attacked, the blame was laid at the "poor mentality" of workers and managers and no criticism was made of Communist Party or state leaderships for having either created or permitted these long-standing patterns.
Finance Minister José Luis Rodríguez laid out hard facts at the National Assembly session. The revelation of information was unique in itself.
--11 billion pesos circulating in the streets, the equivalent of 14 months wages of the entire working class (doubled in three years).
--4.2 billion pesos budget deficit (tripled in three years).
--4.6 billion peso state sibsidies (73 per cent over 1989).
--Wages remain unchanged while social security and health budgets have increased (33 and 10 per cent respectively over 1990; total social security network including education makes up 37 per cent of state output).
Many economists maintain that the reordering of the economy must begin by balancing the budget, which will inevitably entail privations. The main dilemma was, and remains, how to break the vicious circle of: low production-little merchandise-depressed market-excessive money in circulation-little incentive for worker-poor efficiency-low production.
José Luis Rodríguez suggested considering some measures to balance the budget and curtail circulating currency, such as a new system of taxation, reduced state expenditures and subsidies, and reduction of costs to the level of production efficiency.
Delegates, and then workers, union leaders and managers, discussed of ideas suggested by Minister Rodríguez the National Assembly for achieving economic efficiency. Fidel noted that "while the discussion advances, the interrelatons that exist between all the (economic) problems becomes clearer."
Among the most frequently mentioned problems at the assemblies were: absenteeism, thievery and diversion of goods and insufficient sanctions against apathy, laziness and work inefficiency, excessive numbers of employees for work needed and performed, overly tolerant and paternalistic administrators, excessive bureaucracy, the need to relocate laid-off workers, loss of qualified technicians, professionals and skilled workers.
Many also favor reviving the sense of solidarity among people, the possibility of making a change in national currency, better distribution of what is produced and harvested, and receiving systematic information concerning the economic state at each work center.

Many, especially  economists, also want firms to collect what is owed them and pay their debts (3 billion pesos outstanding), augment the number of  self-financing firms (currently one-quarter of all firms), make the peso convertible to the dollar with certificates useable for buying dollar products and charge entrance fees at cultural and sports events, cosmetic plastic surgery, school uniforms, school materials and sports classes.
People also lament the rampant and inflationary black market,  in pesos and dollars.
Among other most mentioned ideas are the need for union leaders to help create more flexible structures and "improve mentalities for efficiency", produce and sell more Cuban products in dollars and import less, recuperate more worn-out parts with national resources and inventions.
"Let's stop beating around the bush. We are the thieves," said one construction firm manager at an assembly quoted by "Trabajadores."
"All of us do it, or benefit from thievery  by  buying stolen goods, stolen from our own work centers, our own agricultural fields, warehouses and stores."
One of the most concrete and immediate actions to come out of these assemblies, even before they ended, was the systematic co-ordinated policing of the distribution of food from the fields to the markets. For a brief time, units of police, militia, soldiers and workers themselves rode on some distribution trucks, and police stopped vehicles coming to Havana from the countryside to check their contents for stolen goods.
This decisive action pleased many while angering others, who contended that until the state increases the supply of food and sustains it these actions would only cause black market prices to rise all  the more and prevent many from eating as little as they were.
 The most talked about items to tax were cigarettes and rum. The former ration is just four to five packs a month for everyone over 16, smokers or not. Non-smokers and thieves were selling cigarettes on the black market for 20 to 80 pesos, whereas the state subsidies them and charges only 30 centavos a pack. Rum is no longer sold regularly, but when it is (only one bottle a month per family or less in most places), it is a cheap rum that sells for seven pesos. A stolen bottle of the same stuff was going for 100 to 140 pesos on the streets.
"Rum and cigarette distribution through the ration sysem should be sold directly by the state," wrote Havana union official Antonio Quintana Fernandéz, in the new letters column in "Trabajadores." "The state could thus get milions of pesos from what is now circulating in the streets," Quintana wrote.
The "Trabajadores" March 7, 1994, editorial called upon the state to sell more products on the "free" market, the old state parallel market, so that it could stop subsidizing 20 of the 30 essential items on the ration card. The union newspaper wrote that, instead of spending 400 million pesos to support these items, it could earn four billion by "freeing" them and charging a modest but profitable price.

The state buys beans, for instance, for 50 centavos from national farmers and charges only 30 centavos a pound. Over the years, the state has been importing in dollars between 70% and 95% of all the beans consumed  and selling in pesos. Each person is limited to two pounds a month on the rations, far less than average consumption. So those who have the money are willing to pay  40 pesos a pound on the black market, until their money runs out.
"Trabajadores" February 7 editorial  blamed the "passive and formal...negligent and irresponsible character" of those who should protect the state goods but allow their "diversion" as the main source of black market goods. The situation, the newspaper laments, is creating double standards and moral decay.
"Trabajadores" letter writer Julio Caballero Lopéz, a radio worker from Villa Clara, wrote that the Ministry of Interior should create a special investigation team to "control all those great sums of money and investments of persons, well known by all on the block, who cannot officially explain where they get their money and property."
This was previously unheard-of media admission that the state knows or should know who the big fences are and that it is not doing anything about it. That is one reason why some workers, such as ministry chauffeur Pedro Castral, think that "the workers' parliament is just more meetings. People talk and talk, meetings and meetings, and nothing happens. There is no follow-through."
Others, such as Pinar del Rio co-operative farmworker Julio García, think: "It feels good to get complaints off your chest and make constructive suggestions. I feel that a lot of people are encouraged  by the workers' assemblies. Let's see what happens."
A March 14 "Trabajadores" article, seemed to corroborate Castral´s pessimism. It quoted Mauricio Covarrubias, technical sub-director of Turistaxi,  complaining at one workers' assembly that his company cannot compete with other state dollar taxi firms that can charge lower rates than his. Also, the competition is all the stiffer with the new private taxis, both legal and illegal.
Covarrubias said that his firm submitted a request to lower its tariffs to the State Committee of Prices, three years ago. Still no answer.
"Does it take this long to respond to the workers?" Covarrubias asked.
Functionaries, though, were optimistic about the discussion process.
Director of a Communist Party public opinion research center, Dario Machado wrote in the Young Communists' newspaper "Juventud Rebelde":
"For those who hold the absurd notion that ours is an authoritarian system, the reality of working people discussing the crucial problems of the country shows once again that this is a unique and authentic democratic process of shaping a consensus...the very essence of popular power."

His institution's latest two surveys, conducted one month apart during the workers' assembly debates, showed that an increasing number of Cubans are willing to support some strong measures.
Seventy-five per cent saw the need to diminish job slots in unprofitable work centers, an increase of 15 per cent. Only half, as opposed to 61 per cent late last year, still support "egalitarianism," now out of favor among state leaders. Only a minority, however, opted for taxes on individual wages and essential products. The percentage was not stated.
It was published, however, that 38 per cent favor changing the currency--a controversial issue and one that Fidel has spoken against. Many economists spoke for a currency change, including CEA economists, who wrote a book supporting the notion,  which is discussed in a later chapter.
The greatest worries concerned what will happen to the "excess" workers and the effects on low-income families. Fidel has promised that there will be no "shock therapy as in capitalism."
People were also upset about not having access to hard currency when so much is sold only in dollars. Finally, a majority expressed concern that the decisions that are taken by the National Assembly be carried out, and that they accomplish the goals.
It is probable that the mass discussions were launched precisely to prepare people for what would otherwise have been unpopular measures, if they had been spuriously taken,  and thus probably ineffective. Skeptics can question if the workers' parliament is meaningful democracy, if workers' suggestions will actually  be listened to and adopted. While such skepticism has its roots in historical reality, the times they may be changing.
Production of some goods, especially  vegetables, did begin to increase, and more work enthusiasm could be seen as a result of the greater participation in worker-managment assemblies. Weekly  editions of "Trabajadores" reported on these meetings and editorialized to encourage workers to participate.
Journalist Renato Recio viewed these sessions as forums for "workers to improve their channels of expression and participation" so that they and their 18 national unions can become a real "counterpart to the administration" ("Trabajadores" April 11, 1994).
In weekly editorials, "Trabajadores" hit at the nation's "technocrats," "bureaucrats" and "mechanical, formalistic economists," who have created  a "cobwebbed" system of "completely obsolescent, confused structures, formulas and regulations that take autonomy, authority and decision-making capacity away from our business leaders." (June 27).

Neveretheless,  the editorial warned, this did not excuse administrators for ducking behind this publicly maligned cobweb with such typical rationalizations for inaction as: "they didn't inform me," "it is not opportune," "we are in the Special Period."
Workers and unions must insist that work place administrators  become "actors" and not "justifiers." It is through these efficiency assemblies that workers can put their administrators to the test. Workers now have the right, according to union leader Pedro Ross, "to know the indicators"--the costs and earnings of each plant, farm and service unit.
When decisions are taken in the collective, the following meetings should evaluate if they have been implemented or not and if not, why  not. Administrator performance is also open to evaluation and they are urged to become "sensitive" as well as efficient leaders.
Worker participation has been higher in these meetings than in previous efforts to encourage workers to meet at work places. I attended several such meetings earlier. On the Seaweed, for example, these meeting were routine. When I worked in the engine room, we met to discuss discipline problems and production and service matters.  I was pleased to hear several men speak up, but the women never did. In one meeting, an engine room worker failed to check equipment on a night shift and was restricted to ship for the next two port stops. The key items discussed were usually  irritations over the lack of products, or distribution of all  there was to offer to some who missed out. The most profound issue I witnessed was over the new union steward, who had been appointed from outside by the party. The previous steward had been elected and was kicked out, because, it was believed by crew members, he had been too "outspoken." The captain, who is both a member of the party and the union, assured the men that the next steward would be elected.
Union leaders and "Trabajadores" now admit that "meetings for meetings' sake" was the norm and was an error. They want workers to believe that democracy is on the party-state agenda in all seriousness.
"If,  at some previous moment, we have abused meetings that did not go to the base of difficulties or arrive at solutions, this time we convene assemblies that must be the antithesis of formalism, of meetingism and of false collectivism," declared "Trabajadores" on May 16, 1994.
Ninety percent of those who attended these efficiency assemblies believe that they are an "adequate method for worker participation in conducting the economic process of the work places," according to the Communist Party's socio-political and opinion studies center.
Eighty  percent of the 752 workers and 476 union full-timers polled in 12 of 14 provinces believe that these assemblies maintain the spirit and style of the highly praised Workers' Parliament. Twenty five percent criticized  administrators' reports for being too long and not enough to the point.

Difficulties in not completing agreements taken at the previous meetings were mainly attributed to objective reasons beyond administrators' and workers' control--with only minimal subjective causes--by 70 per cent of those interviewed. Ten percent laid the blame squarely on subjective factors.
Several workers I talked with about these figures say that they are not to be trusted, because everyone knows that the poll takers are from the party, and people generally have a tendency to state opinions that are desired by those listening. I believe there is some truth in both this view and the survey conclusions.
At the Civil Aviation maintenance and repair service center in western Havana, 170 of the 182 workers attended their assembly. The administrator's report was read in parts by selected workers. After each section was read, workers responded to the matters contained therein. Many hands shot up in the air. Specific questions were raised about specific problems and concrete replies were offered.
The director and others at the head table said little while 20 workers made most of the remarks. There was a great deal of camaraderie and humor exchanged. 
It was noted that the lunch service had improved. Some kind of meat is now the norm at lunch.The traditional lunch price of 50 cents is to be raised to between 80 cents and one peso, depending on income, which ranges from 130 to 250 pesos.
Absenteeism was reduced from fiveper cent, in 1993, to one percent at the time of the meeting a year later.
Workers said that they felt more stimulated because they can see that the administration and the government as a whole needs them and is responding to some of their needs.
In May, 152 workers received the first jaba for completing their jobs well and for improving production. These premiums may be forthcoming quarterly or even monthly. The bag included items available on the dollar market: perfumed soap, detergent, toothpaste, deodorant, razor  blades and perfume--products which are all but impossible to buy for pesos, at affordable prices and legally. Work places which earn some hard currency and perform well are now entitled to buy such gifts for responsible workers. The bags vary in cost from three to five dollars. Some workers suggested that they would prefer to get the cash and decide for themselves what to buy.
The CTC was discussing this with the party and government, which forbids employers to pay workers in currencies other than Cuban pesos. Most Cubans do not work at places that earn convertible currency, or do not handle it, and this is a sore point for those who do not receive jabas, which is the vast majority.

In the previous two months, 15 workers were disciplined at Civil Aviation for not performing their tasks in an adequate manner. They were fined from 10 to 25 per cent of  their monthly  wage. In two cases, workers were kicked out of their department and it was left to the CTC to find a suitable job for them. This tough attitude is quite new, as is the system of rewards (since rectification began).
In many work places these assemblies seem to be working well. At Civil Aviation, for example, their engine repair record has improved. While progress witnessed at another factory meeting was not as exemplary, some improvements were noted.
Cuba's only machete-making plant, the Roberto Negrin Mechanical Factory produced nearly double the amount in peso earnings last year over 1989. Founded in the 1960s in response to a call  by  Che Guevara, the 170 workers made enough long knives for all Cuban workers using them last year. In addition to 500,000 machetes, they also make nails and 250,000 mochas.
Their books are balanced. They spend 90 cents for each peso earned. The government spends  90 cents to make each machete and a dollar for mochas, having to import some raw material, but it saves millions by producing all the blades the nation needs. It used to cost $2.34 for each machete imported and $3 for mochas. 
Nevertheless, little worker enthusiasm was reflected in the parliament and efficiency assembly which I observed. Only 50 workers attended out of 80 on shift. Absenteeism went down to 10 per cent (the national average) from 14 per cent in 1993. But the numbers on medical certificates have actually increased. Director Luis Delmas Perez said  those with high incidence rates would be named on the bulletin board.
The lunch offered remains basically the same, but workers said it is now better prepared. The eating area and bathrooms were filthy, however.
After administrative reports were read, only three workers took the floor. The biggest concern was about  when they would be receiving their jaba and work clothing, especially work boots. The men received one pair last year, but the women are still waiting for their shoes for nearly two years.
 	One man raised the question whether boots could truly  be considered an "incentive", as was stated in the administrator's report, or if they were not more "a right and a necessity." Since none can be bought for pesos any longer, the director replied, they must be viewed as a luxury and therefore a stimulus, because the factory must pay dollars for footware.

In neither of these meetings, nor in the ones reported in "Trabajadores", were worker-owner relations or distribution of production discussed. There was still a lot of "formalism and ritualism," which "Trabajadores" was blasting, but these rigidities were loosening up and it was becoming common to hear people criticize. Each work place has the authority to determine the style that these meetings take, so results are mixed. Nevertheless, a forward move is underway, both in expanding participation and improving efficiency, which, in the long run, should put more food on the table.
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 13
	DOWNTURN CURBED

"I believe that we will learn to be more efficient in production, learning from capitalism as well. We´ll be more independent, a freer Cuba within the world context." (Central Committee member, Dario Machado).

Meeting in extraordinary session over the May Day holidays, Cuba's National Assembly laid down broad guidelines for the Council of State to correct the vast imbalance in internal finances. Unanimous agreement was reached on several other reforms earlier decreed by the Council of State, but no decision was taken on how to balance the budget, which is calculated at one-third in deficit at 4.2 billion pesos.
Following a report from the workers´ parliamentary interchanges given by Pedro Ross, the deputies essentially adopted the report of possible actions earlier presented by Minister of Finance José Luis Rodríguez.
The National Assembly charged the government to:
--Take all necessary measures to eradicate black marketeers
--Reduce subsidies to unprofitable firms and square costs with income
       --Appeal to workers to assure profitability and efficient discipline
--Stimulate bank savings
--Control the excess circulation of currency (then estimated at 11.6 billion pesos, the equivalent of 15 months of all wages)
--Stimulate indispensable production with adequate price rises aimed at balancing cost income
--Gradually implement taxes on services and utilities, exempting low-income families
--Examine the possibility of a change in national currency
--Ask local councils to balance their fiscal revenues.
Minister Rodríguez informed the parliament at the outset that the state had already begun to act in a few areas to correct imbalances.
He said that it had cut back subsidies by 1.3 billion of the 4.6 bilion pesos spent last year and was cutting one billion pesos in other areas, with a goal of reducing the annual budget deficit by 24 per cent this year. In addition, he said that 12 per cent of the uncollected three billion peso-payments between state firms had been collected. Rodríguez said that unnprofitable state firms would no longer be automatically bailed out by the National Bank as they were traditionally, in most cases.

The nation's financial expert offered for consideration several possible measures with accompanying probable gains:
--Raise interest rates on bank savings
--Issue bank peso bonds with interest in dollars
--Issue public bonds as long-term government loans
--Institute a currency certificate for dollars to everyone with hard currency. This certificate to be used in dollar stores for goods sold at high prices with the aim of benefits for general distribution
--Offer a greater supply of Cuban products for vanguard workers in priority industries and services
--Raise prices for rationed non-essenial items, namely, cigarettes and alcohol
If the price of cigarettes, now subsidized at 30 cents a pack for four or five sold on rations, were increased to two pesos and if the state parallel market were resumed and sold packs at 10 pesos, the government could recuperate nearly two billion pesos, almost half the deficit, in just one year. It would thus also eliminate the rampant black market of cigarettes going for 30 or more pesos, which enriches the unscrupulous and impoverishes the state and smokers.
If the same were done with rum, the state could obtain 328 millon pesos. Beer was mentioned although not emphasized as it has all but disappeared, because hops and grain must be imported in dollars.
Rodríguez also suggested tripling the price of gasoline, currently limited to 20 liters a month when available. The state loses its dollar investment in buying gas. He also suggested raising tariffs  for public transport, telephones, electricity, postal services and workers' lunches, where they still exist.
Charging for free services could garner another 188 million pesos, but would smear the image of the revolution, irritate the population and hit their wallets. Service areas mentioned were: 35 cents for boarding school lunches, lower grants to higher education students, modest charges for school materials, selling the daily vitamins, charging for sporting events (which he did not recommend) and other cultural activities and sports classes.
The minister also suggested placing local taxes on new self-employed income, in addition to the fixed state license fees, a five per cent tax on co-operative and private farmers' profits, taxing dollar income but not remittances, taxing water use, and maybe a social security tax, a property tax, and an official documents tax.
Finally, Rodíiguez said that by eliminating subsidies to products, the government could assure subsidies to low-income people and that bank credits--now unknown--could aid people and firms to pay debts. These measures would earn the state up to 600 million pesos.
If the government decided to adopt all these possibilities, it would recuperate the bulk of its deficit.

President Fidel Castro offered  closing observations, after the deputies voted for the government to choose its tactics and timing. He said that the economy was nearing the road to gradual recuperation and that the "problem won't reproduce." He added that only "necessary concessions" to capitalism would be implemented and that "capitalist prescriptions are unwanted."
The president brought all the delegates to the floor in applause when he declared that the Council of State would introduce that week a decree to facilitate the "confiscation of all illegally acquired goods."
Fidel added that the government would do something about the cigarette problem after determining how much could be manufactured and what method of pricing was best. He concluded by saying that the government would "apply a series of measures on an orderly basis as quickly as possible but gradually."
Deputies rehashed what many workers had discussed at work centers, a process which assembly  president Ricardo Alarcón termed the "highest expression of the democratic workers' state." Minister of Culture Armando Hart characterized the information offered and the debate itself as a "sign of the maturity of the revolution" such that "I have never before heard in the National Assembly."
A few deputies referred to the state as "papa" and the citizens as "children." " Papa" now had to insist that its citizens pay for its bread and services.  But other deputies asserted that economic inefficiency was mainly due to administrative bureaucracy and inaction. The question of economic inefficiency and how to stimulate worker production was consistently linked to the monetary devaluation and the budget deficit.
"Money wages are worthless," said many. The black market rate for one dollar was over 100 pesos, a month's minimum wage and half the average.
Without raising the taboo term, "free farmers market," several deputies suggested parallels. One deputy noted that the few existing food outlets are not autonomous and also have a difficult time acquiring state-distributed foods. Why  not, he suggested, allow small farmers with surplus produce to sell directly to these establishments "at fair prices since many farms aren't properly serviced by state enterprises and ministries"?
Historian Eusebio Leal observed that, while the principles of socialism forbid utilizing "shock therapy methods," it was necessary to show the population that the state is serious about transforming the inefficient economy and paternalism by "shocking" people awake.
Young deputies speaking for students opposed reducing their grants.
Journalist Lazaro Barredo was the only deputy to propose the adoption of a further measure. He said that the state should change the currency to curb excess circulation and attack underground criminality.

Fidel intervened from time to time. He answered Barredo, saying activities of thieves and fences would not disappear by changing the money. He said that the state had to take "an arsenal of measures," over an 18-month time frame.
While the US blockade was referred to as causing part of the economic decline, Fidel and the assembly generally concentrated on internal shortcomings. "If the measures we take are insufficient, it would be a disaster. We must resolve the imbalanced budget. It would be better to do nothing than take half measures, each of which must be evaluated politically."
Fidel  added that "four years after the fall of the Soviet Union and socialist camp, here stands Cuba, a star of heroism."
Fidel chastized people in some remarks, observing: "Everyone wants to resolve the problem, but nobody wants to tax wages or reduce wages. People don't understand yet. We are still far from reaching comprehension of the problem. We must take hard measures."
The president, who admitted to not being an economic theoretician, said that no one had raised the question of  "whether the peso should exist at all, whether money should be suppressed," and merchandise simply distributed on a barter and need basis.
Fidel blasted those who suggested that farmers should be able to sell their surplus produce directly to enterprises, bypassing state gathering areas. "That would convert each farmer into a Rockfeller."
He also criticized the idea of paying interest on bonds. "With what?" he asked. Nor did he support charging for sports and cultural events, which would require paying salaries to more people for questionable results. The commander-in-chief said that the key problem was to strengthen the value of the peso. How to do this requires "good thinking and the right to keep secrets. This is a battle and we must have arms which we will use when and how best. We can't say when or how we will attack."
Fidel and leading economists linked the offer of goods to revaluing the peso, but the connection was limited to few items: more cigarette income for the state and some goods in priority work centers, such as electric plants and nickel mines.
The public is prepared for "a quota of sacrifices," wrote the party  daily "Granma" the day before May Day, but many were also expecting its popular power body to adopt some specific actions, which were not forthcoming, and a very hot summer had begun early with even more power cuts in sight. 
On May Day, "Juventud Rebelde," published an interview with the National Assembly economics commission president, Osvaldo Martínez, on the question of whether Cuba´s economy is going through a structural crisis.

Martínez, also president of the World Economics Research Centre, told reporter Osvaldo Rodríguez that rather than structural, the crisis was one of  "adaptation to a new, totally different international economic reality, which obliges us to readjust our model and economic policies without renouncing the fundamentals of socialist essentials...making socialism viable in the new conditions."
Martínez pointed out that the basics were still intact: property  is still social in character, the state remains the regulator, and the distribution of goods and services is still socialist.
Economics reporter Rodríguez pressed Martínez with several sharp questions on the effect of the changes in stimulating private initiative, the compatibility of the law of the market with a socialist economy with reference to increasing foreign capital joint ventures, and whether politics are subordinate to economic profit.
Osvaldo Martínez replied that analysis is underway to assure conformity of  an economic model that includes diversification in production relations and property, while maintaining the key role of the state in coexistence with increasing self-employment and co-operatives.
The state is facilitating greater autonomy to firms without atomizing the economy into unconnected independent entities, Martínez said. The area of greatest success toward recuperation is through foreign capital, focusing on tourism, with joint ventures, and exploring and drilling for national oil.
Martínez said that economic recuperation was impossible without achieving "economic efficiency", employing commercial terms. The "law of the market is recognized by socialist society."
     The director of Cuba's Economy Research Center, Dr Alfonso Casanova Montero, believes that the measures being adopted will allow the economy to "reach the bottom of its decline this year."
Julio Carrranza, an economist and sub-director of the Center of American Studies,  predicted that by the end of the century the country could be importing 60 per cent of what it was in 1989--about five billion dollars worth of goods--by utilizing new export income. Carranza warned, however, that measures must be organic and consistently applied, otherwise there will be no coherent follow-through and less than suffcient results. 
Many  people wonder these days if  the nation is not heading in a capitalist direction. "Saving the gains of socialism" by adopting a mixed economy, with political control remaining in the hands of the one political party, is how President Fidel Castro describes the current direction. Some say, however, that it is neither socialist nor capitalist but "realism," as commentator Soledad Cruz wrote recently  in "Juventud Rebelde."
No one is proposing a leftward socialism thrust as a viable alternative, not publicly at least. There is no agitation for workers to run the fields and factories on a throughly  co-operative basis or for broadening political  power, beyond current measures to increase discussion possibilities. What most people are concerned about are not questions of greater democracy, however, but regaining the standard of living they once enjoyed and assuring the future of the social welfare system, which remains intact.

Economists believed that imports could begin to increase by the end of the year if national production improves and if foreign commerce does not waver in its growth pattern. One encouraging sign comes from an odd source. "The Miami Herald" listed Cuba as 29th out of 100 countries evaluated for investment risks. The United States only ranked 22; Russia 97.
Most measures proposed at the May National Assembly were adopted at the August 1994 session of  parliament. It added entrance fees to sports and cultural events, which had not been recommended by Fidel. Some personal taxes were legalized for self-employed and private farmers, although taxes on wages were held at bay. 	The raise in prices on cigarettes and rum began paying off immediately, and the black market in these luxury items all but disappeared.
Cuba Economy Research Center researchers Hiriam  Marquetti and Orlando Tamargo were doubtful, however, that some of the increases in state revenues and production would be forthcoming. The sad news, which influenced Marquetti´s and Tamargo´s opinion, is the continued low national production of sugar and other products in the peso economy.
Several weeks after the 1994 zafra was finished--three months late--Fidel made a quick reference at the August parliament session that the zafra had netted only four million tons, two hundred thousand under 1993.
Nor was there any noticeable increase in pesos and dollars being placed in the banks for government use, or any permanent reduction of theft or "subtracting" goods from state bodies.
Tamargo did not see the sense of expanding self-employment, which is meant to heighten initiative and increase supply of consumer goods, when the state does not free up resources needed for the plan to operate.
"I don't understand the goal," he said. "If the state does not sell materials to the self-employed they must obtain them through illegal means. It seems as if the state is stimulating theft from itself." The key to putting more food on the table, Tamargo believes, is "in the quality of real independence the farmer will have. The UBPC is a radical change, one that doesn't lose sight of our principled points of reference, but an effective democratic socialism is still our goal."
Economist Omar Everleny, also from CEEC, which services the state's economic planning board, said that UBPC co-ops were created because the traditional co-operatives (CPAs) are six times as productive as state collectives.
 These economists are proposing to co-operativize industry along the lines of the UBPCs, which can be considered a step towards giving more control to co-op members, at least potentially.

There is more solid economic growth in tourism and commercial joint ventures, however. In January, 1995, Fidel said that between foreigners and Cuba 20 billion dollars had been spent in developing the tourist industry in recent years. The number of tourists coming to Cuba is steadily increasing, at a rate of  between 10 and 30 per cent annually, although growth has not been as great as anticipated. The state grossed $720 million in 1993, 30 percent or $200 million profit, from the 544,000 holiday makers. Fidel speculated that increasing resort capacity could eventually accommodate up to 10 million tourists a year. At current prices, this would net Cuba $6 billion.  
A Spanish hotel firm, Guitart, decided to build eight new hotels in virgin territory--Cayo Coco--after recently opening the first one. The first passenger ship is sailing tourists to Cuba. A US shipping company estimates that 2.4 million visitors a year would sail to Cuba if the blockade were lifted.
The first foreign commercial bank, a branch of the Curacao-based Netherlands Caribbean Bank, has received a license to operate on the island, at the same time as it offered 50 million dollars in credit for Cuba's sugar and nickel industries. Credits will be paid for in nickel. The Dutch firm handles about half of Cuba's total nickel exports. Nickel grossed two-hundred millions dollars in 1993. The forecast for 1994, several years ago, was for 60,000 tons , but only 30,000 were mined 1993, and the bank currently predicts that 40,000 tons will be reached by the end of 1994. Nickel is third in export income after sugar and tourism.
The state had hoped for a rise in export income in 1994, but many economists were privately hedging bets by estimating no growth or decline. Nevertheless, they  foresee improvement in 1995. Predictions for 1995 are that tobacco will bring in double the $50 million 1993 total. Several foreign companies are currently exploring and excavating crude oil, with hopes for excavating 1.3 million  tons in 1994, 200,000 tons above last year, which was an all-time high. Most of this oil is used to generate 30 per cent of electricity use. The minister in charge of basic industry, Marcos Portal Leon, predicted that electric capacity would increase by  600 megawatts by the end of the year with new plants. That increase should cut back on the power cuts. The blackout norm in mid-1994 was 70 hours a week for 70 per cent of Havanans, and is as much as 100 hours for many in the countryside.
Another hopeful area of growth is in biotechnology and pharmaceutical production, which grossed  $150 million in 1994. This would place it fourth in order of hard currency importance. Cuba has a new contract with Brazil for exchanging $30 million worth of generic drugs for food and raw materials. And more Cuban medicines were sold in pharmacies and hospitals in late 1994. 

At mid-1994, Cubans were eating less than since the 1960s, but that began to change soon. Many social indicators, at least in quantity of educational and health services, remained the same or improved. The following information comes from various ministries, the National Bank, "Granma" and my rations.

SPECIAL PERIOD RATIONS
Per person per month
Item			1991				1994
sugar			4-5lb				6lb
rice			6lb				6lb
beans			20oz				20oz 
vegetables		as available			irregularly
ground beef		0.75lb				0.75lb
chicken		1lb				only children
fish			0.5lb				1-2lb (sometimes)
eggs			20				7-14
coffee( with peas)	2 ounces (fortnight)		same 
milk			For children under 7 and medical diets
bread			one small roll (daily)		same
cooking oil		1.5lb				0.5  irregularly
cooking kerosene	0.5 liter			1.5 liter
cigarettes		4-5 packs			same plus "free" sales
hand soap		1 bar				rarely
laundry soap		1 bar				irregularly
detergent		7oz				rarely
matches		1 small box			no change
toothpaste		1 tube				sometimes
shoes			1 pair per year			hardly ever
underwear		4 pairs per year		rarely
pants			1 pair per year			rarely
dresses		1 per year			cloth if available

SOCIAL INDICATORS
1959  		1989  		1994
Unemployment 		16% ('56) 	6% ('88) 	7%
Illiteracy 			23%  		6%(´90)  	2%  
Life span 			62		75		75
Infant mortality 		78.8		11.1		9.9
Habitant per doctor		1076		303		200
Calorie consumption		2410		2848		1863  
Protein grams			53.7		75.5		46(´93)

FACTFILE
Population = 10.9 million; 75 per cent urban
Land area = 110,992 sq. kil.
Average monthly wage = 200 pesos
Working population = 3,600,000

EDUCATION (1994)
13,000 schools, 45 universities
2,400,000 students, 224,000 university students
250,000 teachers, 36,000 professors
200,000 children tutored, 150,000 nursery,
146,000 pre-school,
57,000 in special schools for handicapped
970,000 graduate teachers and professors since 1959

HEALTH (1994)
267 hospitals, 421 polyclinics
55,000 doctors, 1 per 200 inhabitants, 90% coverage family doctors
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 14
	EMIGRATION, A US WEAPON

"Fidel Castro will not dictate United States immigration policy." (President Bill Clinton, Aug19, 1994)

As the National Assembly was making financial law and the nation´s workers were discussing taxes and production problems, a crisis in emigration unfolded. This phenomenon was caused by a combination of hard times--scarcity and frustrations--pressures to join family members in Miami, and fluctuating US immigration policies towards the Cuban people.
A major weapon in the US blockade arsenal is immigration-emigration manipulation. The government at once encourages Cubans to reject their government´s rule while making it difficult or impossible for those who wish to emigrate to the "land of milk and honey" to do so.
Approximately 1.3 million Cubans have left their country to live elsewhere since the revolution began. Around one million live in the United States, most in Miami, New Jersey, and Los Angeles. The first group to depart numbered about 100,000. They were mainly Batistianos: militarists, rich and corrupt. By the time of the October 1962 missile crisis, the number of emigrants had doubled.
The second exodus was Camarioca, in October 1965, when relatives from Miami came in boats to take family members and others from this small port area. Many wished to escape following the harrowing events in late 1962. Over 100,000 were on a list to leave. About 25,000 were airlifted by US planes from Varadero, following an intragovernment agreement.
The third and largest outpouring occurred in 1980, the Mariel incident.
 Jimmy Carter allowed the Committee of 75,  formed by Cuban-Americans, some wishing an end to the blockade and others more cautious conservatives,  to travel to Cuba at the invitation of Fidel for a dialogue. The two parts agreed to start up exile visits to families in Cuba, and for the release of 15,000 political prisoners that the US would take.
By 1980,  80,000 Cuban-Americans had visited their nation of birth, bearing gifts for family members. Money and consumer goods brought--some bought with money loaned from banks--had a destabilizing affect on many inhabitants.

President Carter´s "human rights" approach to foreign policy was also contradictory. He refused to take all the political prisoners, putting an obstacle in an orderly transfer of refugees. 
At the same time, Cuba was experiencing serious economic setbacks, in part, due to the handiwork of  the Carter-appointed "liberal" CIA director, Stansfield Turner. Evidence that the CIA was testing, and prepared to use, bacteriological warfare had leaked out in the US during congressional hearings on the Watergate and Vietnam war debacles. I acquired more proof of actual use inside Cuba. I saw coded CIA messages and high-tech spying equipment, in addition to hearing personal testimonies (already discussed in chapter two).
The temptation of wealth in Miami, the costly destruction of mysterious crop and animal diseases, coupled with the stifling bureaucracy and central planning board (that led to a shake-up with 13 top government ministers being replaced), resulted in unrest and a desire to "leave the mess behind."
Carter refused to respond to Fidel´s offer to negotiate terms for reproachment, including compensation for US properties nationalized. Instead, Carter "ordered" Fidel to get his troops out of Angola. He also denied visas for Cubans wishing to emigrate, or even for visits; instead, he accepted desperate Cubans who hijacked planes or boats to get to the US. Cuba had been consistently cooperating with the US, since 1973, and no longer accepted US Americans who hijacked planes to come to Cuba. Ironically, it was the US which initiated the hijacking game when it encouraged Cuban-Americans to commit hijackings in the early 1960s. 
This was the backdrop to the Mariel exodus. Unable to travel  legally, some Cubans began occupying embassies in the hopes of obtaining "political asylum." On April 1, 1980, a group of stressed Cubans pushed through the gates of the Peruvian embassy. A Cuban guard was killed in a crossfire. Ten thousand Cubans crammed into the embassy in the next two days. Later, Costa Rica accepted them in refugee camps, and then the US offered to take all Cubans who wanted to come. A sea lift was begun that lasted half-a-year, until the US government stopped allowing private boats to depart from Miami for Mariel, where emigrants were allowed to gather in wait for transportation.
In all, between 112,000 and 125,000 Cubans left their country in this fashion, and between four and five million others demonstrated against them and US policy. Some of the manifestations were ugly.
Many of these emigrants, so-called "freedom lovers", were parents who abandoned their children, in many cases when there was no other adult left at home. I personally know of young people today who were left behind this way. The Cuban government immediately established a network of childcare centers and homes for 500 Marielito children. They received psychological counseling and other care whenever needed. Many of them were adopted. Only a handful had to be placed in foster homes.

Meanwhile in the US, members of the Committee of 75 were harassed. The cigar factory of one member was bombed. Another, Carlos Muñiz, was murdered by the right-wing. A coalition of 140 Cuban exile groups called for an invasion of Cuba, and yet another secret training camp was set up near Miami. But no invasion took place. Nevertheless, the US government didn´t accept any significant numbers of emigrants following Mariel, until 1984 when President Ronald Reagan agreed to open up visitation between the two countries, and allowed up to 20,000 emigrants a year. But a renewed pattern of duplicity was established in the first year, when only 1227 were accepted. A few Cubans wanting to get out paddled inner tubes across the ocean strait. Others simmered over the next decade, before the next exodus.
It is difficult for "First World" people to understand why so many Cubans want to leave, if they aren´t poverty-stricken and/or brutally repressed/oppressed. What many Westerners fail to realize is that the Cuban government had not refused exist visas, either for visitations or for emigration, on a wholescale basis. There have been limitations: prohibitions for young people prior to serving their social commitments following studies; for people with security clearances, soldiers and high-ranking party members. Cuba´s emigration policies have also been liberalized in recent years. Still, Cubans are not allowed to possess their own passports and must apply for them when wishing to travel. And there is the all-mighty prohibition of monetary currency. The Cuban peso cannot buy a ticket on an airplane.
Whenever there is a radical change in any government or national direction, a restructuring or revolution, there are always many people adversely affected, either materially, politically or spiritually, and they want to leave. This was the case following the American revolution when the United States was founded. Over 100,000 left,  mainly to Canada and Nova Scotia. Some were tarred and feathered and shoved on their way. Others, mostly Tories, stayed but refused to cooperate with the new government. They were often denied civil liberties; some were murdered, jailed or forced into exile.
Less than a century later, another exodus of thousands took place when the civil war broke out, and southerners, mostly, resettled in Mexico or South America.
The percentage of Cubans fleeing their land is about one to ten, proportionately more than fled the American revolution, but then no other land was offering streets paved with gold for US emigrants.
"You can not pretend that the United States is not a highly industrialized, economically developed country, and this is not the case with Cuba. The U.S.A. uses immigration from Cuba as a political weapon...to what other underdeveloped country in this hemisphere has the United States offered its citizens an opportunity to immigrate freely?"

This was Fidel Castro´s answer to photo-journalist Lee Lockwood on the subject of emigration.

I might add that if the US were to open its borders with Mexico and offer all Mexicans the luxuries it has offered Cubans--permanent residence and quick citizenship, social welfare with an extra one hundred dollars over the US citizen welfare client category for having fled communism, housing is secured, and usually jobs--I doubt that half would remain in their poverty-stricken and seriously corrupted nation. East Los Angeles already has the second greatest concentration of Mexicans in the world. About 20 million Mexicans live in the US, and millions more from Central and South America.
Many  Cubans who don´t want to leave their country have mixed feelings about those who take their lives in hand to do so. Not long before the 1994 exodus, I witnessed an incident of  "rafters" while sailing with the "Shark," a small Cuban tanker.
Six miles north of Santa Maria del Mar, the helmsman spied two figures bobbing up and down on two huge tractor inner tubes, tied together, and paddling north. They wore fatigues, Vietnamese-style straw hats, and carried large knapsacks. They weren´t fishing.
Captain Antonio Garcia Urquiola ordered the helmsman to set a course that circled them. The pair showed no indication that they wished to be assisted. As we got closer, I could make out the facial features of a man in his 30s and a ruddy teenager. The youngster seemed a bit exhausted; the older man determined.
A couple of seamen prepared to throw out a life line, but the chief engineer said it could be dangerous. "The sea is choppy. They could slip trying to get into it and drown. They aren´t in any trouble, yet. Let´s see what happens."
The current got stronger as dark approached. These men risked joining the statistics of hundreds of drowned persons who try to enter the United States this way.
Although the captain told me he believes in "freedom to travel," he performed his duty and called the coast guard, after having circled the pair for an hour.  Less than an hour later, a coast guard boat sped up alongside their make-shift craft. A diver jumped into the water to assist them aboard, and then cut the inner tubes with a knife. The older, would-be defector glared at him nastily. The youngster looked tired, perhaps, relieved.
The two security  men in shorts, and an armed soldier, waved to our captain. He waved back half-heartedly, showing no expression. The coast guard boat darted off towards shore.
The merchant marines chattered about what they had just witnessed. Some thought it was "disgraceful" that the pair had sought "to abandon the fatherland, which would only lend more propaganda ammunition to the enemy assault against Cuba." Others emphasized the right to travel and to decide what to do with one´s own life. Many valued the macho aspect: tienen cojones. Some commented that they were crazy, both from a political and nationalist perspective, and given the danger involved.
 Within a couple hours, winds blew strongly and swelled the sea to three-meter heights. We prepared to stay the night at sea.

The captain invited me to imbide his favorite beer, "Urquel," a Czech make suited to his name. He had been one of the 27 moles, and some of his colleagues--unknown to him at the time--had been assigned by the CIA to stir up "emigration agitation." Captain Urquiola said that he was only "following instructions as a captain of a ship upon seeing defectors, or just people, at sea in potential trouble. Besides orders, these men deserved to be saved from drowning."
After we limped back to port in the morning, the captain and I parted--he to find another ship he could sail. A few days later I saw him. He was smiling.
"Security has lifted my quarantine. I´ve got a cargo ship to Mexico," he told me. DSE had kept all the former double agents in Cuba for a number of years following their disclosure, a safety  precaution in case the CIA wished to take revenge.
Scuttlebutt at Mambisa had it that the pair picked up at sea had been interrogated and let go. The crime of  "illegal exist" can get one jailed for up to 18 months, but this sanction is rarely used anymore. They were shucked after the 1994 "rafter" events.
	THE RAFTER CRISIS 
The governments of the United States and Cuba arrived at an agreement, on September 9, 1994, regarding emigration-immigration policies, putting a stop to illegal immigration for the first time in 35 years.
The Cuban government got what it wanted as far as migration policies are concerned. It did not, however, achieve lifting of the US economic blockade or the end of its psychological warfare, nor the reversal of President Clinton´s most recent reprisals: cessation of remittances, drastic reduction of charter flights, and anti-Cuban diplomacy in the UN.
Nevertheless, the Cuban government was hopeful that the "positive results" of the accords, which were quickly agreed to, would "open the way for new meetings" that could lead to the end of US aggression, as "Granma" editorialized on September 10.
The accord's key points are: a) both sides are to impede the illegal exits of Cubans to the US--Cuba is to stop people from sailing out and the US to reverse its decades-long policy of welcoming illegal entries with residency and economic advantages, and dto return those who try toenter the US illegally; b) both governments are to impede the use of violence by those intending to reach the US from Cuba; c) the US guarantees a minimum of 20,000 immigration visas annually, plus more to those with close relatives in the US and others already on the waiting list.
This was a major tactical victory for the Cuba, for its position that it is US policies of economic embargo-blockade and playing games with the immigration issue that had encouraged the mass illegal exodus.
 In one month's time, about 40,000 had taken to the sea before the accords were made and implemented.
Cuba showed that it took the agreement seriously by immediately warning Cubans not to use illegal means to exit, and it succeeded in stopping exits without using violence.

Seven Cuban ferries, merchant and naval ships had been boatjacked between July 13 and August 26, as the rafter egress began. These daredevils had been preceded by about 200 other Cubans who occupied the embassies of Belgium, Germany and Chile as a means of escaping hardships by "earning" diplomatic asylum. They eventually  gave up and returned home as it became clear that neither Cuba nor the foreign governments would allow emigration to those employing force and undiplomatic means. No one was arrested, however, despite having committed several illegal acts, including crashing through a gate at the German embassy with a stolen truck.
The US initiated "Operation Distant Shore," a classified plan involving 37 federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, the CIA and FBI, and the Immigration Nationalization Service before the embassy occupations and boatjackings. On June 17, 1994, the "San Francisco Chronicle" carried a front-page story entitled, "Secret Plan to Meet Mass Immigration: US Strategy to Handle Sudden Influx from Cuba."  "Operation Distant Shore" was exposed as a program that began in 1981 and now reactivated to encourage "mass migration," the Establishment daily  newspaper wrote. The exodus was foreseen as a result of counterrevolutionary developments inside Cuba, also prepared by the US. The fact that there were seven hijackings in less than a two-month period--a unique occurrence--was not a coincidence, clearly the more so considering that the hijackers, some of whom murdered people, were welcomed by US authorities. And "Operation Distant Shore" policy and covert actions were made before the first rafters or boatjackings occurred, just as had been the case with CIA messages sent to assumed Cuban agents concerning bacteriological warfare.
I present a chronicle of the unusual phenomena of July-August including socialist Cuba's first street riot, on August 5. It is based largely on information Fidel Castro offered over  national television on August 24 and broadcast on CNN. I have excerpted from the September 7, 1994 English version of "Granma International." The facts delivered by Fidel are accurate, as best as I can ascertain.
 Fidel Castro is reading a written chornicle part of the time and making extemporaneous remarks at other times. Phrases in parentheses are my remarks: 

Wednesday, July 13.
Hijacking of the 13 de Marzo  tugboat (a collision with other tugboats which caused the vessel to sink) 	31 people rescued by the Border Patrol units. 32 people were drowned.
As part of the campaign unleashed in the wake of this incident, on July 18 President Clinton declares that the incident is another example of the brutal nature of the Cuban regime. (It's been proved that the authorities had  nothing to do with this accident)
Tuesday, July 26.

Hijacking of passenger boat Baracoa , with about 30 people on board. The hijackers, armed with a pistol and various other weapons threaten to kill one of the passengers--young woman of 17--they throw two passengers overboard—one of them at three miles from the coast...The vessel is intercepted 36 miles from the Cuban coast by a unit of the U.S. Coast guard Service, they pick up 15 people and hand over the hijackers' weapons. (Cuba's border patrol confined themselves to rescuing the people thrown overboard).
Wednesday, August 3
Hijacking of La Coubre passenger boat by a group of people armed with a pistol, a revolver, a hand grenade and various other weapons. Units of the U.S. Coast Guard Service pick up the hijackers and other passengers, numbering over 100, on the high seas after which units of the Border Patrol rescue the remaining 76 passengers.
Thursday, August 4
Second hijacking of the Baragua passenger boat. Murder of NCO Gabriel Lamoth Caballero. Having run out of fuel and having failed in their intimidation attempts, the hijackers were captured the next day and the boat and its passengers returned without further incident. What really happened in this case is that they surrendered, they are within jurisdictional waters, they ran out of fuel, they got tired and they asked the authorities for help.
Friday, August 5
Acts of vandalism by counterrevolutionary and antisocial elements in Havana city, linked to the hijacking of vessels for emigration purposes, provoke an energetic response from the capital's revolutionary people.
On the same day, I made my first appearance on Cuban television to discuss the events, and I said then: "If the United States does not take rapid and efficient measures to stop the incitement of illegal exits from the country, we will feel obliged to tell the Border Patrol not to stop any vessel that wishes to leave Cuba..."
Monday, August 8
A Coast Guard Service source states that up until now, 5154 Cubans have been rescued in the waters off the Florida Straits. According to the same source, figures for previous years are as follows:
1983-89 = 630 
1990 = 467
1991=  2203
1992 = 2557
1993 = 3656
1994 = 4731 up until August 1.
One can appreciate how there is a growing annual increase in the numbers of people being illegally received in the United States; it's a fact that a mass exodus is being produced...
That same day, Hijacking in Mariel of ferrocement vessel 5034, from Military Unit 4349 of the Revolutionary Navy. Murder of Corvette Captain Roberto Aguilar Reyes--he was then a ship lieutenant. Regardless of the fact that the Border Patrol immediately informs the U.S. Coast Guard Service of the hijacking and crime, one of their units intercepts the hijacked vessel and picks up 26 people on board, among them the assassin himself, and they are transferred to Key West.
Sunday, August 14
Hundreds of people, with the captain's complicity, board the Jussara tanker at the port of Mariel. In other words, there is already such a high degree of impunity, of assurance that nothing will be done to those who hijack boats, such a high degree of encouragement, with all of the previous actions and statements, that now we are facing a case in which hundreds of people, around 700, decide to hijack a ship transporting oil, a highly dangerous vessel to travel on. This was a complex, dangerous situation which obliged the police to proceed with the utmost care in order to prevent an accident, because a ship carrying oil is very dangerous. By remaining calm and cool-headed, they managed to resolve the matter without incident. If anything at all had happened, we would have been blamed for it.
Monday, August 15
The Ministry of the Interior [MININT] announces voluntary evacuation of the Jussara tanker by all those on board. No action whatsoever was taken against those people...
Friday, August 19
President Clinton's press conference... [where] he says: "Today I have ordered that illegal refugees from Cuba will not be allowed to enter the United States. Refugees rescued at sea will be taken to our naval base at Guantanamo..."

        (In the statement issued on August 20 President Clinton said:) "Yesterday I announced measures to check Castro's efforts to export his problems through this exodus. Today I will announce additional measures corresponding with the Cuban Democracy Act (Torricelli Act), in order to limit the Cuban government's capacity to acquire hard currency and to extend our flow of information to the Cuban people.Specifically, the remittance of money to Cuba will not be authorized... Secondly, only charter flights transporting legal immigrants between Havana and Miami will be permitted..." (Cut from 14 to 2 a week).
     "The United States will continue to present proof of human rights abuses, such as the sinking of the March 13  tugboat, before the United Nations and other international organizations"...

(Fidel cites civil liberty reforms Cuba has recently enacted)
--Emigration rights for Cuban citizens...The generalized principle (was) that anyone aged 20 had this right.
An age reduction from 20 to 18 years  was proposed....because this is usually the age when many people do their military service, but their right to travel abroad was established.
--The six month time limit on temporary travel permits for personal reasons has been extended to eleven... 	--Repatriation of emigrés has been made possible...
--Another recently adopted measure was the legalization and the right to family remittances, which were not allowed for almost 35 years; the dollar was depenalized and family remittances authorized. This was happening anyway, in one way or another, but we legalized it, we facilitated it. Hundreds of thousands of people here, in one way or another, were benefiting from these remittances to solve certain problems...(and) have now been deprived of them...
Everyone returning to Cuba after visiting the United States brought back suitcases full of medicines; they had the right to bring up to ten kilograms of medicines without paying any kind of tax...
An immigration agreement was signed... in 1984... by none less than Reagan, who was very anti-Cuban and very hostile towards Cuba... The agreement... came into effect in 1985. That year they issued 1227 visas, out of the 20 000 agreed upon.
Then came the years 1986 and 1987; the agreement was suspended because of the conflict that arose from the U.S. government's establishment of the unjustly named Radio Martí; even its name was an offense to the Cuban people. But this conflict was not invented by Cuba, or initiated by Cuba, or provoked by Cuba; it was provoked by them. That was why the agreement was suspended in 1986 and 1987...
1988 was the year in which they issued the highest number of visas, 3472 in all;
in 1989, they issued 1631;
in 1990, they issued 1098;
in 1991, they issued 1376; 
in 1992, see how the number goes down, 910;
in 1993, they issued 964...
and in 1994, up until now, until July 22, with the year more than half over, 544.
 They should have issued a total of 160 000 for those purposes by now, and they've issued only 11 222, or 7.01 percent, and in the last few years, less than five percent of the 20 000 visas. That is to say, around 150 000 people were not able to travel there, and, of course, they've been accumulating...(Yet) they issued 17 210 for the category of counterrevolutionary ex-prisoners and their families...
Moreover, while they were issuing fewer and fewer visas to travel legally, they were accepting more and more illegal immigrants. This has been happening from 1990 through to 1994.
In 1990, Cuba succeeded in preventing 1593 people from traveling illegally; the United States, nevertheless, accepted 467 illegal immigrants who arrived on their coasts.

In 1991, 6596 people were prevented from traveling illegally to the United States; that same year, 1997 people who traveled illegally were accepted.
In 1992, 7073 were prevented from traveling; the United States accepted 2511 who managed to arrive illegally.
In 1993, Cuba succeeded in preventing 11 564 from traveling; the number of people who arrived illegally in the United States and were accepted that year was 4208.
So far in 1994, a total of 10 975 have been prevented from traveling; the United States has accepted 4092, and at this rate will accept a total of some 10 000.
The result: Cuba's efforts have succeeded in preventing 37 801 people from arriving illegally over a four-and-a-half-year period, while U.S. policy has allowed 13 275 to be accepted during the same four and a half years...regardless (of) what crimes they have committed...(and they have) spent years relentlessly coaxing and exhorting people to steal a boat, leave illegally and do anything necessary to reach the United States. Can they really put the blame on us? Is there not an obvious policy, an obvious strategy at work here?...
In four and a half years, more people entered the United States illegally than had entered legally in eight years...Now it can also be clearly seen how the two mechanisms functioned: the more difficult the economic situation became in Cuba, the fewer legal immigrants were accepted, while more illegal immigrants were taken in...Another diabolical mechanism that is connected to this: we were the ones who guarded the United States' coasts...Now, if any incident occurred, if the world came to an end, all the blame was put on us, all the campaigns were waged against us, and there are numerous examples.
For example, when the incident in Cojimar occurred, in July 1993, we informed the U.S. authorities--because a U.S. citizen was injured there, everyone knows what happened in Cojimar--that, "Around 2200 hours on Thursday, July 1, 1993, the Cuban Border Patrol  captured a speedboat called Midnight Express..." (The report) goes on to give more information.
"One of the boat's crew members was injured in both legs during the capture. He said that he was a U.S. citizen, named Ricky Robert Hoddynott, and that he lived in Key West, in the state of Florida. He also stated that he was paid a specific amount of money for each person that he took to U.S. territory...
"Three Cuban citizens lost their lives during the capture of the Midnight Express and others were injured"--we informed them...
 "There is no reason why the Cuban authorities should become guardians of the Unites States' coasts."
 This is not something stated for the first time this August; this is something that was said over a year ago, 13 months ago...
 How can you resolve a problem that also includes compulsion, that includes the exhortation to travel on all the radio stations, and that includes a legal and honored reception to anybody who arrives in this way? They weren't talking about those who could have drowned, they encouraged and created that procedure. Because of the problems of the Gulf  Stream current, they formed organizations such as "Brothers to the rescue"--I don't know exactly how they're named--with planes, boats, everything, to go and receive them as soon as possible.
Does it or does it not constitute a very powerful incentive to illegal emigration?...
Well, what´s our sin? To resist, to not have allowed ourselves to be destroyed, to stand firm, not to do as others have done, to refuse to surrender? Is that our sin? Is that the sin they wish to punish us for? Well, they can try it, but it will be very costly, very difficult and very unlikely to succeed.

	WHAT'S BEHIND THE EXODUS & RIOT

Fidel and Raul Castro periodically respond to US destabilization tactics as Fidel did on August 24: if you invade you will meet an armed people, who will resist nobly. I believe that would be the case, and so do most Cubans. Nevertheless, the constant agitation emanating from the Yankee omnipotent attitude, daily life hassles and scarcities, and the Cuban party-state strict controls of political decision-making and information-debate flow, causes hypertension in the population. It is not hard to imagine why many hundreds of  thousands want to "get out" when you consider the stress that most Cubans feel. Unemployment is now a serious problem for the first time in 35 years and many young people see no hope for their future. Add to this the unconscionable tourist policies that place dollar shops in the midst of the most marginal, rundown neighborhoods,  tantalizing Cubans with few pesos and no dollars, and you have fodder for the August 5 riot.
The day before the outburst, off-duty policeman Gabriel Lamoth Caballero was shot to death when some desperados boatjacked the Baragua ferry. A false rumor then circulated that Miami Cubans were sending a flotilla to pick up those who wish to flee Cuba, á la Mariel. Harbor authorities closed down ferry lines until they could create security measures. Yet another boatjacking attempt was made and thwarted at dawn on August 5. In the early morning, groups of young people began forming on the malecón sea-front wall near the wharf. Some openly discussed ways to illegally "escape," and shouts went up against the government.
The Blas Roca contingent 5 was called, "through the channels here," as one construction worker participant put it to me, "to calm down the situation."	
There was no physical confrontation until 2 p.m., when some youths began throwing rocks at the workers, and at a couple of dollar stores and the Deauville hotel in central Havana.
Few police intervened, and only a few warning shots were fired in the air at times.
"At first, we were outnumbered," recounts Domero Alfonso Cardenas, organizer of the Blas Roca 5 union. "We fought back defensively to put down these antisocial and criminal elements."
"I think that some people both here and in Miami want to create a difficult situation in order to provoke a US military invasion," said Alberto Torres, general secretary of the union.
When it was all over (about three hours duration) there were 35 injured, including civilians on both sides and ten policemen. A half-dozen people were hospitalized, including a policeman and a construction worker, who lost an eye. There were no deaths. Several of the 300 rioters arrested have served time for common crimes and others have cases pending in court.
At 5 p.m., President Castro and thousands of other revolutionaries marched through the same streets as calm was being restored. As riots and police response go, this was moderate and rationally handled by international standards, yet the vast numbers and uniqueness of public anger at the revolutionary government was serious cause for concern. This was, afterall, the first riot in socialist Cuba´s history.

         Granma estimated rioter numbers at 700. Jorge Más Canosa professed--from Miami--30,000. My estimate is about 10,000 active participants and passive spectators, of  which the latter far outnumbered the former.
Ferry lines were now down, military patrols watched over the larger ships, and ,on August 8, Lt. Roberto Aguilar Reyes was murdered in cold blood by a boatjacker. The US government did nothing to stop the flight or sanction the violence, and accepted the murderers as "freedom fighters." The Cuban government lost its patience and relaxed its attitude toward stopping people who peacefully disembarked in home-made vessels and inner tubes. "Boat people" began streaming out of Havana Bay towards the Florida Straits. Perhaps as many as 10,000 made it to Florida shores before President Clinton put a stop to the 35-year policy of accepting all Cubans who made it to the US illegally.
"Boat people" conjures up horrors of  brutal murders, tortures and generalized repression by governments that force people to flee for their lives. It also denotes starvation and malnutrition. The world has been repeatedly told by US propagandists that all those conditions exist in "Castro's prison country." Yet if you saw the rafters leave, as I did, or looked closely at the TV photos, you would know that is not the reality in "Castroville." A gala atmosphere accompanied many groups of rafters as they assembled their craft and set sail--with or without sails. Singing, guitar playing, even dancing and clapping took place under the eyes of party functionaries and policemen.
One group made a parade out of their departure as they marched down a plush neighborhood in Havana with their boat held high, barking out to the gathering crowd to "make way for the Kon Tiki expedition." No one looked like skeletons, or even underfed. No one had been beaten or wounded by "Castro's brutal police."
No one I talked with felt their government was violently brutal.
Were they desperate? Most perused the question when asked and clamly responded with, "Not desperate, but the situation is impossible, and I don't foresee any significant change for the future. And the United States might invade, or put up a total naval blockade and cut off all our income and trade. Where do we go from that?"
Many responded that they had no job, or didn't get anything meaningful out of the one they had. Some were members of the Communist party. Even some functionaries wanted to join relatives already in the US or recently disembarked on a raft.
	PROPAGANDA: OFFENSE-DEFENSE
While much of the US media treated this crisis with greater equanimity than usual treatment of Cuban affairs, they could not refrain from taking up theMas Canosa line that "Cuban government ships...rammed and sank" the 13th of March tugboat. (See "Time" and "Newsweek" August-September 1994 issues, "El Nuevo Herald," and CNN coverage).

Survivors, both innocent passengers kidnapped and culprits, told media in Cuba that it was the pursuing tugboats that hit the tugboat they were on , and not "government ships"--although all boats are owned by the government other than a few small fishing boats. They said that two tugboats placed themselves beside and in front of the 13th of March, after more than an hour of trying to stop it by using persuasive methods, and the helmsman did not swerve. It was actually the 13th of March which hit a steel tugboat trying to stop its theft. As soon as the old, wooden tugboat began to sank, the few livesavers that other tugboats had were thrown in and an approaching coast guard boat cast theirs in too. Half  the people were saved.
"El Nuevo Herald" (July 25, 1994) offered only the version put out by Canosa and his friend, former terrorist Armando Valladares, who protested in front of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington against "Castroist genocide." The US media ignore large sections of the Cuban-American community in Miami and elsewhere that disagree with the Canosa-Valladares right-wingers. Such one-sided media coverage of Cuba is decades old.
The US government had introduced psychological warfare against the "Castro regime" under President Dwight D. Eisenhower in early 1959. The CIA initiated the first radio station aimed at undermining Cuban support for the new revolutionary government in 1960. It was called Radio Swan and CIA officer David Atlee Phillips was the coordinator. It was used to prepare for the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961.
Not one minute has passed since without radio programming beaming into Cuba with CIA and/or paramilitary backing. The United States Information Agency, operating with both a congressional budget and secret CIA funds, broadcasts propaganda into 39 countries. Cuba is a main target.
On May 20, 1985, the USIA initiated so-called "Radio Martí," over medium and short wave. The medium wave broadcasting is declared illegal by every international communication association. The station started with two frequencies and now broadcasts over 26 short wave and three medium wave. USIS allows Jorge Mas Canosa to be the de facto head of both Radio Martí and its sister television station, "invisible television".
Besides Radio Marti, there are 16 other radio stations sending 1,148 hours weekly (in 1994, and Clinton increased them to 1,800 hours in August) to Cuba from Florida, plus the US Guantanamo naval base's radio and television stations from inside Cuban territory. 
From June through August 1994, I monitored some of these stations. Here is a sample of what they say:
--June 20, 1900/Voz de Fundacíon (Más Canosa's own station heard over SW 98.50 and 94.95). "Unite and attack the state, the Castro tyranny, the infrastracture!" "Fidel Castro is an assassin, a thief, a liar. He stands alongside Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin."
--June 27, 2100/Voz de Fundacíon. "The Cubans in the embassies are occupying them against the tyranny. Take your liberty by force! Consolidate the internal opposition."
--June 29, 1900/Voz de Alfa 66. (The paramilitary group's own station broadcast on SW 73.55 and 94.95). "The bad Cubans who visit Cuba are considered military targets."

These are but a few samples of ordinary broadcasts, all before the boatjackings and related events. Then in mid-July through August, several of the most virulent stations claimed credit for inspiring the boatjackings, characterizing the kidnappers and murderers as "heroes" and "patriots."
The most hard-line, who call for US government military blockades and invasions, broadcast 590 programs, according to Cuban monitors, in three weeks of August, in which they encouraged people to disrupt the Cuban state from within. Five-hundred and forty programs encouraged illegal departures as acts of patriotism. A few, such as Radio Martí and Voz de Fundacíon, backed the new Washington line of  no more mass exoduses. Yet they continued to applaud the rafters and the "appropriation" of state vessels. They broadcast double messages: stay and fight the Castro "tyranny," and leave illegally, but without transport aid from Miami.
On August 16 alone, Radio Martí made 76 references to the "successful boatjackings."
These stations were hysterically joyous about the malecón disturbance.
--August 6, 2100/Voz de Fundacíon. "The streets are full with the united people protesting for liberty, an end to the Castroist regime!...This is a serious crisis. Castro is mistaken. 'His' people are taking the initiative on malecon and putting Castro on the defensive. Nine million, at least, want to leave to find liberty...We are in constant communication with Cuba. We've reached the first stage. The second will start soon, and then the third. What is important is for the people to rise up! Act! Take the streets! We are united. Let's fight!...Everyone who wants to leave, do so. Take embarkations. The US has an intervention plan. Be ready!"
--August 6, 2130/Radio Caiman. (Heard over SW 99.6). "Castroist corruption provokes the protests. Foreigners are buying the Castro regime. Fifteen thousand Cubans die of cancer from lack of  food. Infant mortality escalates. There is no way without a market economy, political democracy, an end to Castro."
--August 6, 2200/Voz de Fundacíon. "The brave rebellions will be decisive for the future of Cuba. Repete what you did yesterday. You can count on all our resources. Demand your liberty." Mas Canosa then came on to say, "Don't go to work. Take to the streets. Don't go to school. Take to the streets. You can do it. We'll help with all that is necessary."
While there is no doubt that the US-dominated international media serve to stir up antagonism toward Cuba's socialist state, the Cuban Communist party orientation of the national media is not a helpful persuader.
Just after the Bay of Pigs invasion, Fidel set down policy on how the media and culture would be handled: "Everything within the revolution, nothing against it." This black and white, all-or-nothing approach, is difficult to define--and who should define limits. It has been policy ever since, causing a dulled sensation in the majority of receivers.
Both US and Cuba media networks distort reality, but for different motivations.
The US-international media are motivated to maximize profits for the few who own them, men who sit on other multinational corporate boards and who greatly influence foreign policy, which is shaped to maximize profits by controling other governments and economies.

 	The Cuban media is motivated for the welfare of the state and the people as a whole, of this I am convinced. How it perceives to do so, however, is quite debatable. (See chapter 16.)
Cuba's leadership has every right to orient the media, to call in the wagons, to avoid another situation such as "El Mercurio" in Chile, and "La Prensa" and "Radio Catolica" in Nicaragua, in which the CIA infiltrated and wrapped the government and their efforts to improve life for all. But Cuba's methods of control boomerang, because they irritate and dishearten their own people. Unfortunately, I must conclude that it is Cuban media that encourage, unwantedly, more people to listen to Radio Martí and other truly subversive radio stations aimed against Cuba.
The only way out is: (a) for the Yankees to stop their psychological warfare, (b) and for the Cuban government to allow open access to information with a professional approach to reporting and open debate.
Failure to realize (a) must no longer preclude (b).
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 15
	OPEN MARKETS HALT ECONOMIC DECLINE

"Fundamentally, this will be supply and demand, plus the regulations and taxes we´ll have to apply. We must be clear about something: if there is food for the people, the risks don´t matter. This is an idea that must be well thought-out, without being rushed. Often good ideas fail at the moment of implementation due to lack of controls, that lack of systemization of which we are so often guilty." (Raul Castro, September 17, 1994, announcing that  open market places were approved.)

The most far-reaching reform adopted in 1994 were the supply-demand market places.The critical shortage of  food and continued inadequate production led the government to open "free" food markets on October first, followed by industrial-artisan markets on December first. And the economy stopped declining.
By the end of the year--in just three months of operation--the agro-markets took in an astounding 400 million pesos from the sale of nearly 40,000 tons of foodstuff, including pork, the favorite meat that Cubans had not been able to buy, legally, for four years. An additional, unknown sum was earned through the sale of homemade conserves and prepared meals served at most markets by self-employed, another first in socialis Cuba. Fidel told "El Sol de Mexico" newspaper then that 20% of all food products were sold at the free markets.
The decision to open supply-demand market places had been, perhaps, the most difficult pill for Fidel to swallow. He has always been a strong supporter of large state farming. He spoke strongly this approach at the time of perestroika and rectification, and through the 1991 fourth party congress, when even more  people were clamouring for them. As late as May, 1994, he had told National Assembly deputies that any move in that direction would create Rockefellers out of  farmers and lead to the end of socialism. But the sugar harvest declined once again, and the long hot summer of rafters and boatnappers began.

 The party's top leaders met in July. Fidel didn´t attend all sessions, but did come to the last one.  Important decisions were taken  concerning market place economics that were not announced until September 17, when Raul Castro gave the most candidly critical interview he had ever conducted, of which I am aware. Raul gave the July 26 speech, as Fidel arrived in Havana that same day from the Iberian-American summit in Mexico. Then, Raul only referred to the need for comrades to end sycophancy and buckle down to a fresh attitude of "Yes, we can do it!" Fidel did not publically make important internal policy remarks during this period, other than those concerning the US-emigration crisis. It could not have been coincidental that it was Raul who made the announcement and just two weeks before 100 market places were opened to a gleeful public. 
High prices notwithstanding, it is safe to say that nearly  the entire population is happy with this experiment in capitalism. Unlike the previous "farmers market" (discussed in chapter three), this market has the full backing and active support of all government farm entities, as well as private cooperativists and many private farmers. Even the Young Workers Army participates and was the largest supplier from the beginning,  followed by the new UBPCs. Market vendors please people by treating them as customers, who are served courteously and quickly, and are even permitted to examine the produce before buying it.
State leaders had hoped that by offering UBPCs greater democratic imput and small plots of land for self-consumption, production would significantly increase. But that had not been the case, a key reason why the market place, with  material incentives, was reestablished. Because much of the food sold in agro-markets is produced by the UBPCs, and other state entities, the national treasury also benefits from sales as do workers and vendors. Furthermore, the state is the organizer and rentier of the market places and as such offers space, stalls and hygienic services. For this, it collects rental fees and a five percent tax on produce offered for sale. This brought in 36 million pesos in the first quarter of operation. The numbers of agro-markets doubled, to 200, in this period, and many traditionally state-run vegetable markets could now sell food on Sundays at freed prices.
The state now hopes that this new dynamic will stimulate greater production. However, without more seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, fuel and machine parts, augments will be limited. If  there were sufficient supplies, and if  the new UBPC production structure and market place could offer enough food to the entire population at reasonable prices, leaders have indicated that the government would get out of the food rationing business.
Until the market places were opened, UBPC farmers had no significantly greater material incentive to work harder than traditional state farmers. First Vice-President and Minister of Defense Raul Castro explained to Luis Báez, "Granma" and Prensa Latina interviewer, that because of  "good organization one solider does the work of three civilian farm producers."
Raul began the September 17 interview by setting the parameters of topics, everything was permitted within the context of internal problems. He did not want to talk about why things were going poorly in relation to special period hard times or the US blockade, but to "analyze the deficiencies of our work process...factors that depend on us."
He subtly worked up to the important declaration of a farmers´ market towards the end of the interview. (I will take up other critical aspects that he raised in future chapters.)
"I think another of our shortcomings has been the fact that when the time comes to analyze problems, we always look for an excuse to 'justify ' them. This had always been the case. Here, every time there is a storm, or a drought, or a flood, we spend the next three years talking about it. There´s no food because there´s no water. There´s no food because there´s too much water. When you take a good look at it, it´s a passive way of thinking and acting...

"There are many items that can be produced in the country and nevertheless we´ve had to purchase them abroad. For example, there are beans of different types that can be grown in Cuba, and over these last 35 years we´ve been obliged to invest 1.2 billion dollars purchasing them abroad...
"Today, the political, military and ideological problem in this country is providing food. That is the main task from every point of view. To alleviate this situation, we expect to create a farmer´s market very soon. This subject has been a matter of serious discussion in the Party´s territorial meetings...This measure has the unanimous approval of the population and the backing of our president...We must be clear about something: if there is food for the people, the risks don´t matter."
Raul gave the general outline of  the plan, emphasizing that the state would not control the prices, but they would be less than on the black market because, "the people will be exerting more pressure..."
The initial market prices were, in fact, less than the black market but many  times over rationed prices. Yet more variety  and unlimited quantities are offered. And prices do fluctuate, tending to decline. Most people can afford to buy some items, although 40 pesos for a pound for pork (it was 55 at first) is beyond most pocketbooks.
Agro-market suppliers have certain restrictions placed on them by law. They can not sell crops until their quotas to the state--for the national rations--have been met; and some basic foods, such as rice, milk products and beef, are not to be sold. But both these limitation were informally waived, in an effort to assure that the markets stay open with enough supplies to please the crowds. The first government statistics about the markets indicated that the open markets were selling more green vegetables than the ration stores and competing in root vegetables. Food quality was usually better as well.
A major Havana market administrator told me what the new situation accomplished in the first months.
"At first, few private farmers participated in these markets. That was a key reason for flexibility on restrictions. Now, they are competing with state entities," said Miriam Oliva, administrator of the Marianao municipal market.
"Campesinos used to sell on the black market with the risks of serious penalities. Now, the black market is being abandoned as we offer more products and at prices lower than black market prices, which have also fallen. The government is bending rules to make sure these markets work and become permanent, helping all types of farmers to feel secure and motivated to work harder, to produce more and of greater quality," she said.
The Communist party member admitted that the party had been opposed to giving in to a system that "leads to Rockefellers," but Oliva pointed out that there is no plan to privatize the markets or farming. "If we didn´t do this, more people would be hungrier. Will capitalism  be the solution to our limited resources and deficiencies? I don´t know. But we have to adjust to the new world, to the need for food. I´m sure it won´t hurt our politics," the peppy administrator concluded.

Between 3000 and l6,000 people pass through this market daily. Half-a-million pesos exchange hands on an average day and thousands of pounds of food are sold. General services and gastronomy choices improve continuously here and at several other markets I observed. Most markets are kept relatively clean and there are bathrooms and bicycle parking facilities. Inspectors keep tabs on these markets, and policemen discreetly maintain order. The Ministry of Internal Commerce, the state organ in charge of the markets, offers more public information than is common about progress and problems.
Once the agro-markets got under way, many municipalities opened outdoor fairs on the weekends, organizing the sale, at freed prices, of drinks and food alongside a few industrial objects and arts and crafts. Adding spice with music, they have become popular outings for the family.
These fairs led to the permanent industrial-artisan indoor markets that sell a few items for household use: arts and crafts, toys, some clothes and odds and ends. Fifteen million pesos were grossed in the first month, and the state took in 800,000 pesos in space rentals and services.
This market is also opened to self-employed producers, but there is little material to make the desired products and of desirable quality. In the markets I observed,  most shelves were empty. Crude plastic objects were the main items available. There were a few writing tablets made of sugar cane straw paper, a light switch or two, a few steel items for plumbing purposes, and poorly fabricated synthetic clothes. Simple T-shirts sell for 30 to 60 pesos and pants for 100. The average monthly wage is still 200 pesos.
One full year after the UBPCs started up, about 40 percent of  the non-sugar state farmlands had been converted--2.6 million hectares in all. There were 1,220 agricultural UBPCs, encompassing one-fourth of  state land under crop cultivation, short of the goal at that time.
Sugar plantations were also behind in organizing the new user-owner farms. In part, this was because sugar production was down, and many workers were reclutant to transform into UBPC structuring where there is less security than on traditionally run state farms, precisely what some workers had predicted to me a year ago.
The government began offering thousands of small parcels of  land and housing to families who wish to farm coffee and tobacco in the mountains. Applications numbered 12,000 by the end of the year. The state also increased its 1995 subsidies to the the UBPCs by 400 million pesos over the 1994 outlay. Agricultural crops and animals, and sugar normally  took 56% of all state subsidies.
  The biggest concern was for a good sugar crop, but it looked doubtful in the beginning of the 1995 harvest as tens of thousands of student volunteers, Communist party members and soldiers were aiding the 30,000 permanent cane cutters, whose numbers increased for an all-time low of 13,000 last year. 
  Fidel Castro spoke at the December 1994 National Assembly session  about the "waste and indiscipline" rampant for years. "If our socialism had been accompanied with efficiency that we seek today, no one knows how far we could have reached," the Commander-in-Chief expressed.

  Candido Palmero--the former contingent leader had become Havana province Communist party head and a deputy--said that poor "habits don't change by decree."
 	  Leadership  seemed to be implying that during the "golden years" of socialism a "disorganized and poor work ethic" ("Trabajadores" words) was the norm and that this should improve with current modifications that offer greater material incentives.
	ECONOMIC UPTURN
 	Joyful sensations accompanied normal holiday cheer at the end of 1994. Economic decline had hit bottom after five years of steady downturn and there were signs of  a reversion to growth. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had fallen by 34.3% between 1989 and 1993. A slight increase occurred in 1994, 0.7%. In addition, the dangerously escalating circulation of currency, out of government control and national benefit, fell by two billion pesos between May and December 1994. This was down from 11.9 billion in 1993. Excess liquidity was still far too high, 9.94 billion pesos, and must be brought down to 3.5 billion before “normality” could be regained, said Minister of Finance José Luis Rordíguez. 
The 1993 budget deficit of five billion pesos, roughly 40 percent of the previously undisclosed budget, was drastically cut back to 1.4 billion pesos (officially calculated at 1 to 1dollars). State subsidies for losses to firms was the main cause for the deficit and that was radically reduced from 5.43 billion to 3.27 billion pesos in the last half of 1994. The projection for 1995 was that the budget would be in arrears by only one billion pesos, or about eight percent of the budget, well within safe territory.
Cost accountability and work efficiency were improving in many sectors, principally in convertible currency business. Export income grew slightly from 1.99 billion pesos in 1933 to 2.26 billion, but was far from the 5.4 billion in 1989. Mixed commercial and trading firms were beginning to prosper.
Minister  Rodríguez told the last 1994 National Assembly session that growth had been achieved in 18 of 21 industrial areas. The height of the depression, reached in 1993-1994, had been halted. The state had taken in 1.5 billion extra pesos simply by raising the price of cigarettes on the state parallel market--33 times over the still subsidized prices for the quota of four/five packs a month--and by increasing production of tobacco and alcohol.  Along with sales of these non-essential items on the ration market, this measure accounted for 81 percent of the liquid recuperation. Due to these reforms, the value of the national currency rose and the rush for dollars dipped. 

The black market dollar-peso rate rose to between 120 and 140 to 1 in the first part of 1994. (The official rate is still 80 peso cents to one dollar, but usually is calculated at 1 to 1.)When I arrived in 1987, the black market rate was constant at 7 to 1. It rose to 10 to 1 and stayed there for most of 1988-9. Thereafter, it rose steadily until the fall began in mid-1994. It stood at between 35 to 40 on New Years Day 1995. It climbed briefly to 50 and 60--related to the remissions that President Clinton disallowed--but fell again soon thereafter.
The black market had grown to equal the magnitude of value of the state market by mid-1994. Its prices had risen 50 times over 1989, according to National Institute of Economic Research calculations, as reported in "Juventud Rebelde" (December 11, 1994), which also wrote that the black market and thievery had declined significantly since then mid-1994.	
 	Projections for healthier internal finances include the substantial decrease in subsidies for losses (predicted for 1995 to decline by 69 percent under 1994). Most state firms will not receive more state aid until they balance their budgets. Another factor is the reduction by half what the state had normally given local governments. Hopefully,  this will encourage local authorities to finance some of their own expenses through self-starting projects. Also contributing to healthier financement is the rise in tariffs for transportation, utilities, postal services, and charging for previously gratis sports and cultural events and other gratuities.
Workers must now pay for their lunches at job site cafeterias and parents pay seven pesos a month for their children's school lunches, excepting the lowest income. Furthermore, the 130,000 newly licensed self-employed contributed about 100 million pesos in taxes and space rentals in 1994. Many small entrepreneurs commit irregularities and have been fined 15 million pesos for failure to pay taxes, selling without a license, ignoring hygiene regulations and employing workers, which is strictly forbidden under socialist law.
State leaders figured that they could better balance the budget with taxation measures and enforced cost-efficiency, and still maintain a highly subsidized social welfare society (discussed in Chapter 19). The only areas of reductions of state resources to social programs is in sports and culture. But these areas are not suffering much as they have been increasing their own revenues by selling works and talent on the dollar market.
 National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón viewed the economic situation  as "encouraging." Vice-President Lage expressed "serene optimism", and added that a second stage of the special period had begun with "permanent measures to stabilize production and growth in the interests of all the people and not to serve any particular interests."
Lage noted improvement in people's spirit due to the greater offer of food in agro-markets, although he warned that the problem of alimentation could not be resolved until production is significantly augmented. Another hopeful sign is in the marked decrease of the "detouring" of farm products to the black market, because farm workers and cooperativists are more cautious about their harvests since they  can now sell some food on the free market and earn considerably more income than previously.

Adding to the start of an economic upswing were the 165 mixed associations operating in 26 economic spheres with capital from 38 countries. At the close of 1994, 400 foreign commercial firms had permanent representatives in Cuba, quadruple the number just two years before. Foreign financial contributions to the economy in 1994 amounted to 1.5 billion dollars, Carlos Lage reported to businessmen at the Havana fair, in November. There, he revealed the government's latest decision to permit foreign investment in all productive spheres, including sugar--long a sacred cow--and many services as well. The only areas he specifically ruled out were health and education, and the military´s non-commercial defense tasks.
The first joint-venture negotiations got underway in real estate, land and buildings, another hithertofore sacred cow. A new law was planned in 1995 to facilitate foreign investor interests all the more, including "transparency, security, and mutual protection." Such guarantees already existed with Italy, Russia, Spain and Colombia.
Lage also reported that 69 US companies had visited the "forbidden" island in 1994 to look into commercial possibilities. Despite the US embargo-blockade, 14 letters of intention were signed with US firms.
The first investment management fund was established in 1994. Havana Asset Management Ltd. (HAM) was formed by Basque business people with the British firms Beta Funds International and Ninecastle Overseas, as well as the Spanish firm Nueva Compania de Indias. Operations began the first of January, 1995, with 50 million dollars for investments. Beta Funds holds 51 percent of the shares. Negotiations started with potential investors from Mexico and Canada, and other Latin American, European and Arab firms were interested. The areas of  focus were on tourism, mining, advanced technologies, fruit, steel and pharmaceuticals.
Peter Scott, an executive of HAM and  Beta Funds told reporters ("Granma International", November 30, 1994) that foreign investors were preparing for a possible lifting of  US sanctions against Cuba.
The busy National Assembly December session also passed a new mining law to make it easier  for foreign firms to invest and co-manage Cuba's mineral works, which include the world's largest reserves of quality nickel and cobalt (37% of the world total). The new law outlines 37 regions, encompassing one-third of the national territory, for mining exploration. Cuba also has a significant amount of copper, some zinc, silver and gold. There are already contracts in nickel with Dutch and Canadian firms, which are among global leaders. The Canadian firm Sherritt  became a partner in an important mine in Moa, Holguin. Sherritt is also exploring for and drilling oil in Cuba, in addition to Total, a French company, which was the first foreign company to invest in risk exploration with the Cuban government, in 1990. Total´s paints division, Coates Lorilleux, and its tire and motor packing firm,  Hutchinson, also are represented in Cuba. 1994 closed with 1.3 million tons of national oil drilled, an all-time high, up from 526,000 tons in 1991. The new deal should bring in hard currency from oil refining.

Cuba's principal investors are Spaniards, Canadians, Frenchmen, Italians and Mexicans, in that order. Mexican firms plan to invest over one billion dollars in Cuba's economy and have wiped out the island´s 340 million dollar debt to Mexico, in exchange for extra assets in cement, oil, telecommunications and other areas.
Even Israeli firms began investing in citrus and textiles, injecting capital, management skills, technology and marketing.
The most important areas of joint ventures are in tourism (27 associations) and nickel (representing 30 percent of  foreign firms), plus textiles, leather, perfumes and toiletries, rum, beer, mineral water, fruits and, most recently, tobacco.
Annual growth in tourism declined to 10%, down from 17% in 1993. The 1994 gross in tourism was 800 million dollars, only  80 million more than 1993 when 543,000 tourists visited. Fewer tourists came than had been expected, largely due to the emigration crisis, yet 616,000 visitors did come. About 40 percent of  profits are funneled to the population in fuel, industry and agriculture, say association spokespersons.
A new area of foreign investment was opened up in mid-1994, when Mexico's Domos Group bought 49% of Etecsa, the Cuban telecommunications firm, for 700 million dollars, to restructure the collapsing telephone system. Total investment could climb to four billion dollars. The Italian firm, Stet-Italtel, also became involved. A cable system in dollars was revamped and extended, and improvements were planned for some cable systems for peso telephone customers.
The new year opened with 200 projects in negotiations with scores of firms, another indication that between cleaning up internal finances and the mixed economy Cubans will be suffering less materially. 1995 also looked brighter for Cubans in need of housing, and for users of public utilities and public transportation, that is, practically everyone.
	HOUSING, PUBLIC SERVICES IMPROVING
Although the volunteer micro-brigade housing constructors had all but disappeared--due to foundering spirits related to limited resources and daily hassles--an increase in new housing units was achieve in 1994. Urbanites complain, however, that they don't see the slums disappearing. The reason is that housing priority is given to agriculture, cattle and sugar cane workers and cooperativists, who moved into seventy percent of the 30,000 units built in 1994. Low-cost housing, relying mainly on cement and caulk, is what was mostly being built: 21,000 of the total completed that year.
Before the special period, housing construction averaged 50,000 units a year (1986-90), and the goal for 1995 had been 100,000. But with the special period, construction took a drastic dive. In 1992, only 21,000 units were completed and in 1993, 26,500. The 1995 plan called for 37,000 new units. More repairs of  delapidated houses and apartments were also promised.

The 1995 budget for housing and community services was 4.1 percent over 1994. At 420 million pesos, this represented 3.3 percent of the  budget. In 1990, 870 million pesos (6 percent of national funds) was spent in these areas, and in 1994 316 million had been budgeted.
People were also encouraged by the recent reductions in electric blackouts. During early 1994, it was common to experience 100 hours a week without electricity. It was often worse in rural areas. By mid-1994, 70 hours in darkness was the norm and that dropped to 27 hours, officially, in Havana, by year´s end. More areas than before had no planned blackouts but they occasionally occurred.
Although inner-city bus transportation was still a serious problem, there were more buses on the streets than a year ago, thanks in large part to donations from solidarity organization and some European cities.
Cuba's own special period invention, the "train-bus" or camelo--a truck engine-cab pulling bus wagons that can carry 300 people--became a common  sight. Cross-country  bus and train traveling is no luxury but operating units and frequency of trips increased, as did fares.
The worst area of public services was the water supply and city sanitation. A combination of limited fresh water, bad or nil running water plumbing, rampant sewage seepages, insufficient garbage containers and general disregard for public hygiene resulted in even more filth in many areas. Havana city municipalities started organizing quarterly cleanup marathons to periodically collect the bulk of trash and encourage people to not throw waste wherever the mood strikes them, and to discourage them from mistreating or stealing container parts. Hundreds of garbage containers were purchased and others were donated to tackle the problem.
State organs and city municipalities throughout the island celebrated the opening of a new dawn with mini-carnivals, selling rum, pork sandwiches and meaty meals served at kiosks and make-shift temporary cafes--something not seen for some years in Havana and most of the island.
Private farmers basically stayed away from selling their products at the end of December as state agricultural  entities innundated the new agro-markets and sold more food to state suppliers for the festivities. The state organized these activities, in part, to keep pork prices from skyrocketing on the free market and to fortify incipient light rays seeping into a diminishing special period tunnel.

	CUBA'S 1995 STATE BUDGET
After a few hours discussion, the December 1994 National Assembly session approved the 1995 national budget, as submitted to it by economic planners. This was the first time the budget was publicized since 1990.

INCOME			1995				1990
state sector			11.07 billion
(77% cig/rum taxes)
state firm taxes		220 million

taxes & rates			395 million
from population
-----------			---------
Total				11.68 billion			12.5B

EXPENDITURES		1995				1990

productive spheres		4.48b				5.4b
(mostly subsidies		(35%)				(37)
against losses)

education & health		2.5b				2.96b
(20%)				(20)
(spent: education=1.36b; health=1.11b)

socio-cultural			2.75b				2.5b
scientific			(21%)				(17)
(of which 1.6b spent on social security)   (1.1b)

housing & community	420m				           870m
services			(3.3%)				(6)

administration			388.5m			503m
(3%)				(3.5%)

defense & public order	727m				1.26b(´89)
(6%)				(9.5%)

other				680m				794m
(5%)				(6%)

reserve			            632m
(4.5%)
_______________________________________________________
Total projected		12.68b				14b
Total spent			13.81				15,48
Deficit project (8% of income)     1b
Deficit realized (6.6%)	775m
(Data on actual 1995 expenditures were presented by the Cuban government at "The Economist" Conference in London, June 1996)

	END  CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 16
	IS THE MEDIA REFORMING?

"There has been a lot of talk about the dangers of bureaucracy in socialist society. I believe that  the solution to this problem is developing a mass movement and guaranteering that there is the broadest possible freedom for artistic creativity, and that the ideological debate takes place on the basis of this freedom." (Minister of Culture Armando Hart interviewed by Luis Báez, in 1983.) 

Following the "Workers' Parliament", begun in January 1994, the newspapers started carrying critical articles about the thousands of assembly discussions."Trabajadores" editorials have been especially hard hitting at inefficiency and laziness on the part of workers, administrators and union functionaries. (Recall chapter 12). The union weekly  also led the way toward some social critique, even running a letters column, a first in Cuba's press. This innovation was soon followed by one in "Granma" coordinated by Guillermo Cabrera Alvarez.
           On November 8, 1994, he ran an exceptionally critical letter by reader Julio Morales López with a reply. The reader had sought to learn the prices that Cuba´s Hepatitis B and Meningocóccica B vaccines sold for in the foreign markets. He was interested in knowing what the possible income could be from the sale of these medical advances, but the institutions responsible for their production and sale refused to divulge the information to him. Editor Cabrera was able to acquire the information from the Finlay Institute for the antimeningocóccica vaccine but was told by the prestigious Genetic Biotechnology Center, where the Hepatitis B vaccine is produced, that this information was "secret."
       "You didn´t read incorrectly. S-E-C-R-E-T," emphasized Cabrera in his column.
         "This is not about just an incident, but a concept. On numerous occasions,  the Cuban Journalist Union has discussed the functionaries who deny media access to information by brandishing different reasons, from that of the secret, to terminology of classified information, etc....the readers do not deserve silence as an answer."
      Cabrera later printed the biotechnology center´s reply in which the institute claimed that  "commercial competition" dictated the withholding of information.

      This interchange of different criteria for divulging information is new and refreshing. The same can be said for radio. Some stations, such as Radio Rebelde´s  two-hour morning news and  program, with man-on-the-street opinions, are revealing information and opinions hithertofore considered taboo. Some local stations, including provincial ones, are often a bit more open now than many national stations. TV is still the most conservative. A bit of tepid investigative reportage is broadcast on a few radio stations and appears sporadically in some publications, such as a province weekly or the national magazine "Bohemia."   
       The magazine, for example, carried a piece (March 18, 1994) on Havana's main ice cream parlour, Coppelia, to rife with thievery, corruption, and internal "deviation" of the favorite sweet. The anonymous team of reporters asked authorities why previous administrators, who had been arrested for pocketing money from ice cream sold illegally, hadn't been sentenced, and why nothing had changed at Coppelia. No answers were given in the article but the very fact that reporters had asked the questions and placed them in the article was new and daring.
        This piece was unusual because Cuba´s leadership has rejected the role of muckraking for the media as well as prohibiting any debate of how best to advance socialism, not to mention ideas that are contrary to the leadership or opposed to socialism.  And the leading bodies and leaders of the state and party are still treated sanctimoniously. The leadership has always tightly controlled the media, contending that openings would allow the unfriendly northern neighbor an advantage to find loopholes and thus influence public opinion.
      All the media are directly controlled by the Communist party under the direction of the central committee's ideology and political committee, informally known as DOR. Following the 1992 fall to disgrace of its head, Carlos Aldana, José Ramón Balaguer assumed the all-powerful ideological post. He is a former ambassador to the ex-Soviet Union and viewed as a conservative voice.
But with the economic problems and reforms, the conservative voice sees the necessity of waking up people to work harder and produce more. Thus, certain critical realities and facts, hithertofore not allowed divulged--as well as feisty editorials urging "changes in mentalities" of workers and managers--are viewed as being in the best interests of "saving the country, the revolution, and the conquests of socialism."
A good example of how this is implemented is the issue of absenteeism.  "Trabajadores" articles February 28 and April 11, 1994 revealed statistics of the magnitude of the problem.
Doctors issued 4.8 million medical certificates to workers in 1993, allowing for leaves of absence due to sickness or accidents. This is 1.4 per worker. The average time span of medical certificate absenteeism was 17.2 days per sick worker, and this was only the authorized absenteeism, about half the total. Workers do not need medical certificates to be absent from work for the first three days, nor do they usually need to advise the job that they aren't coming in. Everyone knows telephones are impossible--most people don't have them anyway--and public transportation is unreliable.

The loss of man hours was 60.3 million in 1993, down 409,000 hours in 1992 when a new anti-absenteesism campaign began. Yet the social security network had to pay out more benefits, 192 million pesos, while the economy lost another 600 million pesos in missed production--the equivalent of 17 days without production, doubled the loss six years ago. The greater expense outlay was due to longer stays of leave, partly because of the neuritis and conjunctivitis epidemics.
In work centers that I surveyed, I was able to obtain figures on absenteeism--which would have been more difficult if not impossible before this reform process--the percentages ranged from eight to 12. "Trabajadores" wrote that the average was nine percent in 1994. A year later, it had not gone down significantly. Yet at attractive jobs far fewer people get "sick." In dollar tourism jobs, for example, where foreign managers have the power to fire workers, absenteeism is less than one percent for all reasons.
Taking into account all non-shows, and holidays and vacations, I calculated (based upon the available data) that the economy loses 12 weeks of production time a year. Tardiness is an additional production loss but no records are kept on this widely utilized practice. 
Given what information I could now obtain from the media and work centers, as well as ministries, I estimate that one-fourth the year is dead time, without taking into account how performance on the job itself  matches up to productive standards. 
  	Because production is so low, because the Cuban working class is producing only one-third of the food needed and one-half the sugar previously harvested, it is comprehensible that political leaders see the necessity for changes in the media, in order to point out the national need to improve production. The media is still considered a vehicle for propaganda and mobilization, an instrument that the central committee continues to wield.
The new tone in the media focused primarily on internal finances and production problems throughout 1994 until Defense Minister and party second general secretary Raul Castro granted "Granma" and Prensa Latina´s Luis Báez a rare interview, which was published in the only daily newspaper on September 17, 1994.
"...We don´t have to be embarrassed by our errors...we should only be embarrassed when we lack the courage to fully explore and analyze our mistakes," said Raul Castro.
        Keeping errors secret, a syndrome of withholding ammunition from the enemy in the interests of national security, has been part of the reason why the media has been staid and conformist. With Raul´s sharp critique of internal problems, sporadic criticisms of a variety of themes now occurs in some media. As Raul said, discussion "within the family is healthy."
Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina told the national media, on October 22, 1994, that organs relating to foreign relations must allow diversity in expression, in order to best formulate policies. "It is not credible if each and every ministry and state department speaks with one voice."
The term "communicators" is now used in some media circles. The Union of Writers and Artists held a conference on the role of media and culture in late 1994, and concluded that "media deficiencies" could be corrected by "developing communicators who would generate ideas." 

The traditionally more conservative "Granma" began communicating critiques of  everything from filthy streets, discourteous service workers, chaotic postal deliveries, lazy agricultural workers and unproductive volunteers to suffocating bureaucrats.
One of the most profound critiques on institutions was published in "Juventude Rebelde" the day after Raul Castro´s interview appeared. Commenting upon the one-hundred year commemoration of the death of José Martí, poet-intellectual Cintio Vitier criticized the educational system--a holy cow--officials and media for the way they often referred to the "rafter people" during the summer of 1994.
Vitier reminded those who accused the rafters of being "counter-revolutionaries and anti-social elements" that they too are Cuba´s sons and daughters. Albeit that "the words of Martí have escaped them," Vitier added that Martí had "lived for them and died for them also."
The widely respected intellectual connected the rafter phenomenon with youth alienation and the educational process.
"Our revolutionary education has not been sufficiently effective for the welfare of all. Perhaps the massiveness that was its obligation conspired against the quality that was its idea. In any case, almost 36 years since the triumph of the revolution, we find growing zones of incredulity and disinterest in youth, the illiterate as well as some intellectuals."
Vitier said that "nihilism and postmodernism are universal phenomena" and only touch a minority in Cuba. Yet their very existence is a "painful and undeniable failure" for those affected. "The Revolution cannot conform with itself" by dismissing them as delinquents. "They are our delinquents, our irresponsible ones, our anti-socials. The Revolution made them too."
         Vitier suggested that Martí be taught in the schools not only "massively but tenderly." He concluded that the educational system must seek teachers who want to teach, who are sensitive and who love to see students "converted into comprehending beings."
      "Teachers must not confuse formation with any type of impositions and...paternalism." Teaching must be oriented to create "a free being, creative and audacious. 
         This audacious public commentary was reminiscent of Che´s critiques, something not seen in the media since the mid-1960s, except for the criticial voices of Fidel and Raul Castro. 
     "Trabajadores" followed up with an essay, on October 3, by former journalist union president Julio Garcia Luis, who extended Vitier´s critique to media and information flow. The "lack of culture of dialogue and debate," Garcia said, is partially to blame for social and economic losses, the "decomposition of social discipline," and "the loss of objectives."

  On November 11, "Juventude Rebelde" published a report on a recently completed study conducted by the Academy of Science´s Psychology and Sociology Research Center, which pointed to "institutionalized paternalism" as one cause for passivity in young people and for the generation gap. A loss of faith in adults and leading institutions has also caused growing consumerism attitudes. In the most negative youth, thievery, hustling and prostitution to acquire luxurious objects are now social problems, the report affirmed.
Similar studies concerning social decay have been conducted in recent years since sociology has been reincorporated into academic life. Few sociological studies get published, however, so this was unusual reading for the public.
I have asked scores of ordinary Cuban workers as well as professionals, journalists and political functionaries why the media and communications generally have been used as they have been; how this has affected them and Cuba generally; and what they think of the current murmurings in the media. I have selected a few voices that I believe are representative.
	-------------------------------
"The media is totally controlled," Sigi says.
"If a reporter interviews me, he may ask many questions but when he gets back to his office to write that´s another matter. If he writes everything he hears or knows his ink will be blotted. If I express something that is not normally published or broadcast, it has to go up the ladder, from one office to another for approval before it can come out. Nobody wants to take responsibility, to take the risk of  being slapped on the wrist. So nothing comes out that is controversial, which the party doesn´t want out.
"Yet, there are things that should be controlled. For our very security, there are things that should not come out. You don´t want to inform the enemy in ways that could help his war against us. Furthermore, the people don´t have a very high level of culture, despite all that we´re told, and don´t know how to discern truth from fiction. So, all these disinformation propaganda  the enemy aims at us can de dangerous. Disinformation and controversial ideas confuse people.
"Control over our media is effective, unlike control mechanisms in most areas. The problem is that much information that is kept from us is information that the enemy has anyway. Oftentimes, the enemy is the first to broadcast or print information and policies coming from our government. People begin to doubt our own media and distrust it and, consequently, the state. Why is the state so fearful of its own people, we ask? We´ve got to get rid of this fear that if we tell people the truth it will destroy us. We´ve been here all these years and survived every attack imaginable. We can rely a bit more on our people to confront our problems publically."
 Captain Carlos Garcia González was in the first graduating class for captains following the revolutionary triumph. I accompanied him on the Cuban container ship, Giorita, on a voyage between Havana and Amsterdam. We talked at great length about the revolution and problems, including the subject of information flow.

"We are geographically an isolated island without easy direct communication with other peoples. And one of our problems is that we feel  isolated and as such we magnify our problems.
"The objective limitations concerning communication and information are compounded by the critieria for what is proper information to divulge. We lack internal information. I would like to know, for example, why we don´t have more energy sources, such as alcohol made from sugar cane like they do in Brazil. Why can´t I get such information in Cuba? I simply don´t know where to go to get answers.
"News is only viewed in two ways: what happens in capitalist countries is ipso facto negative and what happens in socialism is positive. News is not a question of reporting what is seen or experienced, but is interpreted as 'negative' or 'positive.' 'Positive', of course, is tha t which aids the battle to survive. I can understand the motivation but the results are often too simplistic."
After the Raul Castro "Granma" interview, followed by  Cintio Vitier and Julio Garcia essay  critiques, the media continued to nudge workers and managers to create greater and better quality goods but did not pursue the divergent viewpoints or taking on holy cows. My view of why those essays were published in the first place, and then stopped, is that top party leaders wanted criticism about low production and the decaying educational system, within certain boundaries, but did not want to go further. The Russian Glasnost had  been considered subversive. The notion is understandable: if cracks are allowed, the wall will crumble.
But why doesn´t the leadership conceive of the media as a true "fourth estate",  a watchdog or ferret that investigates problems that could, perhaps. be better solved through critical reportage? Is it not possible that more than acting as propaganda mobilizers, the media could expose corruption and problems before they result in devasting losses, such as the 1970 sugar harvest and those of recent years, and the demoralizing case of Ochoa-La Guardia.
I concede that I may think this way because I am a journalist.
One of the more respected Cuban journalists, within journalism and party circles, was my chief editor for a couple years at Prensa Latina, where she is chief editor and one of seven members of the directorate, the only woman and only black person on the executive. At the time of the 1970 zafra, Maritza Barranco was a young member of "Juventude Rebelde", recently graduated from Havana University´s  journalism school. After the reform process had been underway for five years, she offered me her views about the revolutionary approach to journalism.
"I believe that the media thought that the 1970 zafra goal was possible...Ours was not a clear journalism. The government was not questioned then...We made propaganda, building consensus. Our journalism is profoundly (party) partisan...At the moment the journalist decides what information to publish you take sides. The information you are able to give has a political character. Journalism is a part of  state infrastructure and is utilized in function of power."
Barranco added that fundamental changes are needed in journalism today.

"Everybody feels great dissatisfaction with the journalism we are doing in Cuba. I always say that if we proposed a more critical journalism with the same journalists we have, we could do it. Critical opinion of the State helps the State grow...The Popular Power elements of the State can be criticized today, in defense of the Revolution. It is very difficult to perceive of where the limits are, though, what can we publish and what not. This requires a level of information Cuban journalists don´t always have, because political strategy is very complicated.  Cuba´s relations with the world are not normal because the United States is not interested in normalizing them.
"I believe that apologetic formulations of Cuban journalism have to do with the very humanism of the Revolution. The aesthetics of the Revolution is to award the best examples, to create a society with models--model doctors, engineers, workers, to create the model person. What happens? We don´t talk of the imperfect things, the errors. This also deforms the vision of journalism...In the form Cuban society is established, a journalist can´t know where the error lays."
I had conversations about communication boundaries with Juan Pardo, for many years one of DOR´s functionaries in charge of journalism. In the spring of 1989, he asked me what I thought the weaknesses were in Cuban journalism. I answered that it operated out of a secretarial perspective, not as communicator. Pardo explained that this stems from the US  war against Cuba.
" In the first days of the revolution, journalism was dynamic. Then, the US tried to split and exacerbate differences between the three revolutionary groups, before the merger into one party. If anyone wrote in a critical way, or used individual judgment to express an idea, an event or whatever, the enemy might use this to blow up a propaganda attack, showing that disagreements existed and manipulate to split us, to fracture the unity and thus weaken our revolution."
Nearly six years later, I saw him and a colleague at a solidarity conference in Havana, where my book, Cuba at the Crossroads, was first placed on sale. The Cuban joint venture distributor sought to circulate it in the dollar stores--it was printed in dollars and thus could not go on sale for Cubans in their money--and launched at this conference with me speaking. This had to be approved by DOR. The book itself, however, was printed by a Cuban typographical house without having to go through the lengthy process of obtaining approval, another first within the economic reforms. While the world of publications is still under DOR´s overview, individual administrators are no longer only motivated to adhere to party procedures but are also subject to financial pressures of paying the bills while trying not to lay off idle workers. Had we waited for the usual procedure, the book would not have been printed because--aside from whether it eventually would have passed political muster--too much time would have elapsed so that it would no longer be timely. Information in a book about economics of the day must be fresh or it will not be attractive to the reading market.
Timely publication is a reality that Cuban authors have long complained about. Most I know say that a seven-year wait between submissions of manuscript and approval of the publishing house to production and distribution is not unusual. Three years is considered normal time lapse.

Another book of mine, Backfire: The CIA´s Biggest Burn, took two years from editorial approval to street sale. I had walked it through the complicated bureaucratic procedure, all seven levels under various ministries and party organs, and I had the backing of the publisher.
I sought Pardo out for an answer to our solicitude to distribute Crossroads. 
"I understand that you are writing critically of the government," he said at first.
"The government itself is critical of the government, just like Raul Castro said," I replied.
Pardo said OK, but wanted to talk to me in his office later. A year went by without hearing from him and then he moved over to the new Ministry of Tourism. 
By then, some cultural and social issue magazines were reappearing: La Gaceta, UNEAC´s magazine written by literary members; El Caimán Barbudo, oriented to young creators and intellectuals and a bit polemical. And new publication started up: Temas, a cultural and ideological magazine put out by the Martí Studies Center; Caminos, published by the religious NGO Martin Luther King Center; Acuario, printed by the philosophical-socal NGO Félix Varela Center; La Revista, the Cuban Book Institute´s promotion magazine; and ProLibros, aimed at selling Cuban literature abroad.
In 1995, book publishing also began to grow again: 700 titles. Publishing houses scaled down in number, some dissapeared, others merged and were granted broader operating freedom. Some began making deals with foreign companies to sell books in dollars inside and outside the nation, with a few hundred designated in pesos for Cubans. Before the special period, Cuba published more books per capita than any other Latin American country. From an annual number of 2000 in 45 million copies, the industry fell to publishing 300, in 1990. 
The Cuban media play no independent role, and journalism remains defined by propaganda terms. Today´s propaganda, however, is broader than yesterday´s, and some journalists and authors foresee the time when apeature in the media and in communications generally will truly come, just as economic relations are changing, for good and/or bad.  
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 17
	1995 IN ECONOMICS & POLITICS

"There are ample reasons to feel satisfied. The measures taken together--economic, political, administrative controls, demands...have given results, including stability in the country, peace." (Fidel Castro, at the closing session of parliament, 1995.)

Daily life for the average Cuban improved in the course of 1995, a relief after five years of increasing hardships.
In the spring, a new convertible peso on parity with the US dollar was introduced. Everyone can use this currency in dollar shops, if they can obtain it. The state allowed workers in some export sectors and national petroleum workers to be partly paid in the new currency. 
The government declared that the goal was to work towards  one currency--the convertible peso--once "the infrastructure has been put in place," said Minister of Economy and Planification, José Luis Rodríguez, who had been shifted from the Ministry of Finances and Prices. The Council of Ministers said that monetary stimulation, in convertible currency, would take place for more  workers as they increase production and businesses become profitable.
On June 30, Law No. 141 was decreed, granting the right to university graduates and professionals to engage in self-employment. Cuenta propia licensees increased from 130,000 to 206,000 by year´s end.
 In the summer, electricity blackouts were reduced to four or eight hours a week, until the fall when blackouts were increased to 27 or 33 hours again. 
People were periodically receiving various types of beef and cold meat products on their rations. A pound of chicken per month was sometimes added to their diet. For the July festivities, two bottles of ordinary rum was sold to each family for 20 pesos apiece, and a good rum was available at 40 pesos. This was one-third the black market price.
In  July, the government legally recognized the popular, clandestine paladar restaurants,  limiting them to 12 customers at a time. Employing anyone outside the extended family was still prohibited in all small businesses, but some owners were hiring "outsiders" on the sly.
The most far reaching economic reform adopted that year was the Foreign Investment Act,  Law 77, passed by parliament on September 5. It supplanted the limited 1982 law, which first permitted some foreign investments. The most important aspects of its 17 chapters are:
-- Foreign investments now are authorized in all sectors, excepting the service areas of health and education, and the armed forces institutions other than their commercial enterprises.

--Investors can form either the preferred joint ventures, international economic association contracts or totally foreign capital companies. The latter is a new feature which must meet Council of Ministers approval.
--Guarantees are given against expropriation.
--Liberal repatriation of capital, profits and salaries are assured.
--Duty-free zones and industrial parks are now allowed.
--And, for the first time, foreigners can lease land and buy buildings "for housing and other structures destined for private residence or tourism activities", and company offices.
Already on the National Housing Institute drawing boards, at that time, were plans for building 300 apartments in four and five storey condominiums by 1998. An unnamed British firm was said to have set aside 50 million dollars for a real estate project. 
One section of the bill , introduced by Minister Rodríguez and Communist party economics chief and Council of Ministers Vice-President Carlos Lage, was controversial. Chapter two concerns  who may invest, and does not discriminate against anyone on the basis of his nationality. This translates into a political hot potato in that Cubans who fled the socialist revolution are now able to conduct business in their nation of birth and benefit from the system they rejected. The executive government proposal led to the first serious debate in National Assembly history. Three delegates voiced opposition, and even sought to delete part of a Council of State proposal.  
The first deputy to speak out was Dr. Augustin Lage, director of the new Molecular Immunology Center and brother to Carlos Lage.
He said that the section is "dangerous because it would differentiate between Cubans living abroad and those here," and that the "majority of Cubans abroad, who have money to invest, don´t support socialism."
Some "Cubanologists" estimate that there might be as many as 10,000 Cuban-Americans who would invest in businesses in Cuba. Sixty Cubans living in the US and other countries had already applied to open investment deals. Ninety US firms had conducted exploratory missions to Cuba in 1994.
Journalist Lazaro Barrero disagreed with Augustin Lage, contending that most natural born Cubans living in the US are not US citizens. Some with Cuban ancestory were born in the US and have no experience in socialist Cuba. 
The head of the Cuban film institute, Alfredo Guevara, seemed angry in his delivery. "We can not be persecutors of those who left. We can distinguish between real enemies and just people. The state has the means and wisdom to prohibit enemies from coming to Cuba intending ill."
Internationally renowned pianist Frank Fernandez said, however, that no matter what legal restrictions were enacted, weathly persons could find ways of investing through third parties, and hide behind dozens of companies. He added that he saw no reason not to let Cuban nationals invest in businesses, if they could obtain dollars.

Two other deputies supported Augustin Lage, contending that agreements reached by the parliament must be "comprehensible" to the people, and they questioned the ethics of discriminating against national Cubans.
Fidel entered the debate.
"I don´t know where the idea comes from that Cubans here don´t invest in the economy. They do so everyday: buying cars, houses, furniture, tools, materials. There are now thousands of self-employed. What they can´t do is only limited because they don´t have capital, foreign markets and advanced technology, all of which we seek with our foreign investors.
"We certainly don´t want macetas to invest in our legal businesses. Who else would have the capital?."
Moreover, he added that it would not be prohibited if Cubans abroad wanted to go into a joint venture with nationals, "as long as the Cuban partner funds the project abroad."
National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón did not call for a vote on the objection to Cuban foreigners being included in the bill, and the law was passed unanimously . Nor is there anything in the law prohibiting Cuban nationals from engaging in larger businesses than what now exist, namely, paladares and single family self-employment endeavors. Thus, the formula exists that will, one day, permit Cuban nationals to become capitalists.
Fidel pointed out that much of this is theoretical, for Cuban-Americans anyway, as the blockade prohibits them for engaging in businesses in Cuba. A couple hundred thousand Cubans, however, live in other nations.
The Council of Ministers must approve all foreign businesses, and Fidel said that only in exceptional cases would the government approve totally foreign owned enterprises. He also said that he and Carlos Lage had looked at each of the 212 associations currently operating, before they were approved. These businesses only employ 53,000 Cubans and their total investment, he said, is  a "pittance": 2.1 billion dollars. "Don´t think that with this law we will be invaded with foreign investors crowding the island."
Nevertheless, hundreds of applications are awaiting approval. Fidel said that all sorts of interests have been presented to the state for purported commercial purposes, including "the CIA and other jodedores" 
"This law will help us (learn how to) compete in commercialization...help us confront US sabotage in the economy, help us get credit, help our rice and sugar production...at high interest." 
The September 9 issue of the leading financial magazine, "The Economist", wrote that the Foreign Investment Act is "another big shift in the communist regime´s cautious move toward the free market."
The article asserted that Fidel Castro is playing a "delicate balancing act between a young reformist faction in the ruling party and a dwindling old guard, who remain convinced that free-market ideas are simply incompatible with the socialist state they built."

In conclusion, "The Economist" speculated that "If China´s leaders are finding it increasingly hard to keep capitalist economics out of communist politics, how long can Cuba´s."
A leading European expert on Cuba development,  Swedish professor Clæs Brundenius, contends that many of the "real economic reforms" recommended by Westerners are being put into effect. In his  report on NGOs, "Cuba Desk Study",  he wrote that much of what Cuba is doing looks like what China and Vietnam have been doing so successfully in their economic reforms. This should also mean that the US administration "got the `calibrated response´ from Havana that it has been waiting for in order to lift the embargo...the process in Havana now seems to be irreversible in the direction towards, if not a transition to a capitalist economy, in any case towards a transformation to a ´socialist market economy´ of some sort."
Whether the US government was impressed with the Foreign Investment Act or not, many of its capitalist allies were. Britain´s science and technology Minister Ian Taylor, who had visited Cuba first in 1994, was the first British minister to visit Cuba in two decades. He returned a few days after the new law was passed, accompanied by British businesspeople, to look at biotechnology products and to sign an important operating agreement on behalf of the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) with Cuba.
The CDC is Britain´s overseas development finance institution. It has 2.7 billion dollars invested in 363 business enterprises in 53 countries. Cuba could eventually acquire around 150 million dollars from this fund for new business ventures (calculated on the funds alloted to Caribbean countries and based on population figures). 
 Britain also passed a law protecting its firm investment deals with Cuba, a signal to the US that its chief ally "does not  accept the extraterritorial aspects of the embargo," said Taylor.
British exports to Cuba in 1994 amounted to 40 million dollars, double 1993. It imported 15 million dollars worth of Cuban goods, also an increase. Among the score of British firms operating in Cuba, at that time, were: Castrol, Unilever, British American Tobacco, Zeneca and Beta Grand Caribbean Funds.
As the US congress was passing the blockade-stiffening Helms-Burton bill (See chapter 22), more British companies were looking to invest in Cuba. The only hurdle that concerned them and the British government was the 90 million debt Cuba has with British firms. A formula was being sought to overcome that with Britain and the Club of Paris.

The overall Cuban debt to Western companies and governments, and Japan, was 9.16 billion dollars by the end of 1995. The biggest debtor is Japan, which holds 25% of the red chips, followed by: Spain (13%), France (12), Argentina (9), UK (8), Italy (5) and a score more lands. Cuba was wiping out its debt with Mexico, whose companies had 200 million dollars invested in cement, telecommunications, construction, fish, tourism, oil, gas and lubricants. Progress on eliminating debts with other Latin American countries was also being made. Latin American trade amounted to 35% of Cuba´s 1995 total, compared with 5.7% in 1989. Trade is growing with Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.
The nation´s biggest trading partner and investor is Canada, whose 34 joint ventures accounted for 515 million dollars in bilateral trade. Canada has far-reaching investments in: nickel and gold, oil, fish, chemicals, tourism, medicines, shipping, construction and communications.
 Russia is a fast second--506 million dollars in 1994, down from 9 billion in 1990--but most of that is in trade and not financial investments. The two countries have not decided what to do, if anything, with the 15 billion ruble debt Cuba has with the former Soviet Union (the equivalent, in 1991, to 24 billion dollars). Russia contracted to buy 1.5MT of sugar in 1996. It also does business in oil, metallurgy and energy, including 30 million dollar credits to bring the unfinished nuclear power plant out of mothballs. Cuba´s nuclear power plant would have fired up by now had the USSR not backed out of the project when it began metamorphosis. 
Other major trading partners include: Spain, the largest of  European Union investors with 400 million in bilateral trade, up from 280 million in 1994; followed by France, Italy, Germany and Holland. China is the fourth largest trading partner now.
Coming out of economic depression through greater trade in the unipolar market economy brings with it more corruption to Cubans who work in that sphere, and the fallout affects nearly all. In July, the Council of Ministers held a three-day session with national businessmen,with this theme in the forefront. "Granma" devoted three pages (July 13, 1995) to the "critical meeting ...that stepped on toes...(with) bitter argumentations."
Minister of Foreign Commerce Ricardo Cabrisas said that most  violations  committed by enterprises are "Cuban entities."
Brigadier General Armando Quiñones spoke of "corruption" by functionaries in the "area of hard currency", "lack of control over resources, political-moral weaknesses," the "lack of revolutionary vigilance in the collectives" in these areas. The general pointed out that this corruption of character begins with changes in dress, in the daily lifestyle, in favoring friends over ethics. These subtle changes lead to bribery, thievery, forgery, in favoring foreign firms when they "advance" funds for personal use, in "diverting company materials and funds for personal advantage, ending in complete demoralization of character."
Fidel recalled that "in three decades of commercial interchange with the USSR...there was never one single case of bribery...We have to elevate behavior and demands, and take harder measures because it will convert into a cancer."
This corruption, Fidel continued, "affects the image of the country; it hurts as does seeing  the prostitution of girls in the country...all this injures national dignity, honor..."

Fidel took up this theme again in his July 26 speech held in Guantanamo. 
"Some of  (the economic measures recently taken) are wide-reaching and radical...Other countries such as China and Vietnam have been doing this for some time, but this (does not)  signify the renunciation of our socialist ideals and our Marxist-Leninist convictions...this does not imply, as some people seem to think, a return to capitalism."
"The unquestionable capitalist elements introduced into our country have been accompanied by the damaging and alienating effects of that system. The phenomenon of bribery and corruption...can be appreciated in an incipient and growing form in our economic relations with capitalism...There are also people who have let themselves be carried away by an avidity for hard currency, to the point of selling their souls.
"Large-scale tourism, the decriminalization of the possession of hard currency, the institutions trading in that currency, measures which were unavoidable, have their inevitable costs.
"The style and behavior of some people reveal the pleasure they take in the entrepreneurial role...The Party and the government will have to wage a colossal battle against such tendencies before they develop into a cancer devouring our ethics and revolutionary spirit. We have to make an inexorable stance against those persons who violate our most sacred principles. The blood of so many Cubans was not shed to let in such shameful conduct at the nation´s most critical moment."

	POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
Just two weeks before the 42nd anniversary of the attack on Moncada Barracks, 97.1% of the population voted for 14,229 municipal delegates--one in seven  were women or youths under 30. About the same number of blank or ruined ballots were cast as in the previous election: 4.3% of the former and seven percent of the latter. In 1992, 10.6% were invalid.The highest numbers of protest and annuled ballots were in Havana, a total of 16.5, two percent more than in the 1992-3 elections. It will be another two and one-half years before the next provincial and national elections.
The first round of voting was held on July 9. The runoff, necessary only in three percent of contests, took place the following Sunday. In mid-week, a flotilla of boats and planes attempted to intrude in Cuban waters to mark the date when the March 13 tugboat sank the year before. The Miami-based anti-Castroites did not protest the boatjacking, but rather blamed the Cuban government for the drowing tragedy, which was caused by the boatjacking in the first place.
The fifth Pastors for Peace Friendship Caravan arrived in Havana the same week with 300 tons of school supplies, medicines, solar energy panels for home electricity, powdered milk, computers, toiletries, bibles and six lorries and buses. The caravan had passed through 120 US cities--defying US authorities and risking penalties and jailing for violating embargo laws--and 30 Canadian cities. These friendshipments have inspired people in other countries to follow suit. Similar campaigns have taken place in Mexico, England, Spain and Germany.

Pastors for Peace founder Reverend Lucius Walker spoke at the Havana dock where 24 containers filled with aid were being unloaded. (Canadian and Cuban dock workers donated their labor for these tasks.) He said that "US subversion has taken on a new dimension against Cuba... the US is infiltrating capitalist ideas into the changing society, that it is also introducing dollars to part of the people, adding to confusion and division and fomenting subversive ideas."
"There are signs of efforts to subvert the revolution from within, coupled with attempts to destroy Cuban friends in the US...Cuba is a light for the world that we can´t afford to let die out."
In a parallel challenge to the blockade, the sixth Freedom to Travel group, composed of 40 US teenagers and children, visited Havana at the same time. The youth brought  medicines and school supplies with them. The US Treasury Department sent them a letter warning that they could be jailed for ten years and fined 250,000 dollars for "trading with the enemy". No one has been charged.
Caravanists, free travelers and international brigadists from scores of countries joined half-a-million Cubans and saturated the malecón for three kilometers in pouring rain, on August 5, to note the first commemoration of the 1994 emigration crises.  President Castro joined marchers at the same spot where he had joined the previous march that marked an end to the rioting. 
The rally  speakers, UJC President Victoria Velázquez and Fidel, embraced internationalism as a theme of the march and the general support Cuba is receiving. Fidel said that without the "lumpen and counter-revolutionary action last year this international expression of unity would not have taken place...this date will be commemorated yearly."
International solidarity was also a key message that Fidel brought to Copenhagen in the first of three major trips he undertook in 1995. In March, he attended the UN´s World Summit on Social Development in the Danish capital. From Copenhagen, he flew to Paris for a warm reception by President Francois Mitterrand and his wife Danielle, who kissed him and said that the Cuban government had accomplished, "the summit of what socialism could do." She reproached other European governments for "refusing to support a regime that brought equality to the people." The first lady had just been to Cuba with medical donations worth 2.5 million dollars.
In Copenhagen, Fidel stood out above all other statesmen present--excluding Nelson Mandela--in the eyes of the populace and the media. The San Francisco Examiner (March 13), for example, wrote that Vice-President Al Gore´s speech "had hardly been the stuff to bring delegates to their feet. Most of them, in fact, sat on their hands," while the audience gave Fidel "an ovation, the biggest given any speaker all week."
The Danish chauffeur for Fidel, who has driven hundreds of state leaders, told the national media that he had never met a more kind government leader than Fidel, whom he said was considerate of him as a worker and person, as he was to ordinary people in general.	
 	Fidel praised Danes for supporting his  nation against the Goliath and for housing his delegation gratis. Had it not been for Danish frienship and solidarity, the NGO delegates and journalists would not have been able to attend the event and exchangexperiences, he said.

The city that never sleeps met its match in Fidel Castro, who swept NewYork City like the hurricane winds accompanying his arrival at John F. Kennedy Airport. For five days in October, Fidel was the news! When President William Clinton ignored rudimentary rules of courtesy, as head of the host country for the United Nations 50th anniversary, and refused to invite the president of a founding member to the official dinner, Fidel visited the former Hotel Theresa-- today an apartment building--where he had stayed during his 1960 UN visit. Later, he spoke at the Abyssinia Baptist Church in Harlem to 1200 cheering guests. Fidel also spoke to the Bronx Puerto Rican community, and with Spanish-speaking  politicians. 
When Fidel was denied another official dinner by NY Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, one of the world´s captain´s of industry, David Rockefeller, invited the leader of the Cuban revolution to a dinner at his home. There, Fidel entertained US financiers and politicians. He later met with 400 academics and businesspeople--including some of the richest, such as Larry Tish--at the Foreign Affairs Council, a key center that sets Washington foreign policy.
US media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of the U.S. News & World Report, hosted another meal honoring Fidel with representatives of the most important international media. The maverick Communist was interviewed on CNN, CBS and NBC television and was featured on the front pages of the biggest publications, such as, the New York Times and Time magazine. Due to his eminence, the message of the humble, which he brought to the United Nations, received far greater exposure throughout the United States, and the world, than is customary.
"We want a world without hegemonists, without nuclear arms, without interventionism... racism...national or religious hatred, without outrages to the sovereignty of any country, with respect for independence and the free determination of the peoples...We want a world of peace, justice and dignity, in which all, without exception, have the right to life and well-being."
From New York, Fidel visited Caracas, where he once again captured the hearts of the majority of people and the media. Clinton committed a childish error, contended some commentators, by snubbing the Cuban leader, one that made him and his message all the taller. "Even though the speeches of Clinton and Yeltsin were listened to with great interest, it was obvious that the reappearance of Cuban President Fidel Castro in the forum of the General Assembly was received with the greatest expectation," wrote the Spanish news agency EFE.
On his way to Asia a month later, Fidel stopped over in Copenhagen. He was so taken by Danes that he decided to reopen an embassy after five years without one. During his first visit to China, Fidel was clearly impressed by the works he saw. The most populated nation in the world gave him first class treatment, and trade agreements were signed.  
 Doors were opened for greater technical aid and commerce between Cuba and Vietnam and China. Areas of growing cooperation include: hydrology, geology, mining, fishery, agriculture and commercial trade in light industry, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, and banking. Vietnam donated 10,000 tons of rice and sold Cuba another 100,000 tons.  

 Fidel was treated as an extra special guest in Vietnam, which he had visited in 1973. All the nation´s leaders received him together. A sense of mutual solidarity and brotherhood, in the full meaning of the concept, exuberated between Vietnamese and Fidel. This could even be seen from the television broadcasts. In Cuba, we watched numerous TV programs of Fidel in China and Vietnam, and his short visit in Japan.
Fidel´s speech of greetings in Vietnam reflected this comradeship:
"Ho Chi Minh said that there was nothing more precious than independence and freedom and that, after the war, the Vietnamese would build a country one thousand times more beautiful. Now this great work...is in progress.
"Neither can we forget Ho Chi Minh´s advice to the international communist movement. Unite and keep yourselves united! How Ho Chi Minh would have suffered if he had witnessed the disappearance of the European socialist camp...the disintegration of the Soviet Union."
"The future--and this can be said with more conviction than ever before--is one of socialism...So others fell (referring to Eastern Europe and the USS). In my view, they fell like beaten egg white; but our revolution was not made of egg white, and I am sure that the egg white with which some socialist countries fell will turn into iron and that they will once again defend and uphold the just ideas that they used to defend."
"Then history will save a place of honor for those peoples who, under such difficult conditions, were able to maintain their socialist principles and, figuring among the ranks of those peoples, like inseparable twin brothers, will be Vietnam and Cuba."

But the international statesmen from the Caribbean island surrounded by sharks not only impresses Asian comrades, David Rockefeller and Larry Tish, European and Latin American capitalists and ordinary folk around the world.
"There is no doubt that Fidel Castro has won the present round of the political struggle in Cuba, and he has done so in a very professional manner."
So reads a US Defense Department analysis, entitled, "The Military and Transition in Cuba." This study was partially conducted by Russian experts on Cuba and coordinator by Nestor Sánchez, a former CIA official and deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.Yuri Pavlov, former head of the Latin American division of the Soviet foreign ministry, and Michail Zubatkin, Cuba analyst on the former Soviet Communist party central committee, were among the contributors to the unique study.
The pentagon study, prepared in 1995, concludes that the "Cuban people and the military appear willing to grant Castro enough latitude to continue cautious steps toward a more mixed economy without surrendering pervasive political control."
The investigation, which included "covert Russian reporting from Cuba," convinced the coordinator to advocate an easing of US sanctions against Cuba.
	ECONOMY RECUPERATING

The redolence of spit-roasted pork throughout much of  Havana on New Years Eve echoed the economic appraisal just presented at the National Assembly: real economic growth of 2.5%, compared with 1994, had been achieved. 
Cuba´s economy is recuperating as "the new macroeconomic policies implanted by the government" take hold, concluded the UN´s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), at the end of 1995.
An encouraging 1995 report and a brighter 1996 state budget were presented to the National Assembly by Economy and Planification Minister José Luis Rodríguez and Finances and Prices Minister Manuel Millares.
President Castro closed the one-day assembly session, in which the economic report and new budget were unanimously approved, saying: "There are ample reasons to feel satisfied."
"The measures taken together--economic, political, administrative, controls, demands...have given results, including stability in the country, peace."
CEPAL reported that the island´s blockaded economy grew above Latin America´s 0.6% average as the continent was adversely affected by falling standards, especially in Mexico and Argentina. The UN body also stated that Cuba´s new law on foreign investments was especially "relevant...opening up the possibility for partial or total transfer of state property when (deemed to be) in the national interest."
Other growth factors included:
--Budget deficit reduced to half the year before, ending with 775 million pesos in arrears (one billion had been predicted). In just two years time, the deficit had fallen from five billion pesos, or one-third the GDP, down to 3.6%.
--State subsidies decreased by 69%, down from a high of 5.5 billion pesos.
--Circulating liquid currrency was reduced by 882 million pesos, down to 9 billion pesos.
--Exports increased by 12% over 1994 and imports by 21%. Total exports were 1.5 billion and imports, 2.8 billion pesos.
Among the 18 of 21 industrial sectors experiencing growth were:
--Nickel: 62.5% (42,900 tons extracted, compared to 26,900).
--Fertilizers and tobacco increased by 142 and 52 percent respectively.
--Steel and cement by 46 and 31 percent.
--Fish and citrus fruit by 13 and 7 percent.
One-fifth more vacationers visited Cuba than did the previous year. Gross income from the 738,000 tourists increased slightly, totalling 1.1 billion dollars for a profit of 363 million dollars.
There were slight increases in production and services for domestic consumption. The GDP grew to 13.19 billion pesos over 12.87 billion. The national oil industry pumped out 1.47 million tons, a rise of 16.7%. This augment allowed for 5.2% greater electric generation over 1994. The national thick crude petroleum covers one-third electricity use.

The number of Cubans with access to dollars had more than doubled in 18 months. Survey estimates vary, indicating that between two-fifths and one-half the population acquire some dollars. This accounts for the greater state recuperation of hard currency through goods sold in dollar shops: 530 million dollars in 1995. 
The black market dollar rate stabilized for months at 25 pesos to one,  partly a reaction of decreasing inflation. In the autumn, the government authorized the exchange of currencies, on the street level, at the informal rate. Black market prices dropped to half 1994 prices as supplies in the legal supply-demand markets increased and their prices fell by ten percent. Agro-markets sold 1.53 billion pesos of foodstuff; industrial markets sold 300 million pesos of goods.
Farmers increased vegetable production by 20% to 35%, depending on differing statistics made available by government agencies. Farmers were clearly happier in agricultural organization not run as state collectives. The percentage of non-state run lands catapulted from 18% of all  cultivated lands in 1990 to 78% by the end of 1995, counting the UBPC quasi-cooperatives. 
A sign that state economists, accountants and administrators are becoming more precise in  balancing internal financing can be seen in the revenues acquired in 1995: 11.47 billion pesos, compared with the 11.68 billion anticipated, for a sound accomplishment of 98.2%.
Few nations, rich or poor, are forecasting economic growth in the proportion that Cuba´s government did for 1996. A five percent rise in GDP is what Minister Rodríguez foresaw.
Minister Millares projected a near balanced budget for 1996. Planned revenues and expenditures were almost at the same level as 1995: 11.64 billion and 12.22 billion pesos, respectively, for a planned deficit of only 580 million pesos, 3% of the budget. Over 90% of revenues come from state firm contributions, half of these from the sale of tobacco and rum.  Four percent comes from non-state entities and four from the self-employed and private farmers. Personal income taxes were to be enacted on a progressive basis, in 1996, for the self-employed and restaurateurs. Only 190 million pesos was expected from individual businesses, however, in order to avoid a "shock" reaction that could lead to "confusion and dissatisfaction," according to Minister Rodríguez. Fidel told deputies, who criticized the tax as "too little," that greater taxation could lead to more unemployment if self-employed were scared off from doing business.
Most budgeted sectors were to receive increases in state investments, while subsidies to state firms were to continue to fall by 525 million pesos. Cost of production in state spheres was also expected to decline.
Economic ministers expected significant growth in tourism (27%), and hoped to increase the profit ratio from the current 33% to 50%. They also foresaw a 9% reduction in circulating currency; a 50% augment in Cuban products sold in dollar shops; and a 25% rise in nickel production to 55,000 tons; a 50% increase in steel; 24% in cement and 9% fish catch. Exports were expected to increase by 20% and imports by 15%.

Wages would not rise across the board, but one-third of the working class was to receive an average of two percent more.
Defense and public order expenditures were cut by 80 million pesos for 1996. The army  steadily increases production for its  consumption--40% of food and most of its military clothing--and offsets state output through profitable commerical enterprises, including shipping and tourism.
The budget also called for overall public services increases by 2.6%, the largest in public housing and tourism construction. The budget was doubled (893 million pesos) for housing and community services (water, sewage and garbage collection). Fifty thousand residential units were programmed for 1996, 17,000 over 1995. More attention to repairing crumbling units was promised and state agencies also hoped to offer more than the current inadequate repair services for television sets, refrigerators, ovens and other home appliances.
Once the dollar was decriminalized and self-employment extended to include transportation and  home repairmen at supply-demand prices, many people began accumulating capital, earning in one day, as Fidel noted, what a doctor, teacher or blue color state worker earn in a month.
  	Besides the paladars, where prices are in dollars or the equivalent in pesos at the street rate, many urban dwellers are renting out rooms or their entire home or apartment to foreigners in dollars. The government had not legally allowed this private initiative, but Fidel indicated that it may do so, in order for the state to obain taxes from this growing phenomenon.
Although Fidel goes along with these twists in revolutionary values, he is unhappy about  monetary pursuits fears that a new "social class of rich" is establishing itself, he told the National Assembly at its final 1995 session December 26.
"The revolution gave houses, good apartments in the sports zone, and some move in with a neighbor and rent the house for 500, 600, 700 dollars" (monthly).
The president said that it would be better if those renting residences, and some who illegally sell residences and vehicles, "register(ed)  and pa(id) a tax," so that the nation could benefit. He also complained about a TV repairman who "charged as much as 700 pesos in one day." 
Referring to the TV repairman, who probably used materials stolen from the state, Fidel said: "Señores, this (would be) a tax on thievery. Can anyone protest? Because some of these  prices are robbery, truly thieves who we now call legal because we have legalized them."
"Yes, we have legalized thievery, or a determined type of thievery that is produced from the black market here and there...We have had to abide by realities."

"None of us every dreamed of working for a rich national bourgeoisie...We are not working for these people, we are not working for the rich...That we have to tolerate the existence of rich, OK, but they can´t have everything at their reach." Fidel said that they would never "get privileges other than material things their money can buy, and they will certainly never get political power."
President Fidel Castro called upon the population to reject thievery, the black market, illicit renting and selling of residences and vehicles.
The same day, "Granma" published a rare interview with a leading expert concerning crime. While no details or figures on crime were forthcoming, Chief Justice Raul Amaro Salup said that crime is on the increase: thievery, robbery with force, vilolent robbery and intimidation of persons, and the illegal slaughtering of cattle--all of "major incidence."
 Some people were even "selling the Cuban patrimony," "Granma" wrote on November 30. In one important case, the administrator of the National Palace Museum of Fine Arts was involved in selling off 40 works of national art for private gain. In the first half of 1995, authorities uncovered 192 intents to "illicitly extract cultural treasures."
Three days after the National Assembly approved the new budget, another critical article appeared in "Granma". Referring to market vendors and self-employed, political writer Susana Lee said that much of the resources and materials they use "come from crime...based on carelessness that still persists with state resources...showing a mixture of tolerance and impunity that facilitates these phenomena."
Nevertheless, Lee wrote, the new competition created by the economic reforms is "good, because it has shown the people a bit of capitalism (which should make them think) how we can do things correctly."
A Cuban sociologist, interviewed on television, at the end of the year, indicated that the new times are making people think individualistically, a danger for the traditional solidarity and collective values that the revolution had fostered--part of the new "realities" by which they must "abide," as Fidel said.
	-------------------------------------
	COMPARED PERFORMANCE  of  "TRANSITION ECONOMIES"

COUNTRY			1989			1993			1994
Russia				            100			60.1			51.1
Ukraine				100			63.1			51.1
Georgia				100			24.5			17.2
CIS					100			62.1			52.1 
Poland				100			87.5			91.9

Czech Republic		100			78.4			80.5
Combined Eastern Europe	100			76.9			79.9
China					100			133.9			149.7
Vietnam				100			130.8			142.3
Cuba					100			65.2			65.7

	END CHAPTER 

	CHAPTER 18
	KING SUGAR

"Tobacco and sugar are the most important personages in the history of Cuba." (Cuba´s leading ehtnologist, Fernando Ortiz, wrote in Counterpoint: The Cuban of Tobacco and Sugar (Contrapunteo: Cubano del tabaco y el azúcar), published in 1940.)

Although the nation was encouraged by the National Assembly´s 1995 economic report and forecast for the new year, there remained one huge hurdle to recovery. The traditional kingpin had fallen once again. The zafra resulted in but 3.3 million tons of sugar, the lowest in revolutionary history, down 700,000 tons the previous year.
The drop in sugar production is reflected in its declining proportion of export trade, from 73% of the total in 1992 to 46% just three years later. Sugar income is now second to tourism, with nickel close behind, followed by fish and shellfish, tobacco and biotechnology. 
"The country has failed to receive two billion dollars in the last three years when our (sugar) productions fell from the level they had in 1992. Well, they had to fall for lack of material resources, but they fell more than they had to; there was abandonment, carelessness of the seed bank and many other things...the sugar (personnel) have been deficient," said Fidel at the December 26 session of parliament.
President Castro said that the projected 4.5 million tons for 1996 is not a happy figure, but would be an increase of 30% over 1995. To revive this fallen industry, the government borrowed 300 million dollars on credit for fertilizers, pesticides, raw materials, tires, motors, and spare parts. Holland´s ING Bank provided the largest share of credits. Britain´s ED&F Man sugar brokers was one creditor, along with companies in Spain and Lebanon. Credits must be paid back, with 50 million dollars interest, from the sale of the next crop. Fidel warned that if this goal is not reached, the five percent GDP growth forecast will fail.
It is difficult to calculate how much sugar will bring in profits as the price fluctuates on the speculation-based international commodities market, now the world´s only market place. Gross income is usually around one million dollars per one million tons,  if the price hovers around .10 cents a pound. Net profits vary between 20 and 30 percent.
Roughly speaking, around three million tons are already in hock to creditors. Wages and  national supplies are additional costs. There won´t be much left over to sell on the market place for cash dollars, given that 700,000 tons is what Cubans currently consume. It would create great dissatisfaction if sugar rations were cut back. The main hope is that the low sugar yield and quality  will improve in harvests beyond 1996.  

The sugar industry has deteriorated, in part, because work incentives are wanting. There is growth in other export products and services, because workers are earning more material benefits. The government now added sugar cane workers to the list of personnel who can buy extra goods in special stores at the plantations.
The media also stopped portraying only roses in its usual daily coverage of zafra labor. They began to disclose some problems early in the 1996 zafra. One of the problems is that many workers are not bending far enough. When cutting the stalk at knee level, for instance, the cane does not regenerate, thereby making replanting necessary before the cane´s natural life of seven or eight years. 
For the first time in memory, Fidel´s older brother, Ramon Castro, who remained a farmer, was brought into the spotlight to show the Cuban people how to cut sugar cane. We saw him on television with a machete in hand, bending low and demonstrating how and where to swing. Cubans were among the first Americans to cut sugar cane, a plant that originated in India and was brought to the Americas by Spanish conquistadors with the introduction of slavery.
	VOLUNTEER MACHETEROS
No self-respecting Cuban revolutionary, or foreign resident who identifies with the revolution, can go through life without volunteering to cut cane. A majority of Cubans get their first oppoturnity as high school or college students, who often volunteer during summer breaks. 
Professional macheteros cut cane half the year, and spend most of the other half clearing fields, weeding and replanting with cane cuts. At the time of the triumph, there were 350,000 cane workers and there was no mechanization in cutting. The number of macheteros had declined to 60,000 in the 1980s, when a great deal of mechanization was introduced to humanize labor. The idea was to limit the numbers of cutters to those who actually want to do this back-breaking work, and to hand cut only what is absolutely necessary in uneven fields where machines can not operate. The Cuban KTP harvesters come in four models. The most productive can cut up to 250 tons of cane in a work day, or as much as 30-40 experienced men.
When I first volunteered in 1989, fuel had not yet become a problem and mechanization was still used for three-fourths of the zafra. That year, Cuba had more harvesters (6,500) than it could use (4,300). The Taino company was manufacturing 600 annually and selling some to Nicaragua, India, Irak, Iran and Egypt. The industry had also developed its own 250-horsepower engine to replace the imported Russian 210h.p. model.
As a result of the stubborn persistence to continue high sugar production, industrial development had begun to pay for itself in many areas. The nation was manufacturing 65% of the  industry´s equipment: pumps, molasses tanks, the Fregat irrigation sprinklers, cane grinders, a few tractors (most were still imported from CMEA), and a unique native invention called the multi-plough. It digs up the soil without turning it so that the dirt does not dry out in the sun; breaks up dirt for easy seeding, and deroots weeds so that they do not regrow.

Cuba was exporting some of this equipment to Vietnam, East Germany, North Korea and the Ivory Coast. It built eight entire sugar plants for firms in Nicaragua, Venezuela and East Germany. But by 1991, with the loss of trading partners and drastic reduction in fuel, the industry stopped producing much of this machinery . The first 9000 oxen yokes were brought in to replace the use of some 6000 tractors, and more volunteers were called for. Still, Cuba´s sugar production was feeding 40 million people, as Fidel proudly mentioned from time to time. That is, until 1993, when sugar yields fell and far less was cut and milled.
I cycled to Sanguily, one of the nation´s smallest and oldest sugar mills. Built in 1911, it cultivates 340 caballerías close to the north coast Pinar del Rio town La Palma. Segundo Guerra, the director, greeted me with a smile and a glass of guarapo, the natural sugar cane juice, freshly ground at the local grinder-stand. This juice gives one an immediate energy lift, a welcomed element in the machetero´s daily cost.
At the clothing warehouse, I was handed, free of charge, a long-sleeve blue work shirt, a pair of canvass gloves, a good pair of Cuban-made work shoes and the all-important machete. I was also loaned two sheets, a thin blanket and a mosquito net. Then I was driven in a World War ll Willy´s Jeep to Brigada 4 de Abril´s barracks, where its temporary workers, and a few others without permanent housing, sleep. 
Raul is the barrack´s chief. He proudly tells me he has worked with members of the US soldiarity group, Venceremos Brigade, who have been coming to Cuba for two decades to work a couple weeks in a gesture of solidarity. Raul introduces me to Pepe, a veteran machetero since he returned from Africa where he fought with Che. Pepe is unusually reserved for a Cuban. He silently shows me how to sharpen my machete with a file before the bell rings for the evening meal. We walk next door to the dining hall. An outdoor kitchen and wood fire is tended by two women. The food is plentiful: rice, white beans, tough jamonada (a preserved ham-like mash), cold coffee and water. Meals vary little and are monotonously prepared.
The barracks are filled with two-tiered bunk beds  in rows on both sides of the simple, wooden-framed structure. There is one bathroom with urinals, toilets, a sink, one mirror and four pipes used as showers. There is often a problem with water supply as it is brought in by truck and stored in overhead tanks.
A head statue of the "Apostle", José Martí, sits in front of the barracks. A couple of wires are stretched outside for hanging work clothes that are washed by hand in two outdoor sinks. As twilight falls, mosquitoes take over and the swatting begins. There are 25 bunks and 22 men. Most of them are watching television, a few are playing checkers or dominoes. The serene song of croaking frogs leads me to sleep.
Bright and early, we´re off to work after a quick cup of coffee and a toke of bread. Pedro, the mill´s accountant, is assigned to teach me how to cut the cane. There are three techniques: a) cutting the green stalks, and letting them fall by the row; b) norma tecnica is more technical in that the green stalk is cut at bottom and then the coollo (the wheat-like green leaves and white flower on top), followed by trimming the paja leaves on the stalk sides and slicing the stalk into three or four parts; c) cutting burnt cane, the simplest and quickest but much dirtier work.

Burning cane makes for faster cutting, which is a reason why some administrators want to burn cane that shouldn´t be, given the loss of secondary products. Cutting the burnt stalks takes more power than slicing through green stalks, but there is less handling work.The technical norm is employed in order to bypass the mechanical trimming process, at a nearby ACOPIO, a delaying step before the cane can be transported further to the mill for process refining. 
In all forms of cutting, the machetero must grab a plantón (a bunch of six to a dozen stalks) with one hand, bend and swing the machete one forceful blow at ankle length, slicing through all the stalks--ideally. For right handers, the right foot is placed one step forward but away from the blade. The left foot steadies the body from behind and away from the follow through swing. All macheteros get cut some time or other, because a foot has gotten in the way of the swing. Just as the noon break was approaching this happened to Pedro. With stitches in his ankle, Pedro was taken off work detail for a week.
"Gato" became my new partner. Miguel Fernandez Garcia was nicknamed "cat" because he has a slinking form in the jungle of cane and he also sported a thin mustache. Tall and thin, Gato is a fast worker. He shows me how to keep to one side of the surco (cane row), while he mows down the other side. When he reaches the end, he returns to where I am slugging away to help me finish.
 The fallen cane of four rows makes a tajo, which should soon be picked up by a truck and alzador (a crab-like crane contraption that grabs the cane and dumps them into the truck). The longer the stalks remain on the ground under the searing sun, the less sugar will remain for extraction. One reason why some mills produce less than they should is because the work is sometimes not organized well enough to pick up cut cane in a reasonable time span.
By mid-afternoon, the sun is so intense that my whole body is covered in dripping sweat and I´m speechless. All I want to do is drink water and more water. Gato warns me against this. I´ll get bloated and sick. At dinner, I was so exhausted I could only eat half a meal and then straight to bed. I was asleep before I hit the mattress.
We cut norma tecnica for the rest of the week. We work on weekends, half of Sunday, at peak times,  in order to meet the quota. On Saturday, we were cutting in gullies with water up to our ankles. The rain-wet coollos whipping my face like mini-knives, the flies buzzing my ears and the mosquitoes bitting everywhere there is bared flesh, all of a sudden I cry out. A new bite hurt more than the other hurts that I had become used to. Gato came over and saw that I was surrounded in a cloud of gegenes. These tiny gnats are like chiggers or bite mites in the US. Their bite could make an elephant snort. 
"The only thing to do is let them bite you without breaking your concentration on the cane. The more you swing, the more you´ll get used to them, and pretty soon you won´t even notice that you´re being bitten," Gato tells me.
Come evening, I could still feel the bites, and my neck, face and left hand were red-marked like hickies. My right hand was free of any bites because it had been in constant motion.

Before we climbed onto the truck to take us home, Bernardo sloshed through a gully after a couple large crabs. "I got some beer waiting for me," he said, "to wash down these crabs boiled in salty water."
Bernardo stands next to me in the back of the truck that drives to our barracks, to Sanguily and to La Palma, where he is a carpenter when not volunteering for zafras.
"This is my 13th zafra. I help with sugar production because it is the major aspect of our economy and the industry still needs extra labor. I continue to draw 40% of my wage at the state workshop, and the other four carpenters take on my work. Sure, this means that some people have to wait longer for their repairs," the amiable father of two tells me.
Bernardo has been a municipal delegate for the last two terms. The fact that Bernardo is a steadfast machetero volunteer no doubt stands in his favor as a delegate. Small town folk especially appreciate patriotic spirit followed up by deeds, and Bernardo cuts an average of 300 arrobas (25 pounds) a day, about what is expected for a regular. The best professional macheteros can cut as much as 600, earning around 500 pesos.
Besides a minimum wage, cutters are paid by piece rate. On top of Bernardo´s partial wage, he earns a total of  215 to 240 pesos. His carpenter´s wage is 185. Equipment drivers are paid piece rates, with a minimum base. Mechanics and mill operators  get a fixed wage.
The next week, our brigade was assigned to cut old, burnt cane. Pepe, who leads the brigade next to ours, says that this would be the last year for this tough cane. Its low sugar yield no longer warrants any possible regrowth. About 15% of the cane at Sanguily is burnt. Ideally, none should be burnt, because the loss of leaves means no bagasse, which is used as fuel to run the mills. When all goes well, all 156 sugar mills can run on bagasse, thus saving about one million tons of oil. In addition to the 20 million tons of bagasse that is usually obtained from the entire annual harvest, sugar cane residue is used to produce three dozen products: animal fooder, the PPG anti-cholestral pill, fiberboards, paper, tables, cachaza fertilizer, enzimes,  pastes, crackers, soaps and detergents, resins and wax, glucose and molasses and, of course, rum. Some of the larger, more modern mills manufacture a variety of these products; industrial factories and medical laboratories refine others. Sanguily only makes raw sugar and bagasse.
At the end of the week, Bernardo presents me with a mocha--a thick-bladed, shorter and heavier machete that cuts sugar cane better--as a reward for my spirit and performance. And that evening, Pepe and I play checkers over a bottle of rum. After three games and somewhat lubricated, Pepe loosens up. Now is my chance to hear of his time with Che in Africa.

"I was a young rebel in the beginning of the revolution. In the early 1960s, some of us soldiers were told about a planned mission to Africa. I volunteered to help liberate my ancestor´s land. We volunteers trained in separate places inside Cuba. Fidel called us all together after six months training and told us we ran a good chance of dying, and if anybody wanted to stay it was OK. Only two backed out of the 120. What seemed odd was that we were all black, and real black, and from the same province, Guantanamo. The majority of us were even from the same coastal town, Imías. We would find out why later.
We were flown to different Eastern European countries in small groups. We all met in Tanzania, but only when we got to the Congo did we meet Che. He was to be our leader. Besides Che, only the medic was white. We had been choosen from among all the volunteers because we would blend in, since our ancestry was from these parts and they had been brought to the oriente in Cuba, where many settled in Imías and other parts of Guantanamo. 
Che told us two important things. We´d have to fight hard and train the Congolese freedom fighters, who knew next to nothing about how to fight; and we must stay away from the women. And we did. We all respected El Che. 
I was gone from Cuba 18 months. I´ll never forget the last time I saw Che. We´d departed from Zaire on boats across the Nile. The Cuban ambassador in Tanzania awaited us. Che spoke briefly. He explained that the struggle would continue but we had to return. There weren´t good conditions, he said, for extensive guerrilla warfare.
We lost ten compañeros in the mission. I was in two combats. Che taught us guerrilla strategy and we, in turn, tried to pass this knowledge on to the Congolese. They weren´t quick to learn. A few returned with us for further training.
We had another opportunity to go with Che later on, to Bolivia. I was about to get married and so I stayed behind. Only four of the volunteers to Africa went with Che on the next mission. 
Well, Che got captured and murdered, and I left the army after eight years service. I prefer working the land, and family life, you know. Well, I´ve been married and divorced three times now. I got another woman. Maybe we´ll get married, if we can find a place to live.
Yeah, El Che. Weren´t no one like him."
	CANE ELECTRICITY
My partners had protected me from the fun-inspired, macho competition. The teams of two men often compete in a speed duel towards the end of the day. I was only able to cut about 150 arrobas. It wasn´t until the next year, however, that I could actually compete, now that I was cutting about 250 arrobas.
One afternoon, my partner, a bull of a man, and I took on the pair in the next row. My left shin met the sharp blade. The town doctor put five stitches in me while a handful of children looked on through the clinic´s open window. 
The three-day rest gave me an opportunity to drive around Sanguily with the new shop steward. Mario Rodríguez had just been elected by the vast majority of the plantation´s 1,132 workers. Following CTC´s decision to have its stewards and most functionaries elected by the work force, Sanguily was one of the first work center´s to hold elections. There were 16 candidates for the one steward position. Mario´s youth, catching charm and easy speaking facility won him the position. He receives his regular wage while working full-time as a steward.

The other positions voted for were the agricultural administer, charged with overseeing the self-sufficiency crops grown by and for the work force, and the firm´s administrator. There was  only one nominee for each post, the incumbent. The director is still appointed, but he can be rejected by a majority of workers if they so decide and are backed by the local party leadership. In this case, Segundo Guerra was reappointed without dissent.
The little plantation town has a small library with reference material on Manuel Sanguily, for whom the area is named. He was a stalwart intellectual-fighter for total independence from Spain in the late 19th century. He had argued against General Maximo Gomez and other independence leaders when they threw in the towel in face of United States military occupation.
There is a primary school and nursery school, and a small movie house, which plays old Russian films that hardly anyone pays the .10 centavos to see. Sometimes a Hollywood action film is shown and the house is packed.
What most fascinated me was the inauguration of electricity brought to the small San José housing community of 45 residences owned by mill workers.
The revolution has brought electric lighting to almost all inhabitants (95%), sans a few thousand in some remote mountainous areas or where it doesn´t pay to run expensive lines and posts to a few isolated living units. The government offers these people the possibility of moving into apartments in a nearby town, often built by the Young Army Workers brigades--part of  Turquino Plan to bring modern infrastructures to the mountains. Nevertheless, a few oldtimers prefer to stay in their ramshackle bohios. This palm wood-frond, shack-like home is built after the pre-Columbian Taino Indian design. Today, bohios have concrete floors and well water.
There are still a few settlements without electricity that the state is connecting to the national network, and San José was the last such area in La Palma municipality. I was a special guest, since I was the only foreign-internationalist worker in the area. Just as night was about to fall, a test of the electric cables failed. All the residents were milling about, waiting for the lights to be turned on so that the Minister of Electrification could give his speech and they could then drink the beer swilling about in a large metal container.
I was anxious that it wouldn´t all come together, but Mario had no doubts. The Yoruba god of lightning, Chango, had been consulted and he was present in the tallest royal palm, the tree that he prefers to reside in. The electric repairman on hand mended the problem and, as if by magic, the first shades of  nightfall were lighted. The people clapped heartily as the minister said, "The revolution and the gods are with us."
He then held up a small, dark-colored glass bottle with a wick fixed in the center of its twist-top. There was a bit of wax at the bottom and a burnt smell.
"This is a symbol of misery, the rural folks´ lamp of the past. You all remember, or have heard the story, that at the beginning of the revolution, this whole municipality--which now employs and furnishes housing for 60,000 people--had no electricity at all. With this lamp, we turn the last page to the dark past."

He handed me the lamp, a gesture of "friendship and solidarity." I was touched. My only words were to let people know the difference between their government, which continued bringing electricity to the few people who still didn´t have the modern necessity, and the government to the north, which was taking electricity away from people who had no funds to pay. 
A month later, I revisted San José to speak to people about how electricity--generated by the mill´s bagasse--had changed their lives. One-fourth of the families already had TV sets, almost all had radios and refrigerators, and one even had a washing machine that was in constant use.
One middle-aged couple said that they  loved watching television but, the man added, "We make less love." His wife nodded and smiled sheepishly.
An older, retired couple told me, "We go to bed an hour later than we used to." The woman said she sews a bit more now, and her man, Felix, watches television, especially news.
Felix is living history around these parts. He handed me a light alloy, coin-like object. Its circumference was serrated. There was writing imprinted on both sides: "Valedera para empleados de Chappara solamente. Diez centavos, Chappara Cuba."
"This is what we used to be paid with during capitalism," Felix told me. "I got this when I worked at the old Chappara plantation. We cane workers had to migrate a lot in those days. La Palma was my home, but I had to move around to get the work there was. We were often only paid in this company money and had to buy our food, clothing, whatever, at the company store, the only place that would take this phony money. Here, you keep this to remember us by." 
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 19
	WELFARE NETWORK STILL SOLID

"If all of Latin America could have the level of medical attention that Cuba offers, more than 700,000 children would not have died last year in the region." (Dr. James P. Grant, executive director of UNICEF, said during a visit to Cuba, November 11, 1989.)

"The future of our land has to be a future of (people) of science; it has to be a future of men of thought...we are converting the fortresses into schools...incorporating...intelligence...into culture and science," said Fidel Castro, January 15, 1960, explaining that good health care, and scientific research and development are revolutionary priorities.
"One day Cuba will count", he continued, "a brilliant pleiad of men of thought, the names of many (youth studying today) will be known in our country and abroad as eminent scientists."
And so it came to pass. Thirty-five years later, the island-nation has 5000 scientists and technicians working in 100 biotechnology  centers. In all, Cuba has 200 scientific research and production centers, employing a total of 30,000 educated professionals. The universities employ over 20,000 professors, of whom 6000 are scientific researchers.
Some of the youths studying in the 1960s have, in fact, become famous names in science. Drs. Carlos Miyares Cao, Orfilio Pelaez, Carlos Mella Lizama, Concepción Campa and Gustavo Sierra are a few of hundreds associated with medical and scientific breakthroughs. The international medical world is also familiar with Cuban medical commercial export firms, such as: Heber Biotec, Finlay Institute and Servimed.
Since biotechnology was introduced in Cuba, with the help of Finland, in 1981, Cuban scientists have produced great quantities of Interferons; Facdermin, the epidermal growth factor to help burnt skin heal faster and smoother; Melagenina, the most effective cure for vitiligo; VA-MENGOC-BC, the world´s only vaccine against Meningitis B; and the island is one of the few countries to produce a vaccine against Hepatitis B.
In December 1994, Fidel inaugurated the Molecular Immunology Center. It is responsible for the production of antibody "projectiles" that attack unwanted bacteria, which  penetrate the immunology  system. Work in this area had begun in 1982 when scientists produced Cuba´s first monoclonal antibodies. Today, the nation is producing 100 types that are used in cancer prevention and treatment of crises caused by organ rejections following transplants.

In his inaugural speech at the new immunology headerquarters, Fidel said, "Even transnational pharmaceutical companies look at our country with respect and recognize the enormous capacity that we have developed in just a few years." He also noted that the few transnationals control the world´s markets and they, along with the US blockade, make it "nearly impossible for Cuba to compete with our low-cost and high-quality products."
Cuba is able to sell some of its 250 biotechnology products, mostly to third world countries, but often is forced to do so through third parties that label them under different names, in order to avoid the blockade. This indirect marketing nets the nation far less profits than if they could sell them directly. 
The first biotechnology center was opened in July 1986. The Genetic and Biotechnology Engineering Center is now world famous. The Miramar area of Havana, where the prow is located, is known as the "scientific pole." Nearby centers are also producing important medicines and vaccines. One produced 11 million multi-vitamin pills daily, that were distributed free to every resident to combat the neuritis epidemic. Some residents now buy the pills at a token price.
 Another site will be producing sufficient vaccines to immunize every child against all childrens´ diseases, with some doses left over for export. The Ministry of Public Health provides immunization for 95% of the island´s children against all childhood diseases. Cuba produces 10 of these 12 vaccines, as well as 25 others against animal diseases.  Cuba produces immunizations against tuberculosis, both types of measles, polio, diptheria, tetanus, typhus, mumps, hooping-cough, Meningitis C and B and Hepatitis B.
 Scientists are formulating a "great cocktail," as Dr. Gustavo Sierra described the multi-infant vaccine, then in clinical tests.
"One or two inoculations will soon be protecting children against many diseases," he explained to me during several interviews conducted, in 1995, at the Finlay Institute, where he is the vice-director. Dr. Sierra said that the centers researching vaccines, which he directs, were in various stages of testing vaccines against AIDS, cholera, Hepatitis C, dengue, and other diseases.
"Our anti-AIDS prevention, therapeutic and pre-natal variant vaccines will be of one or two inoculations," he said. He is optimistic that Cuba will have an anti-AIDS vaccine in the first decade of next century.
Cuba had injected nearly the entire population with 225 million doses, by 1995, against all childhood diseases, since it began its vaccination program in 1960--all free of charge. In contrast, the United States reaches only half of its children with vaccines against eight diseases.
 	The founder of the vaccine against Hepatitis B, US scientist Saul Krugman said, when he visited Cuba, that the small nation could be, "the first in the world to eliminate this evil," that chronically affects 300 million people in the world.
All pregnant women with this disease are controlled, and all children under 20 will be vaccinated by the year 2000, when it is hoped the that disease will be eradicated in Cuba.
A new vaccine against Weil´s disease (leptospirosis bacteria found in rats and other animals) was at the marketing stage in 1996. Nine hundred people suffered from the disease in 1994, and 33 died.

Other medical breakthroughs include the recombinant streptokinase, an enzyme that dissolves coagulants in miocardial infarct; many types of monoclonal antibodies; and a cure for night blindness. By the first quarter in 1995, Cuban medical personnel had performed nearly one thousand successful kidney transplants, 24 heart transplants--four of the earliest operations have extended the lives of these patients by nine years--and scores of other organ transplants.
A new joint venture complex was scheduled to open by late 1996 or early 1997 that will produce insulin developed by Novo of Denmark, the only nation to develop insulin other than the US, which refuses to sell it to Cubans. National production should cover all Cuban diabetic needs, and the mixed company will export more to Latin American markets. 
	BLOCKADE BACKFIRES
"We have a great chance of creating the multiple-meningitis vaccine. With one inoculation we´d be able to prevent all types of the meningitis disease," Dr. Gustavo Sierra told me.
Dr. Sierra has the distinction, along with Politbureau member Dr. Concepción Campa Huergo, of being the co-inventor of the first and only effective and patented vaccine against the most deadly form of meningococcus, type B, which affects about 80% of people hit by meningitis in its several varieties.
Campa-Sierra, and other researchers, began work on a meningococcus vaccine in 1982. That year, 1,260 Cubans contracted the disease; 192 died.The purified vaccine, VA-MENGOC-BC, was quickly created and, in 1988, national patent authorities granted a license. In two years time, nearly one million children had been immunized with 92.5% effectiveness in the youngest.
Though there is no absolute cure for the disease once contracted, Cuba´s "gamma globulin treatment is the most effective because this protein component of blood plasma contains antibodies against various microorganisms. It is extracted and purified from blood obtained from vaccinated people using the vaccine, and thus cannot be duplicated by other means," explained Dr. Sierra.
In 1989, Brazil was the first of several  Latin American countries to ask for the vaccine to counteract epidemics. Cuba donated one million doses. By mid-1995, 35 million doses had been sold to a dozen countries, mostly in the Americas but also to Iceland. Follow up evaluations show that effectiveness in all ages varies between 60 and 80% in most people vaccinated abroad. Of 16,000 children, aged three months to five years, vaccinated in Antioquia, Colombia (1990-2), no incidences of the diseases  had occurred by 1995.
Results of this vaccine were so positive that the World Intellectual Property Organization, which oversees patents, awarded Cuba the 1990 Gold Medal.
Meningitis B is practically non-existent in Cuba today. In 1990, there were 449 incidences with 118 fatalities. In 1994, cases dropped to 73 with 28 deaths. 

In contrast, 1818 cases of Meningitis B were reported in the United States in 1994, and they were doubling by mid-1995. In some states, namely, Florida and Oregon, the disease reached epidemic proportions, but the US media that I monitored reported that there is no vaccine. I was involved in sending material about Cuba´s vaccine and its national and international success to 50 US dailies and periodicals, but the information was not published. The United States government does not recognize Cuba´s vaccine, although its patent has been pending there since 1988. The US will not import any Cuban product, including vaccines and medicines that can prevent illness and death to its own citizens.
A centrally planned  society has clear advantages over private enterprise systems in health care and scientific research-production fields, as Dr. Sierra explained.
"In our system, monetary values and individualistic competition for private gain are eliminated and thus there is no need for secrecy among scientists. All scientific ideas, all testing and production are shared with every center and all personnel in this area. For example, the commission in charge can coalesce, at any moment, the staffs working on one vaccine.
"This is an incredible potential, more so than any transnational, multi-billion dollar company. No other entity has the work force and resources working in this area that we have. Nevertheless, the US blockade in conjunction with pharmeceutical transnational corporations do all they can to keep us out of the market, and do, in fact, make it difficult for us and for people who suffer needlessly when we could help them."
Another "scientific pole" famous medical facility is the International Center for Neurological Restoration (CIREN), which has developed the world´s most advanced treatments against several diseases, including Parkinson and Alzheimer´s.  Hospital diagnoses and treatments combine both Western medical methods and traditional Eastern and holistic models.
CIREN´s traditional Chinese medical clinic is also the working center for the International Federation of Holistic Medicine. Founded in 1994, the federation has members in the US, Canada and Latin America. Its president, Dr. Marcos Diaz, is the head of the CIREN clinic that practices acupuncture-moxabustion, herbs, massage and exercises, laser and supplementary treatments for neurological patients. Argentina´s President Carlos Menem sent his nephew to CIREN. He received both Western and Eastern treatments. Unable to walk when he came, I saw him walk out of the hospital smiling, a few months later. 
 Natural, energetic and green medical approaches are now taught to medical students in a new masters program at the medical university in Havana. General instruction in traditional natural medicine is also part of the curriculum for all medical students.

An internationally recognized expert in traditional Chinese medicine, Dr. Liu Zhengcai, a Chinese professor who taught doctors in Cuba in 1993-5, told me, "I foresee great developments in this field here. Cuba will become a base for traditional Chinese medicine in Latin America as China is in Asia."
	AIDS 
Cuba was among the first countries to tackle the AIDS problem in a serious manner, even before it had detected its first victim. A system of alert was instituted in all medical facilities in 1983, and the first case of AIDS was thereby discovered in 1985. All imported blood derivatives were immediately prohibited, and all Cuban blood donatations have since been tested for the virus.
In the initial year of the program, the state invested over one million dollars in detection and diagnostic measures and 220,000 dollars in laboratory materials. Unlike other countries, Cuba conducted massive serological tests of large groups of people at risk, and rapidly made epidemic investigations of all persons testing positive and their sexual contacts. Blood donors, workers at job sites at risk (in tourism, for example), soldiers, travelers abroad, pregnant women and those hosptialized between the ages of 15 and 60 were tested.
The Ministry of Public Heath (MINSAP) opened the first sanitarium for these special patients in April 1986. Soon, all 14 provinces had their own institution for local resident patients. Cuba received a lot of criticism for "incarcerating" AIDS carriers and the sick. A former health vice-minister and a leading doctor at the Santiago de las Vegas sanitarium, near Havana, explained the reasons for quarantining these patients.
"The 1982 Decree Law No. 54, conceived before AIDS was known in Cuba, provides  for the state to isolate persons with transmittable diseases when their activities "imply danger for the public health," said Dr. Rigoberto Torres, an expert in the national AIDS program.
"Institutionalizing these patients permits the best possible diagnosis and treatment in excellent conditions. Here, we can provide the correct education for each carrier of how to protect his health and others. And we diminish the spread of the virus." 
Given that Cuba is an island and that few people travel outside it, authorities thought they could keep incidence rates down. And that has proven true. The realtive growth rate has been practically nil in the decade of experience, climbing from 0.006 to 0.007.

No costs have been spared to prevent the spread of the disease and to help those who have it. The state spends between 26,000 and 30,000 pesos and 10,000 dollars  per patient annually.  The dollar costs include imported equipment, supplies and AZT tablets. Many patients take Cuba´s Interferon, but AZT has better affects for some patients. The extensive care has resulted in most carriers leading healthy lives for many years--an average of ten--before contracting the sickness. 
All patients, who were workers, receive their full wage while not working and some can continue some forms of work at the sanitariums. They all live in individual houses or spacious apartments, either alone or with a partner of choice. These residences are fully furnished and include color television sets, fans or air conditioning, refrigerators and stoves. They can order their meals at the cafeteria the day before eating or are given food to do their own cooking, as they choose. Patients used to receive 5,700 calories (the UN recommended average is 3000), but this sum went down to 4500 when the rest of the population was averaging under 2000, in 1994. Patients still get more protein, including meat on a daily basis, than UN recommendations. 
The sanitariums have video halls, sports fields and equipment, table games, workshops,  sewing and arts and crafts. Residents can also work their own gardens.  Patients´ standard of living is higher than the vast majority of Cubans, and most all nationalities.
All these health and material benefits took a psychic toll as well, despite the best intentions of the state to protect patients and the society. Although most patients were able to make home visits--at first chaperoned and once trusted released on their own--some were upset that they were forced to live at the sanitarium. 
An ambulatory plan began in 1993, and by the first of 1994 practically all patients who wanted to could choose to return to the community. The only ones denied this opportunity were a few deemed to be unsafe, in some cases because they had transmitted the disease to others without telling them they were carriers and without using condoms.
A majority of Cubans polled in a 1994 University of Havana study feared that the ambulatory program was dangerous for the community. Sixty-three percent had misgivings about it because they had little confidence in carrier consciousness, especially regarding sexual behavior.
"We have a problem of condoms not being accepted in Latin cultures," said Dr. Torres. Even doctors I spoke with do not use protection when having sex with casual partners. "Juventud Rebelde" found that nearly all Cubans conduct sex without using preservatives consistently or ever. The fact that cultural norms reject the use of preservatives is one reason why the government decided to isolate AIDS carriers in the first place.
"Had we not isolated them," Dr. Torres said, "we estimate that there would have been three times the number infected than there are."
Eighteen months after the ambulatory program went into full effect, only 20% of patients had elected to return to the community, and some of those who had came back to their institutional homes. Somewhere between 85 and 95% of all patients, by then, had been granted permission to leave if they wished.

I interviewed several patients and personnel at Santiago de las Vegas´ "Los Cocos" sanitarium. At the time, there were about 200 patients and 300 personnel: social workers and psychologists, doctor specialists, nurses, maintenance, kitchen and administration staff.
Abdul Cebilla is one of the patients who prefers to stay at the institution. 
"I like leaving when I want to, to see the city and visit folk, but I´d rather live here permanently. The treatment is good in all ways and I feel secure. My sex partner is on the street and is healthy. We visit each other once a week and use condoms," Cebilla said.
Although the rule had been that those who become sick must be hospitalized in the specialized Tropical Medicine Hospital near Havana, many patients opt to stay at the sanitarium, and a few choose to die at home. Authorities do not usually intervene in this.
 I watched a sick man dying in the intensive care clinic at Los Cocos. He looked twice his age of 38 years. As his frail body breathed heavily, a psychologist held his hand. He soon died with medical personnel and family by his side.
Carriers and sick persons, who choose to return to the community, receive a special diet with additional calories and protein, but delivery cannot be as certain at the institutions. They also receive daily medicine and regular medical checkups in their nearby polyclinics and hospitals, and can always return to the sanitariums for special treatment. The Ministry of  Public Health has no plans to close any down nor to scale back on care.
Half the men I interviewed were homo or bisexual. National statistics indicate that is the general breakdown of HIV carriers' sexual preference. The myth that AIDS is specifically a "queer´s disease" never took hold in Cuba. The general Latin American attitude towards homosexuals has been deprecatory, and so it was in Cuba officialdom and in the streets, until  recent years. Now, films portray homosexuals with respect, and there are even some night spot that gays frequent.
Many of Cuba´s male HIV carriers contracted the disease when soldiering in Africa. Reynaldo Morales González is one of those. Upon his return from Angola, in January 1986, he was tested for HIV. He had sexual relations with his wife, Maria Julia Fernandez, before results returned. Soon, his wife tested seropositive as well. They had lived at Los Cocos for nearly a decade when I last saw them. They have a two-bedroom home with a carpentary workshop, and a half-hectare of land with vegetables, fruit trees and flowers.

"We´ve decided to stay and die here," Reynaldo told me. "My body is getting a bit weak and I´ve recently given up carpentry, but I still make speaking engagements for the safe sex campaign.We committed some errors in the past: giving out too many passes too liberally, at some points. People weren´t very conscious about the problem. Now, our educational program is more thorough-going, and we´ve achieved greater freedoms as patients. I support the ambulatory program but I also know that it can be abused.
"Cuba´s AIDS program is one of the most comprehensive in the world, from what I can learn. And I would recommend it to other countries, but proper conditions have to exist."
	THE COSTS OF GOOD HEALTH CARE
As the rest of the world´s governments decrease resources for the social well-being of their peoples, the Cuban state is providing more, despite hard times and the fact that much of its economic reforms are heading in a free market direction with monetary incentives. Not one medical facility nor one school has been closed down, not one health or education worker laid off for "downsizing" reasons, as is frequently happening in most "advanced" industrialized lands.
Providing good health care, and a full social security network, is costly. To support the 80,257 hospital beds (in 278 hospitals and 435 polyclincs), 167 denistry clinics, and 24 medical teaching facilities, the state spends one-tenth of its budget (1.18 billion pesos in 1995).
 World Health Organization 1992 statistics indicated that "developing" countries spent 0.9% of their Gross National Product on health care, on the average. The most developed nations spent an average of 3.3%. That year, Cuba spent 1.04 billion pesos of the 15 billion earned, or 6.3%. The percentage of Gross Domestic Product (as Cuba calculated it in 1994) designated for health care grew to 9.4%, and represented 10.2% of its state budget.
The 1995 state budget called for a four percent increase in all social welfare costs. Expenditures for the Ministry of Public Health were increased by 1.9%, and the two ministries of education received 4% over 1994. A 58% jump was programmed for social assistance for the  poorest and handicapped persons. A four percent increase was alloted for one-tenth the population on pensions and social security, despite the 680 million pesos deficit in social security funds. The state covers its social security expenditures through taxes on profitable firms, but this amounts to only 56% of expenditures. In addition to welfare expenditures, the state augumented the budget for science and technology research by 5.5%.
The 1996 budget also called for increase in social welfare programs, two percent over 1995. Health care institutions were to receive 80 million more pesos, and educational facilities 60 million more. Both areas take 21.6% of the new budget. The state is now alloting a total of 59% of expenditures to all social services.

This huge amount of national resources devoted to social welfare pays off in many ways. After the 1994 rise in infant mortality to 9.9, the death rate at birth fell back in 1995 to what it was in 1993: 9.4. By mid-1996, the average was under 9.   
WHO considers the infant mortality index to be "a thermometer of social well-being".  Cuba has the lowest baby death rate of any third world nation (Chile and Costa Rica are closest in Latin America with 13 per thousand births), and is one of only 22 countries that can boast of having under 10 per thousand. Several of the poorest countries have rates of 70 to 114. The average of 130 underdeveloped lands is 60 to one thousand. The highest marks in the world are: Japan, Sweden and Finland with 4; Great Britain with 6; and the US stands at 8.
A 1994 UNICEF report stated that the survival rate of Cuban babies was "much higher than expected, if we take into account its Gross Domestic Product," which, according to the document was 1,170 dollars. Such low income would normally exhibit a mortality rate of 58 per 1000.
Maternity mortality is also low, 3.3 per 10,000 live births, which fell from 4.4 in 1994. Every expectant mother receives a dozen types of prenatal examinations and controls. One is the high technology diagnosis for congential malformation dangers. And mothers with high risk birthing factors can be cared for in maternal homes with continual professional care and nutritious diets of 2,800 calories. Every pregnant woman is given multivatamin daily supplements. Nearly all births (99.8%) take place in hospitals. After an educational campaign to convince mothers to breast feed their babies, in order to improve their health, the percentage doing so increased from 53% to 90% between 1991 and 1994.  
The economically pressed nation continues to graduate more doctors, teachers, scientists and sports directors per capita than any or most any other country. There is one teacher per 37 inhabitants and one scientist and researcher per 275. In 1994, there was one doctor per 204 inhabitants; in 1995, one per 193. With the 1995 graduating class of 4,094 doctors, there is now one doctor per 180 inhabitants. The highest number of  graduating doctors was  4704, in 1994, compared to 300 in 1958, when the country only had one medical school. That year, 50 dentists were graduated, compared to 489 in 1995. The society has reached a saturation point with medical professionals. For only  the second time in the post-1959 history, the number of medical students has been cut back: the class of 1996 enrolled 2000 medical students.
Of the 63,000 doctors Cuba had in 1995, 30,000 were practicing family medical care, covering 95% of the population. In 1995, Fidel forecast that every person will have his/her own family doctor living and working in their neighborhood by 2000. Fidel  also predicted that by the turn of the millennium, Cuba would have 10,000 of its doctors working in foreign mission, the majority in third world countries at no cost to them. Already, Cuba sends more medical personnel on humanitarian missions than do all the nations in United Nations medical projects combined.

It appears, however, that even though the state continues to increase expenditures, facilities and personnel, more people than ever get sick or, at least, occupy doctors´ time and hospital beds.
The Ministry of Public Health´s 1994 yearbook provides some interesting statistics concerning the state of the nation´s health that are not normally discussed. For instance, the number of outpatient medical consultations in 1970 amounted to 29,300,053, or 3.4 per inhabitant. That figure had climbed to 6.4 per inhabitant in 1990 (it fell slightly in 1994 to 6.1).
The numbers of persons hospitalized is one of the highest in the world. Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) 1980 statistics showed that 13% of the population spent an average of nine days in a hospital bed. A decade later, 15 of every 100 inhabitants occupied a hospital bed for ten days. One area of bed time overuse is obstetrics. Although the recommended hospitalization time for expectant mothers is three days, the average spent in the 1990s is seven days.
Cubans also die from first world diseases more so than most third world peoples. The number one death gripper is heart disease, 199 per 100,000. Cancers are second, 131 per 100,000; followed by brain failure, 67; and accidents, 52.
Murder statistics are not made public, but suicides are recorded in MINSAP´s yearbook. In 1970, 9.9 of deaths per 100,000 were self-inflicted. That number grew to 11.1 in 1980 and skyrocketed to 21.3 in 1993 and 1994. Taking one´s life is generally considered to be a "rich man´s" way out. The number of people committing suicide in poor countries is significantly less than in rich industrialized nations.
1990 PAHO data listed death rates for reasons of "external violence" in 38 American countries. In the period 1985-9, Cuba was in the medium at 11.9%. Colombia was highest at 22.5, followed by Mexico and Nicaragua at 15.5. In the 1989 "external violence" category, Cuban deaths due to accidents amounted to 61.5%; suicides accounted for 26.7; homicides and war, 11.8, which was one of the lowest. The percentage of Colombians who were murdered or killed in war actions was highest, 65.1.
 Cuba is also an underdeveloped country in many ways, and some causes of death reflect this. PAHO 1990 data shows that 20% of children who died under five years of age did so from diarrhea, one of the highest rates in the Americas; and Cubans die of nutritional deficiencies in greater percentages than many other American nationalities. PAHO reported, in 1994, that births of underweight babies rose from 7.3% in 1989 to 9% in 1993. The rate was 20%, however, in 1959. 
 In yet another contrast, fewer Cubans died of tuberculosis than all others on PAHO´s list.

 	Cubans are complaining about the quality of health care. The media began publishing some complaints once Raul Castro referred to the poor quality of health care for the ordinary patient in civilian hospitals ("Granma" September 17, 1994 interview).  He commented that people prefer to be treated in military hospitals, whose civilian patients account for 80% of the total. Raul added that the condition of "our old age homes" are "sad", and that "this is not the fault of special period. This is due to a lack of sensitivity, to bureaucracy."
Havana´s weekly, "Tribuna", printed a story (December 4, 1994) on the delegates report-back-to electors´ meetings held throughout the city. The most oft-repeated complaints heard were about "deficiencies in water supply...transportation and medical attention," in that order. Only two-thirds of Cuban residencies have plumping facilities; one-third must get their water from outside the home. Only 30% of rural homes have running water. Drinking water is no longer safe to drink without boiling it, in most areas. These conditions result in greater numbers of sicknesses, including diarrhea.
At an international meeting held in Havana, in September 1995, the problem of drinking water and sanitation was discussed with representatives of the UN-PAHO. Dr. Miguel Márquez, of PAHO, reported that "40% of the water lost in Cuba each year can be recovered" ("Granma International", September 27, 1995).  Thirty percent of wasted water is due to the faulty technical state of supply and sanitation systems. 
Dr. Márquez said that the deteriorated state of water and sewage hygiene causes a "negative influence on the country´s health and constitutes a danger for sustaining the indicators reached by Cuba."
In addition to wastes caused by poor infrastructure, many Cubans do not turn off faucets when not in use, or allow leaks to continue dripping. A small investment in washers could also decrease losses. 
More complaints are being heard about the poor quality of educational instruction, as well. Not only have 14,000 thousands teachers left the system for better paying jobs, especially those who speak other Western languages, but course material is often not challenging and examinations are oriented for everyone to pass them.
The Ministry of Education, on the pre-university levels, has begun to publically discuss how the system might be improved. New curricula and methods of instruction are being experimented with, and 4000 teachers who left teaching have recently returned to their profession.
Chris Martin, a US citizen married to a Cuban philosophy professor, teaches teachers. She  feels optimistic about recent changes.
"I can detect new critical thinking in educational methodology," Martin told me. "There is more enthusiasm to think creatively and to express ideas. One of the silver linings of the special period is a relaxation on the repression of thought. Most decisions are still made at the top, but more teachers, parents and students, as well as workers in the fields and factories, are participating in more ways."

Another plus in these hard times is that not all social expenditures are simply a drain on Cuba´s economy. The scientific-medical field took in 11% of export income earned in 1994. It grossed 150 million dollars from the sale of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology medicines and equipment, making it fourth in order of convertible currency intake that year.
 The Minister of Science, Technology and the Environment, Dr. Rosa Elena Simeon, reported that 1994 closed with more medical exports than all previous periods. I spoke with her when Britain's Minisiter of Science and Technology, Ian Taylor, visited Cuba in September 1995.
"We have now paid back all our investments and resources put into this expensive industry and then some," Dr. Simeon said. She was reluctant to talk about growth in the industry, because it is based primarily on sickness, she said. In fact, the industry´s 1995 gross fell to 110 million dollars, largely due to fewer sales of VA-MENGOC-BC after immunizations had wiped out epidemics in Argentina and Brazil, where sales had been high.
Minister Taylor said Great Britain was "interested in several of Cuba´s advanced biotechnology products, and we´ll be looking into interchanges in scientific and medical developments." He signed an agreement with his Cuban counterpart to: "strengthen scientific connections between the two nations in medical biotechnology, oceanography and pharmacology;" create means for "technology transfer using British experience;"  and to establish a "dialogue with the British office for the protection of Cuban patents and intellectual property." 
Another major marketing breakthrough occurred in 1996 when the Canadian firm, York Medical, undertook to market some of Cuba´s biotechnological produced products. The prospect for augmenting the dollar income in the scientific-medical industry looks brighter than ever, despite the US blockade. This will continue to assure a solid social welfare infrastructure.
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 20
	1996 POLITICS; RESCUE POSTURING 

"The enemy is no longer waiting for the objective logic of internal developments to work in its favor. For that reason, we can anticipate adventurist actions of sabotage and destablization, not just a more irrational blockade, which has been achieved, but aggressive actions by its agents...the scant elements that attempt to appear as an internal opposition, and whom we will never underestimate...are a de facto natural ally of the counterrevolution, as is the lack of social discipline, the theft and slaughter of cattle, robbery and petty crime." (Raul Castro, March 23, 1996 Politbureau report to the Communist party central committee´s 5th Plenum.)

The new year opened optimistically. People had eaten better over the holidays than they had in five years, and Havanans were looking forward to the first full-scale carnival celebration in a number of years. More foreign bussinesspeople were making profitable deals in Cuba. Not only did economic prospects look brighter, but the normal tensions with the United States were relaxing slightly as it was complying with the 1994 immigration accords by returning the few Cubans who still tried to enter the US without visas. The US Interests Section was also issuing more immigration visas, on a lottery basis. Cuba was complying by making it easy for people to leave the nation and not punishing those who tried to do so illegally.
Anti-Cuban right-wingers were frustrated. Cuban-Americans wanting to normalize relations were growing in number, though their voice was not yet heard in Washington. Although President William Clinton backed the 1992 Torricelli  blockade measures, he did not favor tightening the rope, and didn´t support the Helms-Burton congressional bill, which would fill any loopholes in the blockade by making it more costly for third parties doing business with Cuba.
An alleged "humanitarian" organization in Miami, Brothers to the Rescue (BR), had been founded in 1991 to assist "rafters" sailing illegally to Florida´s shores. BR pilots watched the seas to spot "rafters" for the US Coast Guard to pick them up. Now that the US was no longer accepting illegals, Brothers to the Rescue was out of business. They took to provoking their enemy by flying over Cuban airspace, flaunting their contempt for Cuban sovereignty. Brothers to the Rescue sometimes violates airspace and drops leaflets over Havana inciting insurrection, which it did on Jan. 9 and 13, 1996.
On January 16, Cuba sent an official complaint to the US government stating that it would no longer  tolerate incursions over its territory and that future violators risked being shot.

 	BR leader José Basulto, a former CIA agent and terrorist, proudly told reporters that his group gives funds and generally assists a new coalition of opposition groups inside Cuba called Concilio Cubano (Cuban Conciliation). These dissidents declared intentions to demonstrate on February 24, when the carnival was to take place, celebrating the 1895 War of Independence, and when there were to be naval and air force exercises in Havanan waters.
By Cuban law, demonstrations must be approved by government agencies, which never grant permission to opposition forces. Regardless of one´s opinion of these laws, the Cuban government justifies them on the basis of US aggression. Everyone knows that to attempt demonstrative actions will be prevented. The government had arrested suspected subversives just as the Bay of Pigs was being launched, which prevented a fifth column from underming national security. To avoid such repeats--which groups such as the CANF and BR advocate--or other kinds of  political confrontations, police arrested  scores of people intending to demonstrate. They were held for questioning and released, either before or after the target date. US media barked that Cuba was violating "human rights," but they were silent about BR funding the "internal opposition," a real fifth column.
On February 19, Cuba´s Air Force notified Miami Air Traffic Control that its forces would be realizing air exercises between Feb. 21 and 28, and gave coordinates that included the Baracoa naval base-Mariel area.
 	February 24:
--9:33a.m. Six civilian aircraft take off from Opalocka airport in Miami, the same place where the CIA had kept hand-picked Cubans it wanted to take over Cuba following the Bay of Pigs.
--10:16. The first violation of Cuban airspace takes place. Havana Air Traffic Control contacts Maimi Air Traffic Control Center, which informs that six Cessna with the flight numbers indicated had a flight plan for international waters north of Cuba´s 12-mile limit. One of them was a Cessna-337, N-2506, known as Basulto´s plane by the code number named after Brigade 2506, which had invaded Cuba in April 1961.
--10:21. Second aircraft incursion.
--10:24. Cuba Air Force is placed on maximum alert and jets scrambled. Penetrating aircraft retreat to international waters.
--11:27. A repeat performance by three planes, which quickly retire.
--13:21. One more rapid intrusion and retirement. Miami Air Traffic Control says it had no foreknowledge of any aircraft in the area.
--14:39. Cuban air force sight aircraft and advise that they are in dangerous waters. One of their pilots responds that they are aware of risk but are "disposed to do so."

--15:08. Three Cessnas begin to penetrate Cuban airspace.  A Cuban Mig-23 and a Mig-29 are airborne. The intruding pilots are notified of violations of airspace and Cuban jets attempt disuasive flight actions without results.
--15:18. The command is given to the Cuban jet pilots to "interrupt" the intruding planes.
--15:21. The first Cessna is shot down.
--15:28. The second Cessna is shot down.
--15:32. Cessna-377 N2508 departs Cuban waters before being attacked and is not pursued.
Cuban navy begins search and rescue mission.
--19:00, approximately. Joseph Sullivan, head of US Interests Section in Cuba, requests permission for US Coast Guard cutters to enter Cuban waters to carry out a rescue operation. 
February 25:
--US undersecretary of state reiterates request to Cuban Interests Section in Washington. Permission is granted.
--US Secretary of State Warren Christopher describes the shooting as "totally unjustified", claiming the planes were civilian, flown by a humanitarian organization with no military intention, and had not penetrated Cuban waters.
--Washington Post reports that US "senior administration officials said intelligence reports" show that one plane was downed five miles north of the 12-mile limit and the second one was 16 miles outside it. No proof is offered, but they admit that the third Cessna, "which was not shot at and returned safely to Florida" (that is, José Basulto) "had crossed three nautical miles into Cuban airspace."
February 26:
--Cuba´s National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón, also the nation´s chief expert regarding US-Cuba relations, holds a news conference in which he calls Christopher a "liar", because "he must know that the planes did penetrate Cuban waters", since "White House spokesman McCurry declared that Washington monitors all movements by Cuban armed forces, as well as their communications and air corridors."
"They now describe this type of airplane as harmless, when they are perfectly aware that such aircraft are used to transport drugs into their territory, just as they were used to take illegal immigrants there."
He said that Cuba´s search had already found "debris and personal objects of the pilots well within Cuban waters," and that oceanic current this time of year flow outwards from the coast rather than inwards. US search efforts in international waters had found nothing.

Alarcón pointed out that in August and October of 1995, the US Federal Aviation Administration informed the Cuban government that it was investigating José Basulto and his group for violating US aviation regulations for overflights in Cuban territority. Officials requested information for which they thanked the Cuban government.  
The parliament´s leader also recalled how these Cessnas, and other small civilian aircraft, can be used for military purposes and had been so used time and again over the long history of US aggressions against his nation.

--Basulto tells CNN that there was a "remote" possibility that the dead men had violated Cuban airspace. "I am not denying or accepting anything."
--President William Clinton announces sanctions against Cuba for "human rights abuse." He suspends all chartered flights between the US and Cuba. Between 120,000 and 140,000 US residents had been traveling to Cuba annually. Henceforth, only those licensed by the US government could legally travel to Cuba and only through third countries. Clinton also approves more federal monies to increase radio and TV broadcasts inside Cuba, increasing radio propaganda programs from around 1400 hours a week to 1700. He asks Congress to authorize legislation to use frozen Cuban assests in the US to compensate the families of the four men killed, and he says he now favors reaching an agreement with Congress on the Helms-Burton bill.

--Brothers to the Rescue pilot Juan Pablo Roque gives an interview in Havana on Cuban TV. A major in the Cuban air force, he had defected in 1992, due to "disagreement over Cuba´s direction",  and joined the Brothers to the Rescue in 1993. He became disaffected with the "hate business against Cuba" and returned to the island on February 23, the day before the two Cessnas were shot down. Roque outlines his association with Basulto, and says he worked for the FBI as well, providing information on the group for which he was paid 6000 dollars. He says that Basulto had instructed him in the use of antipersonal weapons in 1994-5, and that Basulto planned terrorist aircraft actions against Cuban military installations, its nuclear energy plant, and Fidel Castro. Roque says he flew on overflight missions with Basulto and was one of those pilots who dropped leaflets over Havana on January 9, 1996. He says he had given detailed information about BR actions and plans to FBI agent Oscar Montoto, the agent in charge of neutrality act violations in Dade County, Florida. Roque provides Montoto´s mobile phone number: 7345578, and concludes by saying that he told the FBI that BR was planning another overflight on February 24.
February 27:
--The UN Security Council fails to adopt the strong condemnatory language and actions that the US proposed against Cuba but unanimously "strongly deplore" the shooting down of the two planes. The International Civil Aviation Organization, attached to the UN, will investigate. US chief representative to the UN, Madeleine K. Albright, says that the US has proof that the aircraft were shot down in international waters. She offers as an example a pilot radio communication in which Lt. Col. Pérez informed his command--once the rocket was fired at the first Cessna-337 Skymaster--"Le partimos los cojones" (We took off his balls). She exhibits outrage at the "cruelty" of the pilot, saying: "This is not cojones. This is coward ice." The pilot, who had fought in three international missions, including 40 actions at Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, admitted he had said this, and added: "We had been supporting these violations for more than 20 months...We have at the same time great tension and irritation over all these violations."               
February 29:
--The FBI admits that it used Roque as an informant inside the BR group and paid him, but denies his claim that they knew that its planes would fly over Cuban waters on Feb. 24, running the risk of being shot down. Roque tells CNN that the FBI told him not to go on that mission, "because they´re going to knock you out of the sky." Miami FBI agent Paul Philip calls Roque a liar.
March 2:
--BR and other Miami right-wing groups organize a flotilla of boats and planes, escorted by US Coast Guard, to demonstrate against Cuba in Cuban waters. Cuba´s government invites national and international journalists to watch the seas from Cuban boats near the outskirts of the 12-mile limit. I board one of three Cuban Border Patrol cutters and a sub-marine to observe. The waters are choppy and many people become sick, including the Lt. Col. political officer on our boat. The captain cleans up the vomit of a Colombian reporter. Besides tumultuous stomachs, nothing untoward occurs as the flotilla returns to US shores without coming closer than 22 miles to Cuba.
I ask for reactions to the shootings.
"It is long past due," is the common response. No one I speak with thought their government was wrong in defending sovereign territory, but some express doubts as to the wisdom of the shootings, given that their leaders must have known there would be distasteful consequences. Many are tired of the war-like tensions and want the US government off their back.
March 11:
--Time magazine publishes a 3-page article on the events including an interview with Fidel.

"We realized the incident would be exploited as an issue between Cuba and the U.S., and would become an issue in the American presidential election. But, in addition to the flights, there was also interference by the U.S. Interests Section in our internal affairs. What these people were doing was intolerable. They were giving money and paying the bills of dissidents. They were visiting the provinces and promoting opposition to the government under the pretext of checking on rafters returned from the U.S. And all the time we were just watching. It was intolerable," Fidel answered to the question why Cuba took "this action now."
"What was the chain of command?"
"We discussed it with Raul and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We agreed that what happened on Jan. 9 and 13 cannot happen again (Flying over Havana and dropping leaflets). We gave the order to the head of the air force. On Saturday...the San Antonio air base was on high alert. On the third pass, they scrambled and did their job. They shot the planes down. They are professionals. They did what they believe is the right thing. These are all people we trusted, but I take responsibility for what happened."
"Instead of shooting them down, why didn´t you try to force them to land?"
"It is very difficult. We have tried with the narco-traffickers and lost some of our planes."
"Did you ever think about calling President Clinton?"
(Stunned pause). "I have never talked to any President of the United States. The exiles would murder Clinton if they found out he was talking to me."
--March, first week:
--FAA officials meet with Brothers to the Rescue pilots to warn them against any further provocations. The federal agency mails warnings to southern Florida´s 33,225 licensed pilots.

--May 16. The FAA revokes José Basulto´s pilot license for violations of US, Cuban and international laws for using US territory to overfly Cuban waters and land on at least two occasions: July 13, 1995 and the fateful day, February 24, 1996. FAA officials, "speaking on condition of anonymity," according to Associated Press, "said they acted after Basulto filed a flight plan that would have taken him close to Cuba." Basulto had "ignored numerous warnings," said the FAA. Interestingly enough, the FAA had never acted before the shootings, seeming to confirm what Alarcón told the media on February 26: "I hope that the events of the previous weekend will help convince provocateurs, once and for all, that Cuba is serious in defending its sovereignty."
--June 27. The International Civil Aviation Organization completes its report to the UN Security Council without calling for any sanctions against Cuba, but states that its military had shot down the planes in international waters, although not without being provoked on numerous occasions with violations of airspace. It also notes that Washington had not provided information requested, including the tape recordings purportedly containing the conversations between the Cuban pilots and ground controls as the planes were being downed.  The ICAO also points out that "each State must take appropriate measures to prohibit the deliberate use of civil aircraft, registered in that State,...for any reason incompatible with the goals of the Convention of International Civil Aviation."
Alarcón points out that the ICAO investigators had interviewed everyone who had to do with the incident in Cuba, yet only interviewed one person on the US side, Basulto, and not even "alleged witnesses as to the location of the planes," referring to passengers of a cruise ship and crewmen of a tuna fishing boat. Alarcón also informs the ICAO that Jane´s All the World´s Aircraft classifies Cessnas as both military and civilian planes, acknowledging that they had been used by the U.S. military in Vietnam and El Salvador. Alarcón further points out that the BR planes had actually come from the US Air Force, left over from El Salvador operations, and some still had the US insignia painted on their sides.
	HELMS-BURTON LAW
Upon signing the Helms-Burton Act, on March 12, President William Clinton threw away  important executive rights, even such a fundamental one as invitations to visit his nation. Not only does the law "tighten economic sanctions against Cuban strongman Fidel Castro, as punishment for the communist nation´s downing of two unarmed civilian aircraft", as Dina Temple-Raston of the New York Times wrote, March 12, it also intends to determine what kind of economic and political system Cuba must have,  and denies constitutional rights of its own citizens to travel and exchange with the Cuban people. These aspects of the law were nearly buried by the media as international outrage over Title lll sanctions against foreign businesspeople occupied space.
"Under the new law, U.S. Nationals, whose property and equipment was seized by the Castro government when they fled Cuba, could go to U.S. Federal Court and sue companies that buy, sell or use those properties now," wrote the NYT.
 This means that nationalized Americans, who were Cubans at the time of the Cuban revolution, many of whom were part of dictator Batista´s regime, can now use the might of the US government to extract money from Cuba.

"The new law codifies into U.S. Law all existing Cuba sanctions...The purpose is to ensure that the long-standing U.S. Embargo against the island can´t be lifted until a democratic transition is underway in Cuba," wrote the NYT.
It is important to know just what the law seeks to do against Cubans and US citizens, as well as the world at large. The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity  (LIBERTAD) Act runs 90 pages and is divided into four titles, preceded by congressional findings that are simply assertions against the Cuban government. Let us examine findings, purposes and sanctions.
FINDINGS:

1. "The Castro regime has made it abundantly clear that it will not engage in any substantive political reforms that would lead to democracy, a market economy, or an economic recovery."
2. "Radio Marti and Television Marti have both been effective vehicles for providing the people of Cuba with news and information and have helped to bolster the morale of the people of Cuba living under tyranny."
3. "The Congress has historically and consistently manifested its solidarity and the solidarity of the American people with the democratic aspirations of the Cuban people."	
4. "The Cuban Government engages in the illegal international narcotics trade and harbors fugitives from justice in the United States."
5. "The Castro government threatens international peace and security by engaging in acts of armed subversion and terrorism...training and supplying of groups dedicated to international violence."
6. "The Castro government has utilized from its inception and continues to utilize torture in various forms...

7. "For the past 36 years, the Cuban Government has posed and continues to pose a national security threat to the United States."

PURPOSES:

1. "To assist the Cuban people in regaining their freedom and prosperity."
2. "To strengthen international sanctions against the Castro government."
3. "To provide for the continued national security of the United States in face of continuing threats from the Castro government..."
4. "To encourage the holding of free and fair democratic elections in Cuba.."
5. "To provide a policy framework for United States support to the Cuban people..."
6. "To protect United States nationals against confiscatory takings...through (Castro´s) personal despotism, he has confiscated the property of millions of his own citizens; thousands of United States nationals; and thousands more Cubans who claimed asylum in the United States...and later became naturalized citizens."

TITLE l--Strengthening International Sanctions Against The Castro Government

Sec. 102--"(b)(1) A civil penalty of not to exceed 50,000 (dollars) may be imposed by the Secretary of the Treasury on any person who violates any license, order, rule, or regulation issued in compliance with the provisions of this Act." In addition, "any property, funds, securities, papers, or other articles or documents, or any vessel, together with its tackle, apparel, furniture, and equipment...shall be forfeited to the United States Government."
(e) "deny visas to Cuban nationals considered by the Secretary of State to be officers or employees of the Cuban Government or of the Communist Party of Cuba." About 80% of all workers are employees of the Cuban Government.
Sec. 103--No US citizen or resident may finance or loan anything to Cuba through third parties in relationship to confiscated properties and claims.
Sec. 104--The US opposes Cuban membership in any international financial institution, until the US president "submits a determination under section 203(c)(3) that a democratically elected government in Cuba is in power."
"If any international financial institution approves a loan or other assistance to the Cuban Government over the opposition of the United States, then the Secretary of the Treasury shall withhold from payment to such institution an amount equal to the amount of the loan or other assistance..."
Sec. 105--Organization of American States shall not allow Cuban membership.
Sec. 106--All independent states of the former Soviet Union must withdraw all funding, aid and personnel from the unfinished nuclear power facility at Juragua, Cienfuegos Cuba. Nor shall they engage in "nonmarket based trade" (barter).The President shall withhold from assistance an "amount equal to the sum of assistance and credits" that Russia pays Cuba for its "intelligence facility at Lourdes, Cuba." Russia pays 200 million dollars for this facility, which monitors US activity. The irony to this part of the sardonic law is that the President can waive this provision if he "certifies that the Russian Government has assured the United States Government that the Russian Government is not sharing intelligence data collected at the Lourdes facility with officials or agents of the Cuban Government." In short: It is OK if the Ruskies spy on us but they can´t give information to the Cubans.
Sec. 107--Television Martí is to receive more funds and to broadcast on UHF, which could penetrate Cuban channels.
Sec. 108--The president shall submit to "appropriate congressional committees on commerce" a "description of all bilateral assistance provided to Cuba by other foreign countries, including humanitarian assistance...identification of Cuba´s trading partners and the extent of such trade...description of the joint ventures completed, or under consideration...the amount of debt"  Cuba owes to whom.
Sec. 109--(a)"The President is authorized to furnish assistance and provide other support for individuals and independent nongovernmental organizations to support democracy-building efforts for Cuba, including...published and information matter...on transitions to democracy, human rights, and market economies...humanitarian assistance to victims of political repression, and their families...support for democratic and human rights groups in Cuba."
(b)The US shall allocate five million dollars of its contribution to the OAS for the "immediate deployment of independent human rights monitors of the Organization  throughout Cuba and on-site visits to Cuba by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights."
(c)No imports are allowed from anywhere in the world that contain any "part of any article which is the growth, produce, or manufacture of Cuba."
Sec. 110--All US sanctions against Cuba and products derived in whole or in part therefrom apply to all activities relating to The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), meaning that Canada and Mexico must comply with this law.

Sec. 111--Any government or firm that assists in the construction of the Juragua nuclear power plant shall be penalized by withholding funds or credits in the amount "equal to the the sum of assistance and credits" that may be provided to the plant.
Sec. 112--(A)"Before considering the reinstitution of general licenses for family remittances to Cubans, Cuba must "permit the unfettered operation of small businesses fully empowered with the right to hire others to whom they may pay wages and to buy materials necessary in the operation of the businesses."
(2)"Before considering the reinstitution of general licenses for travel to Cuba by individuals resident in the United States who are family members of Cuban nationals who are resident in Cuba..." the Cuban government must allow "refuges"to depart from Cuba, and it must release "political prisoners", recognize "the right of association, and other fundamental freedoms."
Sec. 113--Cuba must extradict to the US "all persons residing in Cuba who are sought by the United States Department of Justice for crimes committed in the United States."
 Sec. 114. News bureaus between the two countries are allowed if Cuba accepts "journalists of any United States-based news organizations, including Radio Marti and Television Marti."
Sec. 116. The US government condemns the Cuban government for shooting down the new Brothers to the Rescue aircraft and "urges the President to seek, in the International Court of Justice, indictment for this act of terrorism by Fidel Castro."
TITLE ll--Assistance To A Free And Independent Cuba

Sec. 202--"The President shall develop a plan for providing economic assistance to Cuba at such time as the President determines that a transition government or a democratically elected government in Cuba is in power."
"(iii) Only after a transition government in Cuba is in power, freedom of individuals to travel to visit their relatives without any restrictions shall be permitted."
"Assistance for the Cuban people" includes food, medicine, etc. and "assistance in preparing the Cuban military forces to adjust to an appropriate role in a democracy". "Support to a democratically elected government in Cuba should consist of assistance to promote  free market development, private enterprise, and a mutually beneficial trade relationship between the United States and Cuba".
Sec. 203--The president will designate a "United States-Cuba Council", once a determination has been made that "a democratically elected government in Cuba is in power", and that body will "ensure coordination between the United States Government and the private sector in responding to change in Cuba, and in promoting market-based development in Cuba."
Sec. 204--Only when a "democratically elected government is in power in Cuba" will the US president "take steps to terminate the economic embargo of Cuba."
(Prior to elections of a democratic government, a transition government must be in place.)

Sec. 205--"Requirements and factors for determining a transition government" include: legalization of all political activity; release of all political prisoners; dissolution of the "present Department of State Security," including the civilian Committees for the Defense of the Revolution; organization for "free and fair elections for a new government" to be held within 18 months after the transition government assumes power; a transition government must include the "participation of multiple independent political parties that have full access to the media on an equal basis;" "has ceased any interference with Radio Marti or Television Marti broadcasts;" establishes "independent trade unions" under International Labor Organization premises; "does not include Fidel Castro or Raul Castro; "is demonstrably in transition from a communist totalitarian dictatorship to representative democracy;" guarantees "the rights of free speech and freedom of the press, including granting permits to privately owned media and telecommunications companies to operate in Cuba;" "assuring the right to private property;" takes steps to return to US citizens and entities "property taken by the Cuban Government from such citizens and entities on or after January 1, 1959," or "equitable compensation;" and "has extradited" persons sought by the US."
Sec. 206--"Requirements for determining a democratically elected government" are based on the above criteria, with proof that the new government, sans Communist party leaders, has complied or is "subtantially moving" onto "a market-oriented economic system" with private property."

TITLE lll--Protection Of Property Rights Of United States Nationals

Sec. 302--Any person that "traffics in property which was confiscated by the Cuban Government on or after January 1, 1959, shall be liable to any United States national who owns the claim to such property for money damages..." equal to the certified worth at the greatest fair market value plus interest. Maximum damages can be three times the fair market value of the property.
Sec. 305--"The President may suspend the effective date...for a period of not more than 6 months" if he determines that suspension is "necessary to the national interests" and "will expedite a transition to democracy in Cuba."

TITLE lV--Exclusion From The United States Of Aliens Who Have Confiscated Property Of United States Nationals Or Who Traffic In Such Property.

Sec. 401--"The Secretary of State shall deny a visa to, and the Attorney General shall exclude from the United States, any alien who" has confiscated claimed property or who traffics in it, or in any way benefits from such. This applies to corporate officers, principals or shareholders with a controlling interest of an entity so involved, and includes the near family of "excludable persons."
	-------------------------
The president has no power to suspend Title lV. He can only waiver Title lll and Title l, sec. 106 regarding the Russian Lourdes facility in Cuba.
Cuba's lawyer in the United States, Michael Krinsky , said that this act is aimed at "Cuba surrendering every last bit of its sovereignty." Krinsky´s New York law firm--Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky and Lieberman--has represented the nation in the US since 1960.

"This law is truly unprecedented in the history of the United States. The United States Congress has never dictated to the president how to pursue foreign policy, it has never required a blockade and never specified conditions for lifting the blockade, and it has never set out these kinds of conditions for a society before the United States would establish normal relations with it"...(a complete change in the political and economic systems).
Krinsky said that recently released State Department documents show that US concern with Cuba "was not primarily about compensation" for nationalized property. In fact, many of the companies affected "were able to adjust their taxes in a way which softened the loss." 
The largest corporate claimants have a committee called the Joint Corporate Claims Committee, which opposed the Helms-Burton law, "because they are interested in working in a the new environment offered by Cuba...The real (US government) demand is not compensation for property, but the return, the restoration of the property," (to the rich) said Krinsky.
The law has an hysterical tone to it, which reflects the obsession every Washington government has had with the small island since the bearded ones won popular power. The first of these presidents was generally considered to be an intellectual and a liberal, even "socialistic" according to many ordinary Americans, yet Kennedy warred against the new revolution. His Cuba policy was not aggressive enough, however,  for those who murdered him. US-Cuba policy also caused the demise of Richard Nixon´s presidency, following the Watergate scandal that began with Cuba. The Helms-Burton law is the latest hysteria, coming four decades after the handful of guerrillas took to the mountains to fight US Government-Mafia ally and coup d'etat organizer, Batista. With a battle cry rescue charge, Helms-Burton demands that Cuba turn over US citizens who fought racism by using force and violence, yet offers no reciprocity by extraditing thousands of criminals who have murdered Cubans. 
H-B framers also ignored that even the United States Supreme Court recognizes the right states to nationalize property. In the 1964 case of the National Bank of Cuba vs: Sabbatino, the court ruled, 8-1, that no court can judge the acts of another government on its own territory. The judges also contended that with this decision US "national interest is best served as is progress towards agreements in international laws."
The Charter of Rights and Economic Obligations of the States, approved by the United Nations in 1974,  confirms the right of nations to "nationalize, expropriate and transfer properties of foreigners with compensation that the state considers pertinent."
 Cuba offered two types of compensation to the United States (recall chapter 2), and has fufilled endemnification agreements with many European and Latin American states.

The first claims that the H-B law addresses are those properties owned by US-born citizens. Property owned by Cuban citizens, who later became US citizens, will be addressed beginning in  March 1998, according to Delissa Ridgeway, chairperson of the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, charged with adjudicating claims. Ridgeway said that of the 8,816 claims made (in the period designated, 1965-1972), 5,911 were validated at a total value of 1.8 billion dollars. With an annual 6% interest rate, the amount owed in 1996 would be billion dollars.
 Cuba´s response is that this sum can be taken into consideration along with the economic damage that US actions have caused Cuba, estimated at between 45 and 60 billion dollars. A special group in the National Institute of Economic Research (Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones de la Economía) was then calculating this damage.
Tom Casey, spokesperson for the Cuban Affairs Office of the State Department´s Inter-American Affairs Bureau, said that he had never heard that compensation for nationalized properties had been extended by the Cuban government.
The man charged with answering media questions regarding US government enactment of the law said: "The people who put the bill together may or may not have taken any compensation offer into account. I don´t know of any such offer, myself."
When asked what Congress and the State Department have in mind regarding Title l, sec. 109 ("democracy-building efforts" inside Cuba), he said: "We promote people-to-people contact between private groups here and there, groups such as Concilio Cubano." Assistance for "human rights promotion" includes information materials and money, he said.
Such promotion is part of the law "that sets our requirements for what the Cuban government has to do for a democratic, transition government."  
	BLOCKADE REACTION
 Cuban leaders were angered, and some decisions taken would have adverse consequences for civil liberty progress underway. Immediately following President Clinton´s signature on the Helms-Burton Act, with confirmed terrorist and multi-millionaire Mas Canosa at his side, the Cuban Communist party Politbureau met to assess "the political and social situation in the country and the corresponding tasks of the Party."
Second secretary Raul Castro presented the Politbureau report, approved in the 5th plenum of the central committee, on March 23. Due to the importance of its analysis and judgments, I present extensive excerpts:
"The Central Committee has rarely met at such an important and transcendental moment...even greater tension and danger has been created in the relations between Cuba and the United States...the monstrous Helms-Burton Act (designed by reactionary forces connected) with the rise of neofascist ideology...The anti-Cuba mafia in Miami, which also supports this ideology, is the perfect lackey for the mission of trying to facilitate Washington´s recovery of Cuba."

"It is a detailed, criminal plan of action to make our people surrender out of starvation and disease. This slavery law aims to deceive, confuse and disarm the elements that they consider the most vulnerable within the Cuban population...(and) is aimed at creating the ideal climate for 'humanitarian' military action, under the banner of the UN, if possible, or as a unilateral decision of the United States...(and) is even foreseen...in the disguise of peaceful transition."
"In terms of ideological penetration, Cubans from the United States visiting their relatives and vice versa are undoubtedly damaging to some extent...The growing presence of foreign capitalists establishing joint ventures in Cuba are also leaving their mark on our workers´ consciousness. In most cases, the bases for association set by us naturally contain clauses favoring working conditions and remuneration. From this positive element proposed by Cuba, a simplistic reasoner could deduce that the treatment offered by capitalists to their workers is better than that offered by the socialist state´s enterprises, and therefore that capitalism is better, or at least, not as bad as we have described it. Thus a pole of attraction is created and admiration is generated toward this type of company, which can weaken some of our workers, as well as their nationalist and anticapitalist sentiments. Another aspect to keep an eye on is the possibility that Cuban officials might poorly defend the national interest in business negotiations with foreigners, and even be corrupted by the latter. There have been bitter experiences. Bribery and corruption are part and parcel of business under capitalism...(as is)"unemployment and shortages" (which) "augment the lumpen elements and petty crime, as exemplified by prostitution and the related phenomenon of pimps, etc."
"Track One of the United States´ strategy against Cuba is the blockade, seeking economic asphyxiation. Track Two is the idea of internal subversion, to eat away at the country from within. Each one complements the other...The enemy will seek new means of penetration and a greater use of those already established, from Europe and different points throughout our continent...the enemy does not conceal its intention to use some of the so-called nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), established in Cuba in recent times, as a Trojan horse to foment division and subversion here, and the theoretical cover they give them is to present them as members of the civil society (as) described by personalities such as White House advisor on Cuban affairs, Richard Nuccio."
"Our concept of civil society is not the same as the one they refer to...it is our own Cuban socialist civil society, encompassing our strong mass organizations." (Social group associations and NGOs are also part of the civil society) "which operate within the law and do not attempt to undermine the economic, political and social system freely chosen by our people...There are also many NGOs throughout the world that are not enemies of the people; many of them encouraging solidarity with Cuba" (one example offered is the) "heroic group Pastors for Peace." 
"But we would be extremely stupid if we pretended not to see the manipulation that is being carried out through other supposed NGOs whose only aim is to enslave our country once again and turn it into something akin to an even more dependent Puerto Rico. And they search again and again for counterparts within Cuba to meddle in our internal affairs.
"It must be said that we have been slow in making a detailed analysis of these maneuvers and in taking the necessary steps.
"We will begin by discussing the situation in the study centers affiliated with the Central Committee of the Party. These began to be set up in 1976, were justified and still are. But...taking one step today, another tomorrow, and with a mixture of naiveté and pedantry, abandoning the classic principles due to temptation to travel and publish articles and books, with the assistance of anyone willing to provide financing, several comrades got caught in the spider´s web spun by foreign specialists on Cuba, who were really working for the United States in its strategy to create a fifth column. That is what happened with the Center for Studies on the Americas.
"To show how the enemy identified our slowness in facing up to Track Two in these aspects, we will cite passages from a long article dated February 1995, by an academic on Cuban affairs, the British intellectual now resident in the United States, Gillian Gunn. She writes that some of the think tanks previously associated with the Central Commitee and now called NGOs are the Center for Studies of the Americas (CEA) and the Center for European Studies (CEE)...Although Central Committee funds are still significant, a considerable part of its budget now comes from foreign sources."
(Gunn writes that) "'NGOs have also raised suspicions (since) they represent an independent base for...resources (by) citizens who do not always want what the state wants.'"

"She points out that if Cuba continues to apply market-oriented reforms, it is probable that the decentralization that accompanies them will allow more space for genuine NGOs to exist...fortifying their independence...She asks whether the Cuban NGOs are puppets of the government or seeds of the new civil society."
(Raul continues)..."several U.S. academic centers have begun to meddle openly, in most cases with the brazen support of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. This is the case with Pax World Service..."
"In light of our bitter experience with the Center for Studies on the Americas, we have to examine the work of the Center for European Studies and all the others...and we have just created a unique, consistent and resolute policy...so that those centers do not become the instruments our opponents would like them to be."
"Adopting a neutral or confused position, in order to avoid a confrontation or elude a thorny topic, is a show of unacceptable weakness before one´s adversary; it is tantamount to admitting that the adversary´s position is the correct one. We have more than enough recent examples of this.
"And these lessons should also serve to ensure that our mass media do not become tools or mouthpieces of ideas and concepts inconsistent with those advocated and defended by the Revolution. Every staff in the (media) must henceforth examine everything in the light of the historical moment and these orientations. This is the responsibility above all of those who lead these institutions, in addition to the Party organizations..."
(Raul warns against) "a variant of glasnost which has lately had some subtle expressions in Cuba. The glasnost which undermined the USSR and other socialist countries consisted of handing over the mass media, one by one, to the enemies of socialism...We let our guard drop, and publications appeared which openly auction off many of their pages...There has even been talk of using Pensamiento Crítico, the magazine which played a diversionist role in the '60s, as a model for some of these specialized publications. Pensamiento Crítico, in its time, like some works which have circulated among us in recent times, was linked, consciously or not, to those who wish to encourage the emergence of fifth columnists in Cuba."
	-------------------------------
Anxiety about what the criteria are for judging fifth column subversion and what the consequences could be spread throughout intellectual and media circles. The party report was bewildering also because there was no explanation for what the CEA had done to warrant the label "fifth columnist", a harsh judgment among communists, and what media was resorting to conduct reminiscent of Pensamiento Crítico. Did this mean the media were not to write about errors again? 
The director of a news agency offered me his interpretation.
"We must react unified. This is war time. The planes were sent to provoke, just like agent provocateurs, and Helms-Burton is part of the war." He rose and posed as a boxer. "They punch; we punch back."
Punching back, in this context, was going to have serious consequences to the reputations of intellectuals and media workers, some of whom are long-time members of the Communist party, and to the flow of information and debate. 
The next day, I entered into a dense atmosphere in CEA´s office. Luis Suárez had been replaced by central committee member Dario Machado. The head of the Communist party nucleus at the center died right afterwards of a heart attack. Fallout also reached the director of the University of Havana´s philosophy department, Jorge Luis Acanda. He was suddenly fired. Did this mean that studying "non-orthodox" Marxists, such as Gramsci, Althusser, Lukacs, Luxemburg,  were once again no longer kosher? Dr. Acanda had told me, in 1993, that university philosophy students could again study such figures and that there was now "a great deal of interchange of Marxist and other revolutionary ideas."

"After the first years of critical thought, the enthusiastic years, much of our society began to be turned in a dogmatic direction, copying too much of the Soviet model and its monopoly of interpreting Marx."
"Cuba had published Deutscher and Marcuse early on, and there was a critical magazine, Pensamiento Crítico, which disseminated various viewpoints, but it died long ago...There is a crisis of values at this historical moment. History is dialectical, afterall. Today´s complexities will dissolve into others. The moment is pessimistic, but we have no other alternative but to fight...Cuba´s history has long been sad, and yet optimistic. Optimism is in our blood...As Gramsci once said, when in jail under fascism...'What distinguishes a revolutionary from others is that he has pessimism of the mind but optimism of the will.'"
Acanda is a member of the Communist party, as is Dr. Tereza Muñoz, dean of the faculty of philosophy, history and sociology--the latter subject had not been taught for over two decades. The faculty only had 300 students enrolled in 1993-4, 40 of them in philosophy.
"Soviet Marxism was too dogmatic," said Dr. Muñoz, "that is the essence of why it died. But we have begun to return to our roots. We are more flexible, more open," she told me in 1993.
Three years later, this flexibility was narrowing again, because, Raul said, of "bitter experiences." Yet he had not signaled out the right-wing groups, who seek an end to socialism, nor did he take into account what the economist-critic Manuel David Orizio told a reporter: "Now that the government has opened the door for small private enterprise, I believe that it will be hard to close it again.Therefore, it will be here among the small businessmen that a political alternative to Castro will emerge, in the long run."
It was becoming common in university economics classes to study Milton Freidman and John Maynard Keynes, and business methods used in the US and other capitalist countries.
"Everything is now open for study. We need to learn all methods of economics, in order to best decide what to use and not to use so that we can get out of our special period," a high-placed economist in a state research institute told me.

The government seemed to be permitting, de facto, "independent" reporter critics to the regime as well. Six news agencies were started by dissidents, in 1994-5, several of them by anti-government agitators, such as Yndamiro Restano Díaz. He founded the Independent Press Bureau of Cuba (BPIC), in September 1995. Another dissident, Raul Rivero, founded CubaPress. Then came HavanaPress, Cubanet and a couple of others. They receive money from France´s "Journalists Without Borders," and are published in such organs as the right-wing Miami daily, El Nuevo Diario, and the Los Angeles, California weekly, 20 de Mayo.
Members of these "independent" news bureaus were often arrested, held for questioning and then released in a few hours or days. The frequency of arrests diminished in 1996, after the planes´ incident, leading to speculation that government tolerance for the internal right-wing was increasing, while it was less tolerant of the few "left-wing" critics. The right-wing news agencies were sending dispatches to foreign media, using modern communication equipment, Internet and E-mail, even though it was illegal. A law was passed in October permitting some selected government bodies to use E-mail and Internet, but not private groups.
Technology Minister Rosa Elena Simeon said that Cuba needed to "use the capacities and applications of Internet, while reducing its risks and disadvantages as far as possible. Otherwise, the first world could take advantage of the chance to introduce points of view acting to the detriment of ethical and cultural values," she warned.
	HELMS-BURTON BOYCOTT
In late May, the United States government sent the first letters of warning to a dozen  firms  doing business with disputed properites in Cuba. Only one company, Cementos Mexicanos (Cemex), backed out under the threat of losing its 385 million-dollar business in the US. The world´s fourth largest cement company had formed a joint venture to market Cuban cement produced at its Mariel plant, which Lonestar Industries of Stamford, Connecticut claimed. 
Nevertheless, after half-a-year of sending threats to other foreign associations involved in Cuban business, and personal envoy tours to State leaders to pressure them regarding Cuba, Cemex was the only company to cave in. Some firms, such as Mexico´s Groupo Domos--with 750 million dollars invested in telecommunications--and Canada´s Sherritt International Corporation--with 600 million dollars in nickel and elsewhere--even increased investments.

The US government was supported in its acitivites against Cuba by Miami saboteurs. In a three-month period (August-October), eight Miami travel bureaus were fire-bombed, a warning not to arrange tickets through third countries to Cuba.
In July, in compliance with Title lV of the Helms-Burton law, the State Department sent letters to Sherritt and Domos directors informing them that neither they nor their families were welcome to visit the US as long as they did business in Cuba. The same month, President Clinton decided to waive Title lll for six months.  Thus, foreign businessmen could continue doing business in Cuba without running the risk that US property claimants could take them to court to exact monetary penalties, which, theoretically, could be as much as three times their worth. In principle, if the sanctioned parties did not pay, their assests in US-controlled territory could be seized. 
   The other only section (106) that a US president can waive--the one concerning Russia and the intelligence facility in Cuba--was not suspended nor, apparently, activated, according to US government and Russian foreign service sources with whom I spoke in November. The US source confirmed that only Cemex had withdrawn from Cuba. He did not know what monies had  actually been alloted to Cubans inside the nation under the "democracy-building" section. However, two government functionaries handed over to Freedom House Foundation half-a-million dollars in assistance monies for NGO usage. The right-wing think tank´s Washington director, Frank Calzón, was a former CIA agent operator against Cuba.
Governments reactions to the Helms-Burton law was swift and condemnatory, the strongest since the Vietnam war.

In late May, the foreign ministers of the Rio Group met in Bolivia to reject the law, saying that their South American governments would resist it. This was followed by the Organization of American States issuing a unanimous "stinging rebuke" to the US.
 "It was not a quiet dissent. U.S. Ambassador Harriet C. Babbitt accused the other ambassadors of `diplomatic cowardice´ for questioning a U.S. domestic law, while lacking `the moral and political courage to denounce a totalitarian dictatorship´ in Cuba."
After the OAS vote--the strongest anti-Washington vote in OAS history--White House spokesman Nicholas Burns could not restrain himself towards the uppity Latin neighbors: "The countries that are teeing us off ought to just sit back and cool it and understand that we´re going to implement this law."
Canada had passed a law (FEMA) in 1985 to protect its businesspeople against extraterritorial laws. In January, 1996, in anticipation of Helms-Burton, Canada toughened its "blocking statute" with a "claw-back" provision that allows its companies to countersue for compensation for judgments made against them in the US. Americans taking court actions against Canadians could thereby lose assets they may have in Canada.
Mexico´s Parliament followed suit on October 23 in a unanimous vote. The "Act for the protection of commerce and investment of foreign rules contravening international law" calls for stiff penalties against any Mexican firm that capitulates to the use of Helms-Burton against them. And it authorizes tough sanctions against US assets in Mexico.
After a last-minute tactical intrigue carried out by Denmark´s foreign minister, the European Community of 15 US ally nations adopted a law with the same provisions as the Canadian and Mexican laws. The unanimous vote, on October 28, also calls for Europe to take the US to international court for violating World Trade Organization free trade laws.
A widespread "trade war," as German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel called the Helms-Burton Act and world reaction against it, in swing. 
 Conservative Canadian politician, Roy MacDonald, explained: "In trying to isolate Cuba, they´re hurting their largest trading partners...That is not how you treat your friends."
The US government had created its own Trojan Horse. By maniacally striving to terminate Cuba´s basic sovereign, it trod on the sovereignty rights of all countries and it was the one left isolated. As President Clinton himself admitted in an October TV debate with opposition candidate Robert Dole: "The United States needs help from other countries. Nobody in the world today is in agreement with our Cuba policies."

Notwithstanding, Helms-Burton threats did have a negative affect for some companies which were contemplating opening commerce with Cuban concerns. As Carlos Lage told a September 19 meeting of Popular Power presidents, "there is fear, anxiety and doubts concerning the possibility of establishing trade relations or investing in Cuba, and the reaction of a significant number of banks and companies is to pull back...interrupt banking."
One bank creditor, Holland´s ING Bank, did not renew sugar credits after having loaned half the finances extended by four foreign concerns to the 1996 sugar harvest. The Cuban government acquired 120 million dollars in credits for the 1997 sugar crop, which it hoped would be enough to reach the goal of a five-million ton harvest.
	OTHER POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
La Comunidad, as the Cuban community abroad is known, began to be reapproached by the Cuban government after bitter experiences in the late 1970s. In April 1994, there were high level meetings with 217 Cuban foreign residents of 27 countries, followed by more meetings in November 1995 with 400. The world took notice, especially in Miami circles, of a private meeting between Fidel and a former comrade, Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, who spent 22 years in a Cuban prison for terrorist actions. Contacts among thousands of family members were dramatically on the increase. Many Cubans in foreign countries, including the US, were applying to do business in their former homeland, and they were spending more money there.
Even though President Clinton made it more difficult for them to travel or send money to Cuba, the majority of La Comunidad was not letting up in their efforts to normalize relations. The small numbers of Cuban dissidents being persecuted by the Cuban state were diminishing. Their  veracity for US government officials was also diminishing. The Washington Post secured a secret State Department cable sent by Joseph G. Sullivan, "our man in Havana and head of the U.S. interests section there," it wrote on June 14, 1996. Sullivan warned the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service not to let just any dissidents into the US any longer.
"...Migrants who take to sea will exaggerate claims of activism or act distressed," Sullivan said, "when confronted with a possible repatriation if such acts maximize the possibility of their transfer to Guantanamo (naval station), a steepingstone, in their view, to the United States."
"Given the opportunity, these migrants will also manipulate the media to publicize alleged claims...A good number of migrants interdicted thus far are long on multiple attempts at illegal exists and short on specific incidents of persecution for political or religious reasons."

Despite the passage of the strongest anti-Cuban legislation to date, strongly urged upon the president by the far right-wing with their millions in electioneering and lobbying, it is clear that their case against the "brute" Fidel Castro" is wearing thin. So thin that for the first time a leading Cuban government official dared to confront their leader head-on in a debate. On August 23, National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón was in the US and agreed to comment on CBS´s Spanish-language channel, Telenoticias, regarding an earlier CBS´s interview with Fidel. Jorge Más Canosa and right-wing Peruvian writer-politician MarioVargas Llosa were also scheduled. The latter unexplanedly did not show, leaving Alarcón and Canosa to discuss alone for 75 minutes. Both insisted it was not a "dialogue" but rather an exchange of positions, and Alarcón said he  had agreed without consulting "Fidel Castro, nor anyone, as I never do when I give a press interview."
Reactions to the event were very mixed. Although the interchange was not broadcast inside Cuba,  many Cuban nationals heard it on short-wave radio. Some said the talk would help ease tensions while others thought it was dangerous to sit across from the key enemy in La Comunidad. Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina said that Cuba had not engaged in a dialogue as it never would with "hysterical, mafia-types and annextionists."
The program had the effect of alienating Canosa from some of the hardest right-wing Miami Cubans for going "soft." Those who seek an understanding welcomed the event.
Three days later, another important media-attraction regarding Cuba took place, this time in Havana at the trial of US financier Robert Vesco, one time friend and campaign contributor of President Richard Nixon. Vesco was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission, in 1972, with stealing 224 million dollars from his mutual fund, Investors Overseas Services. 
The daring criminal-adventurer fled to the Bahamas, then to Costa Rica and eventually to Cuba, in 1982, which granted him humanitarian exile for medical reasons, at the request of Costa Rica President José Figueres, himself a one-time CIA agent.
By the early 1990s, Vesco was apparently running out of funds--he had given up a luxurious house for a "modest" four-bedroom abode in the Atabey community, just three blocks from the house I lived in. Vesco violated agreements he had made not to engage in business and committed illegalities by dealing with "foreign businessmen and the Cuban pharmaceutical industry for the production on the island of an anti-viral drug named Trixolane (TX)." 
The prosecution accused him of selling "non-existent productions" of this drug. The drug was being studied by the Cuban laboratory Labiofam, whose director, Antonio Fraga Castro, is a nephew of Fidel´s.Vesco tried to outfox a fox, Italian Enrico Garzaroli, managing director of Benetton stores in Cuba and three other enterprises. Garzaroli believed that the drug could cure some cancers, as Vesco and Donald Nixon (Richard´s nephew) alleged, and put up 1.2 million dollars for research and marketing. Apparently, Vesco took the funds for personal use and Garzaroli him over to Cuban authorities, who arrested Vesco on May 31, 1995. The rogue had also used the good name of Fidel to open up doors, but at the August trial Vesco said he had never met Fidel. Vesco received 13 years in prison, and his Cuban wife, Lidia Alfonso Llauger, a former tourism official, got ten. 
The US government and many businessmen had tried in vain to capture Vesco, who had also been accused of drug trafficking. It took their arch enemy to bring him to justice.

Cuba had just been in the world´s spotlight earlier in the month for its sports achievements and because two Olympic boxers defected.
Despite financial cutbacks in the sports industry, and a few defections, Cuba still emerged from the Atlanta Olympic Games with nine gold medals, plus eight silver and eight bronze, placing number eight in the lineup. It won more medals per capita than any other nation, but it fell short of the triumphal exhibition at Barcelona in 1992, when it placed number five with 14 golds. It had taken seven golds and five silvers in boxing compared to four golds and three silvers in 1996.
Given the amount of money and attention that sports entrepreneurs and the Miami right-wing employ to intice Cuban athletes to desert, it is surprising the few who take the bite. After the Olympics, one of the sports defector-organizers was captured inside Cuba. Juan Ignacio Hernández Nodar, US citizen of Cuban origin, worked for Joe Cubas, the key Miami figure in this "sports connection." Hernández was sentenced to 15 years imprisionment in October for bribery and arranging five illegal exists.
In October, Fidel attended the Ibero-American Summit meeting. His presence caused an internal political dispute. Nevertheless, he received the same protocol recognition as all other chiefs of staff, and the numbers demonstrating in his nation´s behalf far outweighed right-wing protests against him. However, the new Spanish right-wing president, José María Aznar, made it clear that he was aligning with the US. President Aznar met Fidel for the first time at the summit, and told other state leaders that he had nothing "against Cuba but everything against the regime."
In November, Spain presented the European Union with the recommendations of US envoy Stuart Eizenstat, that each European embassy in Cuba have a special post to interact with Cuban "dissidents." Aznar´s government also opened a "House of America" to represent in Spain the work of the Más Canosa Cuban-American National Foundation with membership exchanges.
Deterioration of Spanish-Cuban relations--on the governmental level and not on the business level--was so deep and rapid that on November 26, the Cuban Foreign Ministry issued a declaration to explain what Spanish government leaders, including the Spanish ambassador in Cuba, had been doing to spoil healthy relations. The statement connected Aznar government capitulation to US imperial designs with that of a similar government 100 ago, that allowed the US to takeover from its colonialization of Cuba. This forebode ill for Cuba politically, as Spain had played the leading role in Cuba´s favor within Europe.
In November, Fidel was in Rome at the UN´s World Food Summit, where he met, for the first time, with a Pope. John Paul ll finally decided on a future visit to Cuba, the last Latin American country for him to see.

While Fidel was in Rome, Carlos Lage was in New York attending the United Nations session dealing with the fifth annual resolution against the US blockade. The votes for Cuba increased:137 to 3 against (Isreal and Uzbekistan), with only 20 absententions, compared to 89 in 1992. In 1995, the vote was 117-3 (the same countries were against); in 1994, 101-2 (Isreal); in 1993, 88-4 (Isreal, Paraguay and Rumania), and in 1992, 59-3 (Isreal and Albania). In 1996, Cuba won the support of all US´s European allies, including its longest hold out, Great Britain. 
Dr. Lage had delivered an eloquent speech. 
"The presidential elections just transcurred cost 800 million dollars, three times that of 1992. Yet (the money) conquered the lowest indice of voters in 72 years of history (49%).
"Each day, the US invests 700 million dollars with military aims to defend themselves, against whom no on knows. These expenses will be, in 1997, 55 times more than the budget for technical assistance of all the United Nations funds and programs.
"Such waste offends the more than 800 million persons in the world who do not have food (35,000 persons die of hunger every day), more than one billion illiterates, and more than 1.5 billion of human beings who do not have access to health services."
"We have one doctor per 193 inhabitants, one nurse for 142 inhabitants, and more than 23,000 doctors have offered their services in 45 countries.  Our infant mortality rate is eight per 1000 live births."
"Two hundred million children in the world sleep on the streets... None of them is Cuban.
"One hundred million children in the world under 13 years of age are obligated to work to live. None of them is Cuban.
"More than one million children are forced into prostitution and dozens of thousands have been victims of commerce with their organs. None of them is Cuban.
"Twenty-five thousand children die each day in the world from measles, malaria, diptheria, pneumonia, and malnutrition. None of them is Cuban."
As the eventful year reached a close, a terrible hurricane, Lily, devastated much of the agricultural progress that Cuba was achieving that year. (See chapter 24). Nevertheless, Cuba did not stop plans to host the first World Youth Festival since 1989. (Cuba had hosted the 1978 festival).The 14th event would occur July 28-August 5, 1997, when five thousand youth from every continent were expected to participate at their own expense. The decision had been taken the year before, when youths from many countries participated in the Cuba Lives festival, and marched with half-a-million people against US intervention.
In addition to growing business and governmental support of Cuba´s economic reforms, and rejection of US policies, Cuba was on the minds of millions of ordinary people who would otherwise have not thought of it.
 As Fidel said, on September 19:

"The people world feel so much for Cuba. It´s amazing...There is so much admiration within the United States itself, and many visitors thank us for Cuba´s existence, its struggle, and that gives us great hope...Our battle against imperialism (means a great deal to the world) and there is an ever increasing attitude of resistance, strong resistance to merciless, ruthless hegemonism which will keep growing."
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 21
	CIVIL SOCIETY
   
"Our concept of civil society...is our own Cuban socialist civil society, encompassing our strong mass organizations...there are also social groups...veterans, economists, lawyers, journalists, artists and writers; as well as other NGOs which operate within the law and do not attempt to undermine the economic, political and social system freely chosen by our people." (Raul Castro, March 23, 1996 speaking for the Politbureau.)

"We have been accustomed for more than 30 years to think only of initiative as something taken by the State. It was the State that was responsible to provide employment, education, health care, social security, services, housing, etc.," explained a group of Cuban non-governmental organization (NGO) representatives in a preparation paper for the Madrid-Cuba NGO Conference, held in Madrid in September 1995.
With special period conditions, it became necessary to make changes in state structures and in the exercise of power, the paper stated. A process of decentralization began that included ConsejosPopulares, oriented to make stronger links between the population and state structures.

Many popular councils were functioning well in solving a particular sore points in communities, yet they had not gone far in developing community action or individual initiative. People were still relying on the State, albeit some authorities were closer to them through the new form. I investigated an exceptional Consejo Popular, Balcón Arimao, encompassing the Novo precinct in La Lisa municipality of Havana, which had begun to turn things around. 
"A little over a year ago, the police did not patrol here. They were afraid to come into the barrio in small numbers. Now they longer need to patrol," commented local artist Omar Díaz, a member of a unique community cultural group named in honor of an Indian "spirit" called Haralaya. Its repertoire of Afro-Cuban and native Taino ritual dance and music incorporates many youths from the municipal barrios, and is one of the positive influences in uplifting what had been fallen community spirits.
The crime rate fell by 40% over the year of "renovation," as local delegate José Antonio Saborit calls it. He is an unusual law professor in that he is a daily activist in the community in which he lives with his wife and child.
"This was a lost barrio," says Saborit, "and we united it, waking it up and marching forward. The apathy is gone. We now feel the need to contribute."
What had happened to bring on the apathy and to wake people up?
"You see, in the beginning of the revolution, the national leaders had to replace the old government that was brutal and did nothing for the people. Eventually, we became dependent on our leaders."
That doesn´t lead to an active community organized through popular participation in which people feel useful as decision-makers and activists.
"I´m a member of the Communist party, but it was not the party that launched me into this community work. It gave me the basic education, but the problems in the community must be resolved from below. The party is conscious of that now, and it and the popular power bodies are supportive of what we are doing."
A neighbor, Angel Mesa, credits José with having activated him and the barrio.
"Saborit has a great force of spirit and will power. He is at once idealistic and realistic."
José got tired of coming home to a lost barrio and began knocking on doors. He motivated the traditional commuinty leaders to start with the youth by converting the local agro-market into a clean place that could be used in the evenings and weekends for recreation, dances and the sale of refreshments and snacks. From the first profits, the coordinating body hired two permanent gardners to improve the landscape.
Then community leaders changed the "boring routine" of celebrative days, such as Defense Day, into something educative and fun. Soldiers and police showed kids what combat training is like and got them to participate.
The new agro-market/recreation center became a place for the kids and the elderly. More proceeds were earned and soon 30 people could be employed as food personnel, custodians, disk jockeys, sound technicians, and gardners. Kids stopped fighting and began socializing peacefully, even volunteering for collective projects: repairing leaky roofs and sewage drains.
"The principle is what we always have stood for but began to lose," said Saborit. "Those who have more help those with less."

As a consequence of local initiatives taken, and community badgering, state service entities paid more attention to Novo. Neighbors loaned tools and materials for improving community services.Commercial vendors were convinced to sell two game computers for the youth, in pesos. The CDR house was renovated to serve as a club.
"As people began to revive the collective volunteer work spirit, as they saw that they could make an impact on local conditions, they began to internalize a community spirit and take on more personal initiative," said Saborit.
One of the important steps in this process was to expand the notion of leadership to incorporate representatives of every sector onto the coordinating body called grupo de factores. The "factor group" usually has five persons representing the traditional powers. Saborit convinced them to expand it to 21 persons. Even a representative of the Young Pioneers sits in on weekly meetings and others called when the need arises. And local bodies now function on an emulation and reward basis, adding to the participatory principle that, "We are all governors," said Saborit.
The popular council president, Moraima López, CDR president Eusebio Cespedes and Saborit coordinated a "scientific workshop on community activity," at the end of 1995, the first one organized in Cuba. With the sponsorship of the national CDRs, it attracted not only local people but leaders from other areas. The weekend workshops dealt with community issues and personal problems that touch the community. Closing ceremonies were attended by the  army chief of staff,  General Ulisis Rosalez del Toro, the party´s first secretary of Havana, Estében Lazo, and central committee member Dario Machado. Due to the enthusiastic involvment by barrio people and the attention it attracted beyond, coordinators decided to take the experience nationally and plans were made for a national forum with representatives from all the municipalities. The objective woulb be how to motivate people to tackle day-to-day problems, to make decisions and activate real solutions to local problems.
This experience is the kind of grass roots activity that the party now sees as necessary to revive, and some NGOs can play a role, which was a topic at the Madrid conference. The HABITAT paper, for instance, spoke of the "community taking action" and the necessity for "sources of employment to stimulate the creation of cooperatives."
This is a contentious matter, given that the state is also placing emphasis on individual self-employment solutions to deficiencies and scarcity. The director of the NGO Félix Varela Center, Juan Antonio Blanco, professor-author and former diplomat, gave his views of the dilemma to NACLA Report on the Americas (Sept/Oct 1995):
"There is going to be a significant expansion of self-employment and possible family microenterprises. My personal opinion, not shared by many, is to see this expanion of national private enterprise assume cooperative forms, rather than be individual or family units. It would be possible to reconcile these new forms of property with community needs. A part of the resources that these cooperatives generate, for instance, could be reinvested in the communities where they are located. If the process of liberalization of economic actors does not take cooperative forms, in a number of years, we will see ourselves returning to economic relations that we left behind some years ago.

"In the political sphere, I believe we must reconceptualize the meaning of democracy in a socialist system. Regardless of whether or not we can maintain a one-party system, the Communist Party needs to be more than a vanguard party; it should be conceived of as a party of the nation. Civil society should participate not exclusively in the execution of tasks determined by the government, but in the formulation of state policies. If we don´t struggle for such a future, the alternative is very simple. This country, either through a violent process or one of co-optation--and I would say the latter is more likely--will move towards standardization with the rest of the countries of Latin America. It will become a client state of the United States."
When Luis Suárez was still director of the Center for American Studies, he presented one of the two keynote speeches at the Madrid NGO conference. Suárez´ views of how to make Cuba a more dynamic society approximates what other NGO representatives are saying.
 Here is a summary of Suárez´ remarks.
The challenges before Cuba today are: to defend the land´s sovereignty; secure its entrance into the capitalist work market; develop a new revolutionary ideological-cultural utopia that continues to be based on the values of self-worth, nationalism, solidarity and internationalism; and to continue deepening its democratic political system on its own terms.
The society is not able to be economically self-sufficient and its new involvement in world markets calls for new reforms that present new problems. In order to assure a solidarity bound society, people must play a more self-critical role. Consejos Populares and NGOs can play an important part in that process. The CEA conducts research, writes papers, edits its journal "Cuadernos de Nuestra America" and holds seminars. Suárez said that CEA and other social research instutitions are particularly interested in long term support to help institutional building and capacity. Experience in participatory democracy in other parts of the world is needed to strengthen civil society methodology, especially in the area of advancing individual and community activity in the decision-making process, and not "simply carrying out decisions."
Other NGOs present in Madrid, such as the Félix Varela Center and the Martin Luther King Memorial Center, also work "to promote an ethical concept of economic development" (FVC), and to promote "the integral and sustainable development of the country, making it possible to build a fair and humanistic society, based on communal values in agreement with the Christian faith, and based on the historical and social roots of the Cuban people" (MLKC).
Selma Díaz, a leader of the HABITAT "community architects", participated in a UN conference on human settlements, held in Istanbul, in June 1996. Their community-involvement private housing projects were selected among the best 100 in the world. Díaz said that the "top down" traditional procedures are now being replaced by "mobilization from below," which is "changing the popular outlook." 

Seventy percent of the housing built in 1995 was done by private companies and people themselves, said Mario Cabello Marante, president of the state-run National Housing Institute. Lazaro Mora, representing the Euorpean Studies Center, said that the "participation of the population in problem-solving is more important now than ever."
The preceding remarks seem to fit in well with what Raul Castro told Granma (September 17, 1994):
"Fidel has taught us that a revolutionary must always maintain an active nonconformity and, rather than adopting a complacent attitude toward what he or she has done, should find a way of doing a lot more."
"One has to express what one feels. It´s important to learn to argue at the right time, in the right place, in the right manner...The role of any leader, at whatever level, is to anticipate problems...Leaders who don´t encourage disagreements with their subordinates are doomed to failure. There is nothing better than collective decisions and consensus...There must be disagreement and discussion during meetings. We need to learn how to voice disagreement with what our leaders say in the appropriate place..."
In the March 23, 1996 Politbureau report, Raul Castro had also said:
"The ideological action of the Party and the state cannot be--as it is many times--schematic, too general and dogmatic. We must be convincing...convince the people, or the enemy will do it, the overt or covert enemy of the Revolution and the nation."
Given his attack on CEA, and other unnamed  NGOs and intellectual workers, however, it may be that Suárez, and maybe some of the others quoted above, had gone too far or had not spoken "at the right time...place...or manner." That is what perplexes those who do take initiative: just what are the limits, what is the right timing and situation?
Granma reported (June 19, 1996) that NGO associations would not be granted permission to "formalize a situation which subsequently allows them to protest abroad about something they don´t agree with, merely for the sake of expressing themselves."
Is that what Suárez had done? I asked economist Luis Gutiérrez, a CEA co-worker, what had motivated the canning of Suárez. Was it his essay about the 1992 Popular Power electoral changes (recall chapter 6), or  his words at the Madrid conference, or allowing the book  to be written that Gutiérrez had co-authored (Cuba La Restructuracion de la Economia)?
"I don´t know, but I don´t think it was the book. We have no say in who the director is to be. Look, you know how it is. Those who pay salaries believe they can decide on leadership," he said, referring to the fact that NGO staff wages are paid by the central committee.
What do these firings mean to the future of civil society, the NGOs, to the officially condoned notion that people must play a deeper role in the democratic process?
All but one of several leaders of NGOs and mass organizations to whom I asked this question answered, "Only time will tell." The exception put more meat to his answer.

"It is not that the party has decided to shut out critic forever, or concentrate only on punishing pro-revolutionary NGO staffers and Marxist professors, who go beyond the traditional role of simply implementing decisions from above. It is a question of timing, place and manner. Some of the thinking party intellectuals have been taking one step here and there in the opening process for three or four years. And there is an opening process, but it is not finely honed or finished. We are undergoing a transition. To what, is unclear, and how to go about it is also unclear, so the party leadership is groping too." 
A young woman executive leader of the national FMC, Ivette Vega, believes that the role of critic and the civil society is expanding, slowly but with progress. The FMC, for instance, criticized the state-run tourism industry for abusing women´s identity, in order to attract tourists and dollars. The criticism took place first on the level of organizations and became public at the 1995 FMC national convention.
"We have to work harder to help women see their own identity apart from men. Women, as well as men, put too much emphasis on sexuality. And the tourism industry hasn´t helped matters with their sex-oriented propaganda," Vega told me.
Pedro Valdés, a philosophy teacher, said that Cuba´s socialist development has been weakened by two fundamental errors.
"First, there was all the copying we did of  Soviet methodology, not only in economics and in education, but in the enculturation of the symbols of power: all the titles, the value of dirigente (leader). Secondly, and related in symbolism, is the identity of women, or the lack of identity as a being apart from sexual objectification.
"The Cuban idea of `beauty´ is a machista one: sex stimulation. Women paint themselves and dress in tight clothing, emphasizing voluptuousness as a matter of habit. This fixation easily leads women into jineteroismo when the going is tough. 
"All this leads too easily into egoism, a concentration on materialistic values, and this is extremely damaging to the revolution," Valdés concluded.
The party seemed to be listening to Valdés and Vega. In a two-month period (April-June 1996), police rounded up thousands of prostitutes and pimps in the Varadero resort area. There are only 18,000 Cuban permanent residents in the "blue paradise," and authorities estimated that there was a network of over 7000 jineteros and prostitutes.
"Police raided 400 bawdy houses where the residents worked as prostitutes, and a large number of tunnels, bridges, dens, rooftops and other public places that served as shelter for those who lived from sexual exploitation."
The question that many had was if the campaign to rid the area of this subculture would be short-lived and that they would return. Prostiutions, as such, as not a crime.

The advanced stage of prostitution placed Cuba as the most attractive destination for the sex tourist, according to the Italian tourist magazine "Viaggiare." The sedate "jockeying" of the 1980s--buying dollars, clandestine selling of cigars and the exchange of sex for a night on the town--had quickly turned into a network of professional prostitutes, taxi drivers on the take, date-bars and restaurants catering to this business, and even pimps. It got to the point that average Cubans were making comparisons with pre-revolutionary times, sans the gambling casinos.
Major city streets have also become a hustling ground for kids begging for dollars.Youths are also rushing towards stopped vehicles with rag in hand for a quick windscreen wiping. Others offer their limited knowledge to guide tourists. There are still no food beggers, but begging has returned after nearly four decades without this socially degrading pheonomenon, and society has quickly adjusted to this regression, which worries officials.
Ulovis Portieles is a psycholgist with the Ministry of Interior´s department for minors.  She views the growth of this phenomenon as resulting from a loss of values. Some families encourage their kids to drop out of school, in order to earn a few dollars to bring home. She points out that over one thousand minors are serving sentences in detention centers for crimes against tourists, usually for the theft of handbags and pick-pocketting.
Vega sees a connection here with the increase in single-family units--over half of marriages end in divorce in the first five years--and the fact that men have not developed beyond the ancient macho concept that the house and children are "women´s work."
"Now, women make up 42% of the labor force, and they are working like mules at two jobs. It is not just their wage job and the housework, but it is the agony and time consumed in shopping, standing in one line after another, waiting and waiting for transportation, for this and that. The wife-mother has so little time and energy left over for the children. And if the man, who only has one job and almost no shopping duties, doesn´t look after the children, spend time with them, show love and concern, then this doesn´t help keep the kids off the streets. We have to have more and better education to convince men and women to share housework and childcare."
Vega said that the FMC opened 169 Casas de Mujeres, one in every municipality, in the early 1990s, to help women and families with personal and economic problems. They teach housewives a few skills so they can  bring a secondary income into the house. But she admitted that the FMC program is fortifying "traditional women´s work and stereotyping", as they teach classes in hairdressing, beauty care, and sewing, almost exclusively.
 The FMC has traditionally mainly worked in child-related activities, such as vaccination campaigns, and with housewives. A few NGO projects have started up, with United Nations,  European and Canadian NGO support, to help break out of this mold. New projects are teaching women computation, the manufacture and assembly of bicycles, making objects out of marble, and running small dairy farms.
The identity crisis is not limited to women and the NGOs. It has spread to all who appreciate revolutionary values, ordinary people and intellectuals who are bewildered by the world they live in. Though Cuba is isolated in many respects, including its geographic reality as an island, people feel their world sliding into the universal morass.

Raul Castro, speaking for the Politbureau, warns against outspokeness in foreign publications and seminars as giving "ammunition to the enemy." At the same time, he encourages "individual initiative" and "expression of feelings." The double message is only natural in times of transition, and the entire world is in flux.
One of those outspoken intellectuals is a man of impecable revolutionary artistic credentials. Humberto Solás is the film director known for Lucia, Cecilia, Amada and his latest based on Alejo Carpentier´s El Siglo de las Luces. The New York-based, left-wing NACLA publication printed his views (Sept/Oct 1995) on these tumultuous times.
"Clearly all of us are in a moral crisis in this country. We can´t blame anyone. It´s simply that the century has played a bad joke on us. It´s the global reality now. What are we going to do about it? There are two possibilities: you can commit physical, moral or ideological suicide, or you can have enough lucidity to say, okay we are going to get through this. You have to live in the present, and believe that the revolutionary project will be rebuilt at some other point in time.
"When I travel abroad, in restaurants people say to me: resist! I say to them: we are resisting, but my god, don´t ask of people what they cannot give. It´s unfair. It´s a dehumanizing attitude. The world outside must take a very flexible view of what is happening in Cuba. We cannot be the salve for humanity´s conscience."
	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 22
	1996 ECONOMICS

"People in Cuba are no longer debating whether we should confront the current crisis with ideological or economic measures, but rather what kind of economic measures should be taken...We have to be careful, however, that we don´t save the Cuban economy but lose Cuban socialism in the process." (Gerado González, CEA economist, in NACLA report, fall 1995.)

The economic debate within and outside the party revolves around three poles:
 A)The orthodox who view mixed economy reforms as harmful to socialism and the society generally, and wish a return to total state control with no private property, other than for farmers granted land under the first two agrarian reforms. Most of these are old guard Communists and elderly people who experienced capitalism from the bottom end.
 B) Young turks who want more privatization ending in free enterprise and full civil liberties; the social welfare network intact. These are mostly young people, including some of the better educated, who look up to Scandinavian social democracy, the little they know about it.
 C) The third group favors giving the market a more active role in production and distribution of resources, products and information, increasing decentralization, dividing the economy between large areas of state-run operations and private and cooperative enterprises, in which competition plays an increasing role. Several tendencies of degree exist in this group, but  their goal is the same: mixed economy now, ending in one direction with one currency.
The latter category is where the emphasis lays both within party and government economic councils and ministries, and among most "independent" economists who work in research institutions and or NGOs. Most experts in this group say they are concerned that measures underway, and those surely to come, threaten the continuance of socialism, which they warn against. Some party  functionaries and leaders cling to the first group. Fidel and Raul, however, are clearly reluctantly in the third category.
I choose to devote ample space to the book La Restructuracion de la Economia, because of the controversy around the center from which it sprang but also because this is the first book that was allowed to be published that does challenge a debate, although limited to those tendencies within the third category. It was both encouraging that it came out and raised the debate as well as discouraging that the Politbureau chose to single out the CEA for fifth columning. It is unclear if the book was seen as part of the problem. Afterall, one of the three authors, Julio Carranza Valdés, was CEA´s sub-director at the time of Raul Castro´s accusal and the firing of Luis Suárez.

The book was first written in early 1994, at the beginning of the second stage of the special period. Decriminalization of the dollar had just occurred. Carranza-Gutiérrez-Monreal presented their manuscript to government economic leaders in April 1994, and revised it in August. It is necessary that authorities pass on texts before publication. The book was finished in January 1995 and distribution began late in the year. I attended Carranza´s presentation to a select group of Cuban journalists and economists. I interviewed him and co-author Luis Gutiérrez.
The authors see their book as "polemical within the aims of the current economic direction; a debate among experts and communists." It describes what brought on current economic reforms and what results were, which they  characterized  as mixed. The main problem they saw was that things were being done on a scattered basis without an integral concept and direction. They proposed a series of remedies within a whole outlook. Their aim is to "modify the economic structure without breaking its social equilibrium."
Their main criticism of the early rectification process was that "the economic mechanisms by the Planification and Direction System were not followed through with in a coherently consistent manner. Cuba, like all other socialist systems, has not transformed from an economy based on extensive development to an intensive one, which is ultimately necessary in order for significant growth to occur. Perestroika aimed to do this but failed miserably and no new system has arisen here or elsewhere that improves, in reality, socialism and economic foundations."
The authors say that a viable economic system is a configuration of institutions with four fundamental aspects: a coordination mechanism of decision-making sources, generation and transmission of information, and economic agents motivation; property relations; mechanism of  the decision feedback; form of organization and control of intra-firm relations. 
Socialist economic mechanisms are social in character, production and distribution for the benefit of all, yet a fully applicable socialist stage is not possible in an underdeveloped land that cannot be self-sufficient economically, and doubly so when the only existing world forces are antagonistically capitalist, and the most powerful is an aggressive enemy.
The authors view capitalism as still "viable", despite its contradictions, because it has not been exclusively market based, having somewhat regulated the distribution of income. For them, "the construction of socialism does not require the elimination of the market, but the suppression of the hegemony of capital." Furthermore, "Cuba can be reinstated into the capitalist world economy without affecting the fundamental social conquests of the revolution."
One of the differences between their analysis of the state reforms and that publically given by government-party leaders is that the three economists wrote about the problems of growing social imbalances, of rampant thievery and corruption before the state spoke forcefully about these elements; and the authors see these failures as emanating from the unclear reforms themselves, that is, the state-introduced measures are the cause of many problems, in addition, of course, to the blockade and the fall of the Soviet Union.

To cite just one example, when the state started the special period leaders said they had to close down state parallel markets because it lacked supplies to stock them. The ever-simmering black market immediately skyrocketted in sales and profits based upon rampant thievery of much of the supplies the state did have in its fields, factories, offices, stores, warehouses and docks--supplies that could have gone to the parallel markets at fairer prices, making more products available to more people and the state would have benefitted economically. Ordinary people shook their hands at the absurdity of it all, but, for some time, state leaders ignored their puzzlement and disgust. So, the conclusion was that the state was encouraging thievery. Well, no one could say this publically without being looked at suspiciously, until Fidel  finally said it at the December 1995 National Assembly session: "Yes, we have legalized thievery." (Recall chapter 19.)
What Carranza-Guitiérrez-Monreal propose:
1. Maintain the state capacity as the conductor of the macro-economy, and preserve the social welfare achievements for everyone free of charge.
2. Diversify the economy with the state as the locomotive, allowing a high degree of decentralization within an overall social planification.
3. Introduce more private property in non-fundamental means of production, with small companies that can employee a few personnel (not now allowed), and allow them to buy the resources, tool and supplies they need to function (pages 86-89).
4. Fortify representative democracy with popular power representation, also in the unions and mass organizations. Enchancement here would "defend the interests of workers in conflicts that could be generated in the new context" (page 65).
The budget must be balanced, the market regulated, the economy decentralized. To do this there must be an integral strategy that includes: a) change of money, obliging the macetas and others with large accumulation of illegally acquired capital to lose their inflationary weaponry, and giving the state necessary financial resources; b) phase out state subidies; c) give subsidies to low income people to assure a livelihood and not to products; d) raise prices to their real costs with some profit margin; e) accounting books of all companies must balance or they go bankrupt; f) extend autonomy to the UBPCs; g) privatize and cooperativize more small and medium-size enterprises--companies will be state-run, mixed Cuban-foreign, cooperatives, private; h) expand private property and individual business, allow hiring of a few workers; i) reduce redundancies; j) as the economy grows increase supply of goods and services and decrease prices, in conjunction with adjustments in wage scales to meet realities; k) allow increased competition between companies, including transport and other services; l) increase what is taxed, including wages, progressive rather than regressive taxation, and balance social security expenditures with revenues.

The direction of this organic plan is to complete a transition to a regulated market decentralized economy. Eventually, the state will control only the largest of productive operations, such as most of the rice, sugar and banana plantations, and centralized firms in the most essential supplies. The rationing of goods will cease, and prices will be on supply-demand basis.They call this plan "a fundamental economic reform...the construction of a market of the means of production in the context of a socialist economy" (p. 169).
Interestingly enough, the authors dared to at least mention a leftist approach to socialism---something new in Cuba--by summarizing the socialist decentralization-planification views of Michael Albert, Robin Hahnel, and Steve Rosskamm Shalom, all of South End Press, in Boston (see pages 75-8). These leftists emphasize workers councils and participatory planning as the best model to implement socialism, leading to communism. Carranza, et. al, do not analyze this approach and dismiss it saying only that it lacks conceptual precision.
Luis Guitérrez emphasized the importance of collecting the currency and exchanging it with a new one, all within a short period. "If we did this, coupled with measures to increase production, it would result in a socio-psychological boost. When people saw that the state was truly serious in cleaning out the thieves, it would make the new currency more solid."
Pedro Monreal told Gail Reed that he foresaw more mercantile forms in Cuba´s near future. "It´s not too far-fetched to think of private enterprise in Cuba." He was worried that no "overall plan for a new formulation of the Cuban economy" existed, which perpetuated the damaging nature of a dual economy with a dual currency,  confusing people and causing inequalty.

 I believe that this also lays the basis for a return to a class society. I predict that the state will gradually adopt the authors´ proposed measures, and not, for instance, the more left socialist direction suggested by a very few, such as Juan Antonio Blanco. The state trend is to privatize more and socialize less, with the UBPCs as the one significant difference. The leadership seems to listen more to the "liberal-wing" within group C. I do not include the old guard, which seeks a return to state socialism without workers control, in my definition of left-wing in this context.
The fundamental damage that the US blockade does to Cuba, in my view, is not primarily to the economy but to social-political health. We see economic growth today, despite the hardening of the blockade, because some Cubans are working harder when materialist benefits are within grasp;  because the nation receives more investments and markets from foreign capitalists who are glad not to have to compete with Yankee capitalism; and Cuba receives more sympathy, more moral backing, and more solidarity donations. I calculated that solidarity donations, in 1994, amounted to the equivalent of three percent of Cuba´s export income. 
"I don´t think the blockade prevents recovery,"  Monreal told Reed, "but it makes it all the more difficult. One of the most negative effects of a continued blockade would be to continue distorting domestic debate in Cuba (because) obviously with the blockade in place, there is less political space to experiment with economic measures which could have political implications...the articulation of a private sector...is perceived as bringing into play a political sector in Cuba not closely linked with the state and thus with a certain degree of independence and opinion."
It is this dilemma that is reflected in the double message periodically emanating from the Politbureau: open up and draw in the wagons.
	NEW PARTY OUTLOOK
  	In the latter half of 1995, discussions were held within party and UJC ranks regarding "the work of the party in the actual circumstances." In October 1996, the party published a political-economic document, forcasting a future with "a greater presence of market relations in the economy in which the social sector (State and cooperative) will predominate and demonstrate an efficiency equal to or greater than that of the private sector or of the joint ventures."
Solutions are based on more economically competitive and mixed companies, and not on "assistance, subsidies, nor the equal distribution of goods and services, with the exceptions of education and medical care." What will prevail will be "efficiency and effectiveness, savings and multi-functions, initiative and individual and collective effort, real results and compensation determined strictly by the quantity and quality of the work contributed and by its social utility."

The document also warned against a growing tendency, in and out of party ranks, to feel that the system of mixed-firms  means a capitulation to capitalism. No doubt, their resources and access to foreign markets does put state firms at a disadvantage, giving the impression that socialism is not as efficient and desireable as privatization of the economy. Party cadre must be attentive to this opinion and work assiduously to convince people that it is erroneous.
Transitory reforms have placed many people in insecure positions and is causing fears, distrust, and a search for personal salvation. More people, including cadre, are openly expressing the notion that the party and state leadership have not adequately conducted the economic transformations. Excessive critics are more common and support for the Revolution is weakened. This also leads to greater crime against the social patrimony and persons. 
Party members should work in the mixed economy areas with attitudes of "austerity and modesty." No one should allow others to get away with corruption, bribery, thievery, etc. Collective vigilance must be reenforced.
Information flow, both within and outside the party, must be more systematic, dynamic and convincing.The party called upon its members to strengthen democratic centralism by expressing ideas and opinions and by following through in a unified way with the decisions democratically taken. Members should be more active in their residential communities, helping to improve the daily lives of their neighbors. They should also play a vanguard role in the work sites, "resolutely fight(ing) paternalism and equalitarianism, aware that efficiency is essential and is the way to even greater results so as to be competitive, without which a country such as ours cannot in the future defend its independence, its identity, and its happiness."
	ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS
Profititability based on balancing the books and competitiveness is resulting in escalating unemployment, which reached eight percent by mid-1996, according to the Ministry of Economy. This means 270,000 unemployed people, compared to 200,000 in self-employment, a figure that had not grown in a nearly a year´s time.
The new National Tax Administration Office (ONAT) reported in mid-year that it had collected 70% of the taxes expected for the year from these entrepreneurs, a total of 83 million pesos (equivalent in dollars). Purveyors of food and drink account for 56% of self-employed. Their taxes were raised in February and caused 2,200 to return their self-employment licenses. Many took to the black market. Havana Provincial Employment Department said that 15 private restaurants had closed in May alone as they were no longer making a profit, in large part because of the tax rates. The new regulations call for a restaurant owner--who can still only sit 12 people at a time--to pay 1000 pesos and 750 dollars per month, along with 200 pesos and 175 dollars for every "family helper," which is often a euphemism for employees hired outside the family.
Fidel held his July 26 speech in Holguín. There were reasons enough for his good spirits. The economy was growing by a suprising 9.6%. The goals of extracting 1.5 million tons of crude oil and 55,000 tons of nickel were on target. The zafra had barely fallen short of expectations: 4.44 million tons compared with 4.5 planned. Holguín was hosting the celebration of the assault on Moncada Barracks because its harvest resulted in 140,000 tons more than the previous year. 

 Several companies, besides the highly praised Sherritt corporation, were mining nickel, and another mine was scheduled to open soon. Forty-five companies had signed risk contracts with Cuba´s GeoMinera S.A. to explore and extract solid minerals: gold, silver, zinc. The amount of gold found in Cuba was never as much as conquistadores had hoped for, and it had long been thought that what there was had been exhausted. But with modern exploration and extraction technology, new gold deposits have been found in Villa Clara, Camaguey, Ciego de Avila and Pinar del Rio provinces. The westernmost province´s Castelanos mine netted 120 kilos of pure gold last year, and prospects for a great deal more are high.
Foreign trade representatives had increased to 668 and there were now 240 economic associations between Cuban and foreign capital, an increase of 28 in half a year, and 150 more were awaiting authorization to begin business.
Although overall unemployment figures were steadily increasing, 60,000 new jobs had been created, many in the mixed enterprises. And the peso-dollar rate was stablized at 22 pesos. In social progress, the best news was the dramatic fall in the infant mortality rate. By the third-quarter, it was down more than a full point, 8.2 per 1000 live births.
The Ministry of Economy reported that in the first half of 1996 the production of leaf tobacco grew by 25%, and green and root vegetables augmented by 25.7% over the same period the year before, when there was also an increase in vegetables over 1994. Plans called for 1.56 million tons of vegetables in 1996, but production was heading to top that by 100,000 tons, which would mean the first time in many years that the plan was met and surpassed. There was also growth in fishing, cement and steel production.
 Nevertheless, several important products were falling behind production plans: coffee, milk and derivatives, beef and pork, chicken and eggs. Food production, generally, did not meet half of consumption.
But other signs of progress could be seen in the internal economy where production relations are still socialized. A processing plant for special diet foods started up in the Food Industry Research Institute.The new plant will produce Nutrial, for burn and multi-traumatism victims, and lactose-free milk for children who can´t tolerate regular milk. Sausages will be manufactured again, after many years of absence, to replace the unpopular ground-beef and soy bean combination. A hamburger mixture with less soy bean is also promised.
The main hope in the internal economy is still with the UBPCs, which held 42% of the cultivated land in mid-1996. The non-sugar farms numbered 1577 and were raising cattle, coffee, tobacco, citrus fruits, rice, agriculture and in forestry. Only half were profitable.  In the sugar cane UBPC plantations only 23% were operating above a loss. Because expectations were not being met, the state decided to keep more land than originally planned and reorganized totally state-run farms, giving farm workers most of the benefits granted the semi-cooperative UBPCs.

State farm workers now earn more than a fixed wage, sharing a percentage of production, but they do not buy the means of production as do the UBPCs. State farms also have their own bank accounts, organizational autonomy to establish regulations and flexibility in determining wages. They now have a material incentive to make the farms profitable. Many economists want the state to introduce these reforms in factories,  which seems possible in the near future.
Economic progress, in general, is still mainly confined to the market economy. The growth in vegetable production, for instance, is due to the supply-demand priced agro-markets. And 87% of these vendors, in mid-1996, were private farmers. State-run farms, UBPCs, and the Army´s EJT made a big effort to supply the market place in the beginning of the reform, but then nearly  dropped out of the running once private farmers got interested in supplying them. The Ministry of Agriculture was once again exhorting state farmers and cooperatives to compete.
Tobacco is now financed by foreign hard currency investment--60 million dollars from Spanish, French and Dutch importers with the goal of producing 40,000 tons in 1996, which would permit the manufacture of 70 million cigars. The few cigars sold in pesos are of inferior quality and priced for a high profit. The best cigars are sold in dollars in the domestic market, but mainly for foreign markets in hard currencies. Spanish importers had ordered 29 million; France, seven million; Great Britain and Switzerland five million each.
Spain continued to have the largest numbers of investors in Cuba, despite the new right-wing José Maria Aznar government. Aznar told US Vice-President Al Gore that he would break off cooperation with the communist-led island. Soft credit was to be suspended, for example. However there never had been much of that. Businessman had no plans to curtail commercial ties, which are quite profitable. Trade jumped by 45% between 1994 and 1995, reaching 400 million dollars. Spanish companies make up 22% of the total foreign associations in Cuba, followed by Canada with 12%, Mexico and France with 6% each.
 	Tourism was also growing rapidly, 46%, in mid-1996, and Spanish firms were in the forefront of hotel ownership and management. The 1996 goal of one million visitors would be met.
On June 3, Law 165 was decreed allowing for duty free zones at the ports of Matanzas and the Isle of Youth, part of the Foreign Investment Act. A tax-free industrial park would soon open near the Havana airport. Fashion shows of clothes, shoes and cosmetics, involving European  designers are already taking place. USA´s GUESS firm exhibits through a Spanish connection.
On August 14, Fidel inaugurated the first real estate business with foreigners since the revolution.  Lonja de Comercio, in Old Havana, will now be run by the Aurea joint venture, which will rent office space to foreign enterprises. Housing real estate for foreigners would come too.

Expectations for a terrific year in economic growth were somewhat dashed, however, when Hurricane Lily penetrated the island on October 18. The effects of severe economic losses, however, will be felt mainly in 1997. Fortunately, no lives were lost as 300,000 residents and 125,000 students were evacuated in time. In addition, 276,000 livestock were evacuated. Nearly 100,000 volunteers helped rescue workers. Nevertheless,  51,000 homes were destroyed and 80,000 more were damaged. Ravage to crops was devastating: 46,000 hectares of banana trees were damaged, as were 656,000 hectares of sugar cane and 36,000 hectares in coffee, citrus fruit, yucca, rice and other food. Cuba is still importing at least half its rice needs, and the goal of self-sufficiency was once again postponed. Most of the sugar cane broken by the 130 kilometer winds was newly planted. This made it more possible for workers and volunteers to replant without totally ruining all chances for the planned five million-ton 1997  zafra, yet sights were already being lowered. There was also extensive damage to roads and bridges and water supply sources.
United Nations and European Union agencies sent medical and food aid. Seventy-five tons of humanitarian aid gathered by US citizens, mainly Christian church people and Cuban-Americans, was stopped at the Miami airport by federals authorities. After ten days of protests and court actions, the government let the aid pass through a third country.
 Carlos Lage said in his United Nations speech (November 12) that the year would close with a seven percent economic growth, despite the hurricane´s ruinations.  Some decline from the mid-year 9.6 growth had been expected, because sugar harvest income is calculated mainly in the first half. Another negative growth factor, one that affects all poor countries, is the falling world market prices for exports--seven percent--compared with the rising prices of imports--13%.
Lage  pointed out, however, that despite the Helms-Burton law, 400 new labels of US products had been registered in the country since the law--coming in through third parties--and 300 US businesspeople had visited the "pariah" with the intention of conducting business. The state was granting more autonomy to more firms: 239 Cuban companies now had the power to engage in import or export operations. At the end of the year, an exhibition and business show closed with 153 business deals signed worth 35 million dollars.
Minister of Economy and Planification José Luis Rodríguez´ end-of-the-year report to the National Assembly announced that the year´s economic growth of 7.8% was "a true miracle". This compares favorably  with the 5% forecast and 3.5% regional growth. The budget´s deficit fell from 3.6% in 1995 to 2.4. The  peso-dollar rate also fell from a 1995 average of 32 to one, down to 19 to one. People possessing dollars increased to between 30 and 60% of the population in nine provinces and under 30% in the other five. Prices of products on the agro-market fell by 30%, and by 22% in the black market. The circulating currency in pesos did not diminish significantly, remaining around 9.3 billion pesos, but people´s cash had more value than in 1995.

There was noticable productive growth in much of the peso economy: agricultual products grew 17.3% compared with a planned 8%--sugar by 33.6% (4.44 million tons), tobacco by 30%, vegetables by 29% and rice  55%; industrial manufacturing grew by 7.8%, under the planned 9.7%; but construction grew by 30.8% compared with 21.6 programmed. Housing construction finished 45,000 units, compared with a planned 50,000. Consumption of electrical energy grew by 24%. Individual income  grew by 11.4%, although wage increases  were not uniform. The average wage increased from 190 to 203 pesos a month.
The number of  foreign companies investing in Cuba augmented from 212 to 260, in defiance of the US blockade. The amount of hard currency in actual use grew by an astounding 54%, which was 16% more than foreseen. Contributions from tourism increased 50% over the previous year. Exportations grew by 33% and importations by 53.3%, resulting in an augment of four percent in personal consumption and two percent in social and governmental consumption. The export-import imbalance is the gravest economic problem Cuba faces, according to Carlos Lage, in a speech he delivered in mid-December.
Minister Rodríguez offered a cautious economic forecast for 1997, given the damage of the hurricane and the ever-escalating prices of vital imports and declining prices for sugar and nickel. Four to five percent in GDP was foreseen, but only 9% in foreign investments. Circulating currrency might fall by 3%. The hope is to balance exportation growth (12%) and importations (11.5%).   
All in all, the year ended optimistically. Helms-Burton or not, Cuba was marching ahead.  It would survive the economic pressures, and, as filmmaker Solás said, socialism would remain an ideal that many Cubans would keep before them.
	----------------------
	QUALITY OF LIFE COMPARISONS

Public Health	Material Standards	Education	Women Situation 	Equality	Progress
Cuba		no. 15		no. 48		no. 18		no. 12			no. 9		no. 5
mean		111.8		106.4		112.3		113.3			116.8		119.2

US		no. 37		no. 1		no. 24		no. 15			no. 95		no. 67
mean		109.4		119.5		111.6		112.7			97.7		102.7

160 nations'
mean		99.4		101.1		99.5		98.5			100.4		100.4

	END CHAPTER

	CHAPTER 23

	CONCLUSIONS

"We have made mistakes, we´ve been wrong and recognized too late mistakes and their causes. But I cling steadfastly to the values, with which we wanted to transform the world...For those struggling for justice, solidarity is something very important, even perhaps the most important. It helps all those struggling for their rights to maintain their optimism and their dignity." (Marcus Wolf, Communist leader at his 1993 trial in a German court)

The issue of limited democracy, that only one political line is permitted--one shaped, fundamentally, by a score of men--is what ruffles the feathers of most Westerners who know something about Cuba´s development. This is an issue that aggravates the broadest spectrum: from recalcitrant right-wingers to many leftists, from hegemonist governments to liberal and social democratic ones. And it has its internal decriers as well.
Many factors must be considered when judging the Cuban Communist party  government for maintaining strict controls over civil liberties and limiting proletarian powers. I have tried herein to present government policies, the process of decision-making and the results that these have had on economic developments and on the state of mind of "the masses". In this final chapter, I summarize where the revolution has come, where it may be heading, and what relevance Cuba has for all of us who reject the eagle´s claws. I present my view as well as others. My subjectivity naturally enters into the selection of views.
When critiquing what went wrong with socialism in Eastern Europe, it must be born in mind that from day one the imperialist Europeans, Japanese and US Americans began what became perennial aggressions, including military incursions. The Cold War is supposedly over now with the destruction of socialism in Europe, and its ever-weakening dominance in the East. Nevertheless, imperialists continue to impose their economic and political designs on these nations, and the United States has not diminished its unilateral Cold War against Cuba. This requires  Cuba to devote many material resources, and emotional energies, on defense--resources which could otherwise be used to put food on the table and extend tolerance for individual and social liberties.
The US government, its military and intelligence services, and its civilian paramilitarists, effectively manipulate and alter the direction that governments and or peoples' movements take when their wills do not fit Washington and Wall Street elite interests. From crude military takeovers in most of Latin America, beginning in the 19th century, to post-WWll maneuvers in Europe and Asia, the US has effectively warped the natural course of national developments, including the hindrance of democratic progress.

The Cuban leadership began the war of liberation in 1956 comprehending this reality. No true supporter of national liberation, nor civil libertarian should fail to recognize the importance of  US machinations against independence. Its arrogant foot-stopping against the will of the entire United Nations, including all of its Security Council allies, in single-handedly vetoing the reelection of the general secretary, Boutros-Boutros-Ghali, is a keen manifestation of its gut-level anti-democratic nature, one that affects all of us and not only Cubans.
How Fidel Castro and the Communist party Politbureau came to be so powerful is another ingredient in understanding how policies have occurred, one that is not divorced from the first cause: US petulant pugnacity.
Neither Fidel nor the Communist party took over by force against the people. They do not rule over their people through the barrel of a gun. In fact, I believe that the vast majority of people are responsible that a few men make the major decisions. It is what people wanted, and basically still want. From the earliest days of revolution to the present, what rings true is the oft-repeated refrain: "What we need is ten Fidels." There are some who want no Fidels.
English historian Hugh Thomas, a dour, conservative observer of Cuban history, wrote: "(Fidel) was their liberator, not merely from Batista, but from all old evils...Ever since the death of Martí, the Cubans had been searching...to place their collective will-power in the hand of a single man...Now they believed they had found one.Few people apparently longed for a democratic government, measured by electoral processes," he added with chagrin.
In the 1960s,  polls were taken about how people felt about the revolutionary process and the leadership. Many of these surveys were conducted by US Establishment media and educational institutions. Their conclusion was: "Only the upper class and businessmen oppose Fidel."
"The U.S. had, by its determined hostility, impelled...an atmosphere which cannot accept dissent. By attacking Cuba in the name of democracy, the United States has also damaged democracy´s meaning, and is increasingly alienating the revolutionaries from what is valuable in the Western tradition," astutely wrote Robert Scheer and Maurice Zeitlin in 1964.
It was the people who created El Líder Máximo.
Fidel did not sculpt a cult of personality around himself in an official or visual sense. It was the "masses" who pushed him forth as their king-caudillo. Fidel, afterall, was the man who tenaciously led a small group of daring men and women to smash the chains of foreign domination, the obnoxious Mafia and their cohorts lording over the Cuban people.
I believe that Fidel wishes the best for his people. I do not think that he seeks power over his people, rather that he believes he can best lead the nation. His paternalism is motivated by fatherly concern. In that sense, he is chief of a "benevolent dictatorship"--one that wields power in the interests of the people, the political system that Plato touted as the best possible.

As long as the standard of living is decent, as long as there is plenty of time to party with libations and music, people feel content and they accept the top-down decision-making system.
Furthermore, when economic conditions have dipped, and workers become more apathetic on the job with corrresponding rise in absenteeism, crime and "deviations"--all contributing to plunging production--people still do not insist on changing the power structure or the leaders. The Communist party leadership has been astute enough to periodically introduce reforms that extend hopes further. In fact, there have been three agricultural reforms and six distinct economic directions in these four decades of single-party  power.
How the Cuban revolution is viewed by its neighbors and fellow third world nations is also an important criterion to consider when judging its worth.
Liberationist theologist and professor of Marxism, Giulio Girardi, characterizes the Cuban revolution as a "symbol of contradiction" in the international left, between those who consider it  just another case of "real socialism" like those in Eastern Europe destined to an imminent death, and those who see it as an original experience, capable of resisting and renovating.

Girardi also sees Cuba as a "symbol of contradiction" between North and South, and as such it comes out far above other systems, one of the key reasons why he says Cuba deserves his: "critical solidarity, one that recognizes the limits, errors and contradictions of this experience. But I consider that its global balance is extremely positive, that its fall would be a grave loss not only for the Cuban people, but for the Latin American continent and the future of the socialist cause in the world. As such, the critical defense of the Cuban revolution has to be consdered by the international left as a priority in a crucial moment of North-South conflict."  
Another scribe, Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano, has written a great deal about Cuba and Latin America. He wrote these moving words for the New York Times, May 17, 1992:
"Some find it unforgiveable that Cuba, subjected to a brutal stage of siege, doomed to extinction by hunger, refuses to offer its arm to be twisted...The gravediggers, waving their shovels, have already prepared their graveside curse: The Cuban Revolution was not killed; it died because it wanted to die." 
"I have never looked on Cuba as a paradise. Why, now, am I going to see it as hell on Earth? I am one of those who believe it possible to love it without telling lies or keeping silence.
"Fidel Castro is a symbol of national dignity. For Latin Americans, now completing five centuries of humiliation, he is a deeply affecting symbol.
"But for a long time, Castro has been at the center of a bureaucratic system, a system of echoes from the monologues of power, that imposes the routines of obedience on creative energies. Sooner or later, bureaucratic systems--one party, one truth--end up divorced from reality. In this time of tragic solitude that Cuba is suffering, the omnipotent state reveals itself as omni-impotent.
"Such a system, such a circumstances, does not come about by itself. It is the result, more than anything, of the imperial veto imposed on Cuba. It came into being when the revolution had to close ranks to defend itself."
"The model of Eastern Europe, which came apart so completely, has nothing to do with the Cuban revolution. The Cuban revolution did not come about from above and was not imposed from the outside--it came from the people themselves, not against their will, not in spite of them."
"Cuba has been condemned to helplessness. The blockade furthers the cannibalism of an international market that pays nothing and skims off everything. Cornered, Cuba falls back on tourism and, in doing so, runs the risk that the remedy may prove worse than the disease...(yet) isn´t it taken for granted throughout Latin American that tourists have privileges?...In Cuba, (there are some) who enjoy special privileges, the privileges of tourism and also, to some extent, the privileges of power (yet) there is no more egalitarian society in all the Americas."
"The young, and not only the young, demand more democracy, but not some model imposed from the outside, prefabricated by those who discredit democracy, using it as a mask for social injustice and national humiliation. They ask for a democracy that is not just a mechanism but a real expression of the will of the people, a democracy that wishes to find its own way, a Cuban way. From the inside, from below.
"But the real freeing of this energy to change does not seem possible while Cuba continues to be subjected to a state of siege...Cuba is judged constantly without taking any account of the fact that for more than 30 years it has been suffering a constant state of emergency. It is a clever enemy...that constantly condemns the consequences of what it itself has generated."

In 1990, Joe Slovo, former general secretary of the South African Communist party and an executive of the African National Council, wrote the essay, "Has Socialism Failed?":
"The major weaknesses which have emerged in the practice of socialism are the results of distortions and misapplications (of Marxism)...It is more vital than ever to subject the past of existing socialism to an unsparing critique in order to draw the necessary lessons. To do so openly is an assertion of justified confidence in the future of socialism and its inherent moral superiority. And we should not allow ourselves to be inhibited merely because an exposure of failures will inevitably provide ammunition to the traditional enemies of socialism: our silence will, in any case, present them with even more powerful ammunition."

	CUBAN VOICES
Most Cubans who do have criticisms of their government and leading personages have long chosen to remain silent so as not to "give ammunition" to the enemy, nor to be viewed as anti-Fidel or anti-revolutionary. Today´s economic liberalization encourages more people to seek greater space for expression. Some will tell trusted persons what they really feel, and what they forsee in the near future, or beyond Fidel´s time.
 There are, in fact, hopeful signs that civil liberties will be increasingly on the party´s agenda, despite periodic setbacks, which is how I view the March 23, 1996 Politbureau report concerning just who fifth columnists are. No doubt, however, that they exist.
Government leaders take tentative steps to increase avenues of expression when they feel a relaxation from the imperium. In November 1994, they allowed an outside poll to be taken of popular opinion, the first in about 30 years. A Costa Rican firm associated with Gallup sent 14 poll-takers to ask 46 questions of 1002 adults. The survey was commissioned, interestingly enough, by the conservative Miami Herald. The poll represents opinions of the western two-thirds of Cuba, about 75% of the total population. Twenty-six percent of respondents had attended university; three-fourths were white. Some of the conclusions were:
 The most serious problem facing Cuba: US blockade, 31%; lack of food, 25; economy in general, 17; energy crisis, 8; lack of medicines, 3; political situation, 3.
Are there more achievements or failures considering the revolution on balance: achievements, 58%; failures, 31%.
When asked about "the principle failure of the Cuban revolution," 46% didn´t know or didn´t respond. Of those who did, 12% thought it had relied too much on foreign socialism; only 3% said "no liberty;" 3% said their government; and 10% said it was poor economy and food.
Taking the total results, 69% of Cubans identified themselves closely with the revolution. That must be a reason why Fidel Castro told Mexican media magnate, Mario Vazquez Rana:
"We would accept the challenge of peaceful coexistence with the United States; we would even accept the challenge of investment. We believe in our country, in our country´s future, in our people´s will and determination, and we have no fear of the challenges of such coexistence.

"Some suggest that in order to finish off the Revolution, it would be better to lift the blockade and establish normal economic relations with Cuba, as they have done with other countries. In this way, they believe the Revolution would progressively weaken and eventually disappear. We are not afraid of this challenge; we are prepared to accept it."
The Gallup poll, showing that most people back their government, and Fidel´s judgment of his people´s will and his acceptance of  peaceful coexistence are probably  the key reasons--in addition to the belligerent Miami lobby--why US governments have not accepted what some of the most powerful conservative political and economic forces proposed in the Sante Fe Document ll, written in 1988, in preparation for a new presidential policy toward Cuba:
"It is vital that far-reaching talks commence while Castro still maintains control. The United States should signal its desire to rapidly normalize relations with a de-Sovietized Cuba--a normalization that would include the dropping of the trade embargo. The talks would be unconditional, direct, and at a high level, without the benefit of questionable intermediaries."
"The next administration can help prepare the ground for a swift and positive change in Cuba after the Maximum Leader´s passing. The United States should be prepared to talk to the key holders of power, especially the Cuban military which has loyally paid a heavy price for Castro´s global ambitions."
Instead of heeding this sound capitalist advice, the government tightened the rope with the Torricelli and Helms-Burton laws, following de-Sovietization, backing on innate chauvinist doggedness that the Islanders "will fall under the sledge hammer." Daily stress for many Cubans is a consequence of US constant pressure and the  Cuban government´s necessary defense.
"I live with stress all the time," Sonía, an unemployed journalist, told me.
"I´m dead tired. I´m tired of not making, not being able to make, any decision over my own life. That´s the worst. And never knowing what to expect, never able to count on anything or anyone. Trying to ascertain the truth is hopeless. So, everyone is passive. No cojes lucha!
"I can´t see our future. I´m a socialist and a Cuban revolutionary. I don´t want to go back to a system based upon exploitation, where some are rich and many are poor. No, I want real socialism. But do you think this government can figure that out? Why are we always waiting for orders, for instructions, and never taking our own initiative. Without this being radically changed, I can see no future for our Cuba," Sonía says, with tears forming in his blood-shot, black eyes. 
Maya, my literature professor friend, expressed her views of Fidel and the future thusly:

"I admire and respect Fidel tremendously. I don´t envy the poor man. Leading this country is the most difficult task in the world today. All these tumultuous world transformations and consequent pressures on us. And, as a people, we are much too hedonistic, garrulous, undisciplined, and too informal to manage rationally. His job is impossible! Sometimes I get angry with him, but I wouldn´t feel good with another president. It may be a matter of habit. Fidel is there and will always be there. Maybe, in time, Robaina could take over. He´s good at organizing and he has Fidel´s ear. I certainly can´t image any imbecile from Miami or anyone outside Cuba coming here to 'lead' us. Everybody talks about what after Fidel. Raul is second in line, but he is not popular. Maybe they´d come up with a council of leaders. But I don´t see any need for another president today. Fidel is not sick, and he is the best."
I cannot do without my reliable barometer, Sigi:
"Fidel is not tainted, he´s honest. Nor is he prejudiced against anyone because of his color, age or sex. The fact that he is so esteemed is why he has so much power. The people have deified him. They´ve made a cult of personality of him. When individuals proclaim any success, for example, they cry out that they´ve done this for Fidel, that it was his spirit that enabled them to complete this or that task. This is wrong, this damages the revolution and Fidel.
What after Fidel? It is impossible to know. There is no one capable of replacing him. He has a unique charisma and intellect. The population as a whole has little confidence in the party and state bodies but they do in him. Our people are not communists or Marxists; we are Fidelistas. The day he dies is going to be very hard for us.
If Fidel had had Che by his side all these years, not half the serious errors that have been made would have occurred. We would not have become dependent on the Soviet Union.
The greatest discontent is with the top-down management and their privileges. This diminishes solidarity, increases egoism. If the workers could truly elect their representatives, their union leaders, their administrators, that wouldn´t necessarily make things better, because cronyism always comes into the picture.We should spread the Popular Councils, create a system of honest, well-paid inspectors, punish those who are corrupted, and truly listen to "the masses."
We have to open the doors for our own people to take initiative and conduct enterprise, just like we let foreigners, otherwise distrust is fortified. It all comes back to trust. The state has trusted our people too little.
Don´t get me wrong. I detest capitalism. It is the most inhumane of socio-economic systems. But what is socialism? Socialism is beautiful on paper, but reality doesn´t match up. What is communism? I don´t know. What we used to think it was, we learned it wasn´t.	
Will we solve this mess we´re in? I don´t know. I´m afraid I don´t see the solution, not until the egoistic mentality of the human being is changed."

Central committee member and CEA´s new director Dario Machado sees a future "without dollar stores and dollars circulating,  with more maturity, defending the basic social gains without private property. I believe that we will learn to be more efficient in production, learning from our experiences and those of capitalism. We will be more flexible in our centralization, with greater decentralization. We´ll be more independent, a freer Cuba within the world context. Our sense of justice for all will be based on receiving benefits depending on capacity and work. We will have a healthy patriotism, a unity of politics and philosophy. And the world will show us an ever-growing respect for this and our overall achievements."
Philosopher Juan Marí Lois is head of the Chair of Ethics of the Enrique José Varona Superior Pedagogue Institute of the University of Havana. Marí is also a practicing philosopher as vice-president of the NGO, Félix Varela Institute. 
"Our principle social exaction is the transformation of alienated man into a free one... having at core a system of values that truly make this man free in his social behavior.
I believe, in the end, that socialism is fundamentally a "cultural" alternative to capitalism. Perhaps the Soviet and Eastern European debacle, independent of its economic and political problems, its democratic violations, was that real socialism never consolidated into a real cultural alternative, in essential moral value terms, never was capable of generating an integral development in that culture.
Development as such, as was demonstrated in Eastern Europe, cannot put an end to alienation without a sufficient education in a new scale of values. The first of these alienation factors today is the regrowth of a group of mercantile relations accompanying the special period. Ernesto Che Guevara criticized this and explained that as long as commercialization exists alienation would remain. (He) warned over 25 years ago what could happen in the socialist camp if the negative regularities he observed in 1964 continued. He clarified that the path to the liberation of man´s personality is the elimination of mercantile forms of relations between men."
"Neither Félix Varela nor José Martí were Marxists. The preachment of Martí, more than its character of independence, was one that sought, in a profound ethical sense, full dignity for humanity in a just society. Perhaps our Marxism, our lesson as Cubans of Marxism ends up much more ethical--and thus approximates the essential motivation of the great German fighter--precisely because of our Martían roots. 

Without a doubt, alienation is aggravated by the influence of enemy ideology, which maintains its principle objective, in diverse forms, of destroying and/or coopting the Cuban revolution. This enemy influence is aided by pre-revolutionary Cuban factors and those resulting from this generation that continue also as a result of our own insufficiencies and errors. In this special period, a non-productive marginal economy is indubitably generated, one operating in the sphere of circulation of money that does not produce value. It only produces a greater price enhancement of the goods originally manufactured, with the sole aim of enriching those involved in this chain. In current Cuban society there is also the opposition between manual and intellectual work. Historically, this has been considered to be one of the original factors determining the appropriation of alien work and the apparition of private property.  Socialism has not yet been able to transcend this element that gravitates between the possibility of liberating society and individuals from this source of alienation."  
"The national system of education must be part of the social macro-system of pedagogic values that point to the formation of an alternative culture...If we accept the idea that socialism is an ethical option and, above all, an alternative culture, the educative action of all the social agents, including formal education, must be to create and consolidate the formation of a collectivist ethic, one of solidarity, one that negates and transcends bourgeois individualism...(with) school programs relating to the ethics of citizenship."
"This would permit us, in the final instance, to respond to the necessity of surviving as a nation, a factor that is in danger due to the counterposition of moral values. Our sovereignty, our true independence also means full liberation, free from old and new forms of alienation in each Cuban. This collection of freed individualities could then sustain, voluntarily and as aggregated soldiers, the independence and sovereignty that more than one heroic generation supposedly constructed."

	WHAT I MEAN
Cuba´s  socialism is founded on a charismatic leader and extended through a bureaucratic administration organizing social welfare for the people, which does not automatically evolve into socialism, meaning political and economic power in the hands of the proletariat or the people, as a whole. Given the contradictions that Giradi explains, it is understandable that many leftists and  solidarity activists do not like to hear these words, feeling that somehow they "give ammunition to the enemy." If we wish to preserve whatever socialism has developed anywhere in the world, or to improve on the past, or create socialism where it doesn´t exist, we must take into account how "the masses" feel. It does no good to dismiss their passivity and discontent as "confusion", or that they have fallen for the enemy´s propaganda and consumerism. Their apathy and irresponsibility is directly related to the possibilities open to them for true involvement in society´s development in all ways.
Working class rule was seen by Marx and Engels as a process in which "government of people" would be transformed until it became no more than "the administration of things." Marx understood "the dictatorship of the proletariat" as the  socialization of power, control from below. Stratification, a hierarchial order, does not allow for the "dictatorship of the proletariat."
I would say that Cuban society is based on humanistic principles, which is integral to socialism, but that laws and methodology are decided on by a few leaders, who have privileges of power and living standards, which is what has misguided all other socialist States. Is it not because of the privileges of power that the passionate voice of Rosa Luxemburg is not heeded nor taught in socialist States?

"...Without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as an active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule...and an elite of the working class is invited from time to time to meetings where they are to applaud the speeches of the leaders and to approve proposed resolutions unanimously--at bottom, then, a clique affairs--a dictatorship, to be sure--not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but the dictatorship of a handful of politicians."
Sounds much like the Cuban voices of Sigi and Suárez, Marí and Blanco. Fidel also often sounds the alarm against bureaucracy and twisted Soviet socialism.
"We made the mistake of idealizing them and that influence did us a lot of damage...copying Soviets in economic, scientific, educational and organizational methods...creating excessive confidence, creating a habit of thinking that everything that came from there was perfect and good, which produced some copies and some negative imitations."
Socialism has one common denominator for all, "political clarity, " Che wrote. "This does not consist of unthinking support to the postulates of the revolution, but to a reasoned support..." (individuals must be) "capable of self-analysis," so as "to exercise creative initiative."	
           "Seek the truth, and tell it, because only the truth is revolutionary," Gramsci said.
And I would say that truth is revolutionary precisely because it is a tool for and integral to "liberating man from his alienation," Che´s reason d'etre, "the ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration."

Both these men´s words guide me today, and I believe must be the goal and daily practice of revolutionaries everywhere if what we want is socialism, a model for the "new person."
Like many other Western radical activists, I resisted for many years the accepted notion  prevalent throughout the Western bourgeois democracies (albeit partially myth) that observing civil liberties is essential to a decent society. In the struggle from capitalism to socialism, many of us have believed that practicing civil liberties only results in our enemies using them to manipulate and warp our direction, to steal our thunder,  and are otherwise only meaningful to intellectuals.
I came to live in Cuba holding that view, so I cannot be accused of having come to an underdeveloped land valiantly struggling to create a decent socialist society with prejudiced first world glasses. I have changed my opinion because I have lived under tropical state socialism and have cursorily seen state socialist application in Russia and Czechoslovakia. I have come to see the value of democratic decision-making and free expression of speech and press from the existence of Cuban workers in the fields and factories, and the offices of publishing houses. It is a natural aspect of journalists and writers to want to express themselves truthfully, although it is unfortunately not an aspect of the trade hardly anywhere in the world, North or South, capitalist or socialist.
I believe that these freedoms are not frills but are obligatory if we are speaking about socialism, Marxism-Leninism, building a society where liberation from alienation--not only from labor but politically, socially and psychologically--is the order of the day.
What we witness in Cuba is the very lack of a creative work ethic. That is the result not of the blockade or of scarcity primarily, but of alienation of labor, which is allowed or continued by the power structure extant. The Cuban citizen-worker, like the rest of us, is not qualitatively the author or his/her life on the job or in the basic politics of his nation. They key difference between the Cuban and the rest of humanity (with rare exceptions) is that he/she lives in a state that purports such an ideology, and thus there is a potential aspiration.
The greatest irony of my life in Cuba is the contradiction between this vision and reality. Here, I have been in the most politicized part of the world, where internationalism is central, and yet here I can not be political. Here, I have been the least political in my life. Just as no Cuban can truly be a political activist, other than as an instrument for implementing orders, that is, soldiers. Nor could I use my skills and love of journalism as an educational tool, a radical instrument to motivate change and growth. Just as no Cuban journalist can. "Journalism" is viewed only as a propaganda mobilizing tool by and for the Communist party leadership.
It may seem presumptuous to many readers that I dare to propose suggestions for saving or improving socialism in Cuba, but I believe that the concept of internationalism, as well as many years of empirical participation allows for such temerity.

1. Free flow of expression and debate must be the basis for all cultural, educational and information entities. In order for workers to be able to make decisions that will be rational and fruitful--what to plant or manufacture where and how, as well as breathing the liberating sensation acquired from self-empowerment--they must have adequate information about the matters at hand, and ideas of various possible approaches. This is where writers and journalists--and philosophers, sociologists, economists  too--could be useful as fellow workers to help our class take decisions that lead to positive results. That means power in the hands of workers; that means free press and speech. If we want to end corruption then liberate the journalist to be an investigator so he/she can ferret out the corrupting sources and expose them, so that other workers can weed out not only the individual corrupters but the structures that permit them to evolve and flourish.
The media should remain closed to the real enemy--there must be no repeat of errors made by the Allende government as with "El Mercurio" or the Sandinistas with "La Prensa", which should have been closed down for being organs of the aggressive enemy--but they must be open to the nation´s workers and to intellectual thought. The openings sporadically permitted should be made permanent and deepened. Cuba is no longer in its early stages under military attack and with an ignorant populace. In such stages, censorship is often necessary, but only as a temporary tactic. It must not become a "revolutionary strategy," which, by definition, is anti-revolutionary.
A debative society is dynamic and healthy.
2. Education must be based on critical evaluation of all historical, political, philosophical ideas and processes. Students should be won over to socialism through thorough examination, taking the child´s individuality, abilities and needs as the starting point.
Even the Minister of Education, Luis Ignacio Goméz, has publically conceded (Juventude Rebelde, March 27, 1994) that many "children are not motivated to study..." To improve the quality of education "bureaucratic links" has to disappear and "educational structures simplified."
This is a positive admission. But to move forward, teacher-student-parent committees must be established with the freedom to examine what is wrong and explore how to fashion a creative educational reality. Checks and balances must become kernel to educational, economic and political institutions. Free flow of expression and debate must be the basis for educational entities too. There have been a few steps, such as the September 18, 1994 essay in Juventud Rebelde by Cintio Vitier. But they are sporadic and too easily curtailed.
3. If the economy is to be mixed today, allowing foreigners to invest capital and become rich, then it must be opened for its own citizens as well, else Cubans become second class citizens in their own land to foreigners with dollars. It is a grotesque twist of events, for example, that Cuban emigrants, until recently viewed as traitors and "worms", are now encouraged to send remittances, to visit and spend dollars, and to invest dollars as well,  while those loyal Cubans who remained--and even followed the party´s admonition to shun their relatives who fled for materialistic or political reasons--are prohibited from profiting in the growing mixed economic sector.

I do not personally advocate this mixed economic direction but if it is to be so, then all must be permitted entrance. It is a dubious value system that is developing. The reality is that most Cubans resent this second class status that keeps most in a materially limited peso condition.
4. The more positive, collectivist strategy of creating semi-cooperative UBPCs should have expanded powers to make decisions of the use of land and sale of productions with inspections and price controls. Steps are being taken in this direction, what with the ability to distribute some goods on the "free market," but decision-making is still too limited, and too many managers do not come from the work force.
5. The UBPC approach should be expanded to non-farm industries as well. Some form of assuring national needs with centralization-decentralization methods of ownership and distribution must be the goal. Worker-management councils oriented to individual factory-field profitability coupled with obligations for meeting national needs could be the answer to stimulating individual initiative and providing for all.
6. Leaders of work centers, unions, the popular power government must come from "the masses." For voters to know who best can guide them, more than a proven record of voluntary work and good community status is necessary. There should be a generalized system of multiple candidates--not multiple parties--who have access to information, now controlled by state administrators, and they must be permitted to have open debate on policies. I am not proposing "bourgeoise democracy" with campaigns based on money, public relations ads, false populist rhetoric, etc., but forms must be shaped to allow the interchange of ideas that can enrich possibilities for solutions that come from the people and can thus be accepted and implemented more realistically.  
Some might say that my attitude towards Cuba´s revolution is ambivalent. I believe that its development can only lead to genuine mixed feelings, the syndrome of visions vs. reality. And are we more "objective" only if emotionally detached?
It is my nature to be pessimistic about our race´s collective mentality and actions.  It is the nature of Cubans to be optimistic. There is, in fact, a parapsychological aspect to their culture. Even Fidel is affectionately seen as El Caballo--an Afro-Cuban animistic reference to his magical powers of a mighty horse, a stawart, perservering power. No doubt that he relishes the imagry.
When Fidel is gone, will the magic disappear?
I think not. There will be no more Fidels, but the spontaneity, the optimism will remain. What I hope will be struggled against is the hedonism, the compulsion to seek immediate gratification to the detriment of the transcendent. This trait, for example, is an element that makes it easy for people to fall into jineterismo, and why others who don´t tolerate such. The same can be said for facilismo, the easy-come, easy-go attitude that the party officially admonishes.

Let me step back from the soapbox to say that I often expect too much of Cuba´s revolution, of Fidel and the Cuban people. I think many of us who have not created our own revolutions tend to do this out of our own frustrating impotency, and out of sincere desire for the best.
We should all have learned by now that socialism cannot truly develop in one state, let alone in one underdeveloped island, and one so close to the empire. What makes us forget this sometimes is that they keep saying they could and did accomplish socialism, and that now there is only a breathing space while they recuperate, preserving socialism´s gains, and then return to socialism. I am dubious that once having solved many economic problems by using capitalist methods that many people will wish to "go back" to socialism. I think they will have to approach it differently, just as we all will need to learn how to build our own socialist (humanist) societies, if we are to survive as a human race.
 	Regardless of whether Cuba ever was socialist, whether it is or even will be, the Cuban government and the people are worth our love and solidarity. They have done no harm to others, and minimal harm to themselves and their dissidents. They have held out against "El enemigo de la humanidad", as the Sandinista anthem accurately characterizes the United States as the enemy of humanity. And in so doing have held out hope and earned respect from hundreds of millions of us, the poorest of the poor in the Third World, in particular, and we First World dreamers and radical activists. As Humberto Solás said, let us not expect them to be the salve´s of our consciousnesses. For the joyous people they are, and for the inspiration they have been to us, we owe them our energies, our resources. Without their independence, we would all be the poorer.
"We thank all those who, living abroad, are really worried and advise us to do something, to make some changes. Yes, we´re going to do some revolutionary things and...changes. We´re going to become even more revolutionary, because we aren´t revolutionary enough."
	SOLIDARITY
The Council of State decreed the Carlos J. Finlay Order to Pastors for Peace fasters: Rev. Lucius Walker, Lisa Valanti, Jim Clifford, Seya Sangari and Brian Rohatyn for their courageous solidarity actions. The presentation took place in the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center, on September 19, 1996, with Fidel Castro present.

Their "fast for life" had begun on February 21 after the 6th Friendshipment caravan was stopped, and the computers donated for the National Network of Medical Information (INFOMED) were sequestered by US authorities.  The INFOMED project seeks to provide every polyclinic and family medical center the possibility of obtaining information needed to treat patients. The doctors could communicate through modums with any Cuban or foreign medical facility.
Just three days after the five decided to begin a fast, after  fruitless demonstrations  at the border, the plane shoot-down incident took place. Rev. Walker spoke about this at the victory ceremony in Havana.
"When the so-called Brothers to the Rescue planes were downed, Helms-Burton passed, and war hysteria gripped the United States, was that a time to retreat and reflect, or was that a time to advance and attack?"
The five continued their fast, later moving to Washington close to the seat of power. Their group had successfully staged a 23-day strike in 1993 to free a little yellow school bus US Customs had seized. They were determined to do the same with the computers. The government was faced with three deaths on their hands and a massive public outcry. On May 17, Richard Newcomb, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, wrote them a letter.
.	"It would be tragic if lives were lost because a group failed to meet the simple requirements of U.S. law," referring to a government offer to let them pass if they asked for a "humanitarian" license, an exception circumventing the Trading with the Enemy Act. The Pastors do not see Cubans as their enemies and refuse to sanction an anti-humanitarian law.
A week later, the protesters ended their fast when the Treasury Department released the computers to the United Methodist Church, which was free to later turn them over to the Pastors. The government quietly let 100 caravanists pass to Cuba  with 435 computers.
 Inspired by the Pastors, Germans, Norwegians and other Europeans collected nearly 1000 donated computers as the fast unfolded. Because of the bravery of the North Americans, the solidarity of the Europeans, and the stupidity of US´s insolence, Cuba´s medical facilities received four times the number of computers originally planned to be donated.
Rev. Walker expressed a thought in his victory speech that reflects how many feel when they see Cuban children.
"If I were to take one image away from these several days, it would have to be the faces and the power of the children of Cuba, the fruits of your Revolution, the hope of your future, the promise of a better future for the world, healthy, self-confident children, intelligent, articulate and capable young people, who know that they are loved, that they are special, and that they have a special responsibility to build a new world."
Walker concluded his remarks:

"We may be near or we may be far, but we are your friends, indeed you´re sisters and brothers. And when you are blockaded, we are blockaded. We pledge you our honor, our lives, our dignity, our resources. We will stand with you in solidarity to the last drop of our energies. There ain´t no mountain high enough, no river wide enough, no valley deep enough, no Helms-Burton strong enough, no Torricelli evil enough, no blockade law strong enough to keep us from standing together and helping Cuba. We create the new man and the new woman, the new society, not only in Cuba but around the world. God bless you."
Fidel Castro followed Rev. Walker to the podium.
"It is so encouraging to hear words like these spoken by US citizens, US pastors...Lucius, I don´t know if many of our nonbelievers are self-critical, but the principles of the Revolution should be like the Bible to us, upon which we have to meditate and think to improve ourselves."
"Thanks to that fast, the computers for use by the medical facilities are now here; thanks to that fast, the Pastors for Peace movement became better known, and its cause, its struggle spread to many more sectors, and it is a movement with a great deal of strength"

Fidel listed where the computers were assigned and in place: 45 to large polyclinics with emergency services; 169 to large municipal pharmacies combining medical care with rapid knowledge of what stocks are available where; 41 to rural hospitals; 20 to municipal information centers, and 160 for INFOMED network.
"When I want to express our feelings, our gratitude and our recognition of what you´ve done and are doing, I say: How has Cuba acted in terms of solidarity? And I remember that our revolutionary people have practiced solidarity on a massive scale, that over 500,000 Cubans have carried out internationalist missions, as teachers, instructors, construction workers, doctors and engineers. Over 15,000 Cuban doctors have carried out internationalist missions in the most remote and difficult areas (in 42 countries).
"I remember that when Nicaragua needed teachers, we asked for volunteers and 30,000 Cuban teachers responded; of the number Nicaragua requested, 2000 were sent to the remotest places, in the midst of the dirty war that was going on there. When one of those teachers was killed, 100,000 more teachers volunteered. I believe that is a measure of our country´s moral potential, of our people´s internationalist potential."

During the five years of special period, Cuba has continued acting for internationalism. Seven thousand foreign students have attended schools free of charge during this time. By 1996, 15,000 children affected by Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster had been treated at medical facilities and recreated at the Young Pioneer´s seaside resort, all free.

Cuba has always offered humanitarian aid to countries attacked by natural catastrophes  and epidemics. I witnessed state supplies being gathered, donations collected, volunteers being sent, in 1988, to Ecuador, hit by a dengue fever epidemic, and to Nicaragua ravaged  the same year by Hurricane Joan. The following year, Cuba donated its epidermic growth factor to burned persons in Bashkiria. In 1990, 40,000 Cubans donated blood for Iranian earthquake victims. Throughout the fascist period in Chile, Cuba took in 10,000 Chileans, as it took hundreds of El Salvadoreans badly wounded in that conflict. The list of such solidarity graciously offered is long.
Now, it´s Cuba´s turn to receive solidarity economic aid, political and moral support. Internationalism lifts all our spirits, releases us from egoistic navel-contemplation, returns to us when we are in need, and Cubans´ spirits are raised by our efforts, helping them to resist.
Over 3000 friendship associations with Cuba exist in scores of countries today.  They arrange educational activities, collect donations, lobby for justice and the end of hegemonism. Entire populations in a few countries still respecting internationalist principles get involved in this solidarity work. Vietnamese children are one sterling example. They collected five million school  items in 1995 and their government transported them to Cuban students.	  
Political struggle for Cuba is also vital, not only for its independence but for all citizens of the world. One fundamental reason why the United States is hardly even questioned by the UN Security Council (until Helm-Burton and a similar law attempting to sanction all commerce with Libya and Irak), is because its worldwide domination ambitions have larger succeeded, for the moment. The collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; smashing the independent governments of Grenada, Panama and Nicaragua; the defeat of national liberation movements in El Salvador and elsewhere, all adds up to a unipolar military power lording over us all. Capitalism has its inter-national contradictions that makes it impossible for the United States to be as economically powerful as it was, but if its hegemonist designs are not halted in Cuba (or wherever) "unipolarism" will overwhelm us all, no matter our income, nationality or skin color.
A victory for the Yankees is a defeat for humanity!
	THE END

	APPENDIX l
	BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bengelsdorf, Carrollee. The Problem of Democracy in Cuba. Oxford University Press, NY, 1994. Betto, Frei. Fidel and Religion.Council of State Publications, Havana, 1987.
Blum, William. The CIA A Forgotten History. Zed, London, 1986.
Bolívar, Natalia Aróstegu. Los Orishas de Cuba. Ediciones Unión, Havana, 1990.
Bonachea Rolando & Valdés, Nelson, ed. Cuba in Revolution. Doubleday, NY, 1972.
Cannon, Terence. Revolutionary Cuba. José Martí Publishers, Havana, 1983.
Carranza, Julio Valdés; Guitiérrez, Luis Urdaneta; Monreal, Pedro González. La Restructuración de la Economia Cubana. Editorial Ciencias Sociales, Havana, 1995.
Castro, Fidel. In The Trench of the Revolution. José Martí Publishers, Havana, 1990. (Plus various speeches published over the years by Editora Política and Council of State.)
Castro, Raul. Interviewed in Granma, Sept. 17, 1994 and 5th Plenum Report, March 23, 1996.
Comité Estatal de Estadisticas publisher of yearly statistics.                                
Constitución de la Republica de Cuba. Editora Política, Havana, 1976 & 1992.
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Dumont René. Cuba Socialism and Development. Grove Press, NY, 1970. Original in French,  Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1964.
Dumont René. Is Cuba Socialist? Grove Press, NY, 1974. Original in French, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1970.
End of the Cuban Connection/Cause l, 1989. José Martí Publishers, Havana, 1989.
Fitzgerald, Frank T. The Cuban Revolution in Crisis. Monthly Review Press, NY, 1994.
Frank, Marc. Cuba Looks to the Year 2000. International Publishers, NY, 1993.
Fürntraat-Kloep, Ernst Fidel. Equidad, Justicia Social y Democracia and World Data. Papy Rossa & Prensa Latina, Köln & Havana, 1996.
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 "              "      Cuba and the Road to Socialism.Nueva Internacional, NY, 1991.
Hinckle, Warren & Turner, William. Deadly Secrets. Thunder´s Mouth Press, NY, 1992.
Huberman, Leo & Sweezy, Paul. Cuba, Anatomy of a Revolution. Monthly Review, NY, 1960.
Karol, K.S. Guerrillas in Power. Hill & Wang, NY, 1970.
Lenin, V.I. Collected Works. Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1966.
Lockwood, Lee. Castro´s Cuba, Cuba´s Fidel. Vintage, NY, 1969.
Luxemburg, Rosa. The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1961.
Machado, Dario. Nuestro Propio Camino (Rectificación). Editora Política, Havana, 1993.
Martí, José. Three Documents. José Martí Publishers, Havana, 1984.
Martin, Lionel. The Early Fidel, Roots of Castro´s Communism.  Lyle Stuart, NJ, 1978.
Marx, Karl, & Engels, Frederick. Collected Works (Communist Manifesto). International Publishers, NY, 1976.
Marx, Karl. Critique of the Gotha Program. International Publishers, NY, 1970.
Mills, Wright C. Listen Yankee. McGraw-Hill, NY, 1960.
Miná, Gianni. Un Encuentro con Fidel. Council of State, Havana, 1987.
Murray, Mary. Cruel & Unusual Punishment. Ocean Press, Melbourne, 1993.
O´Kelly, James J. La Tierra del Mambi. Editorial Ciencias Sociales, Havana, 1990. Originally published in English, Lippincott, Philadelphia 1874.

Ortiz, Fernando. Contrapunteo Cubano del Tabaco y el Azúcar. Editorial Ciencias Sociales, Havana, 1983.
Reed, Gail. Eye of the Storm. Ocean Press, Melbourne, 1992.
Ridenour, Ron. Backfire: The CIA´s Biggest Burn. José Martí Publishers, Havana, 1991.
"                "      Cuba at the Crossroads. Infoservicios, Los Angeles, 1994.
"                "      "The Cuban Ideology." The Communist Review, London, March 1994.
Salazar, Gutiérrez Alberto & Pérez,Víctor. Vision de Cuba. Editora Política, Havana, 1987.
Salomón, Luis Beckford. La Formación del Hombre Nuevo en Cuba. Editorial Ciencias Sociales, Havana, 1986.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Sartre on Cuba. Ballantine, NY, 1961.
Scheer, Robert & Zeitlin, Maurice. Cuba An American Tragedy. Grove, NY, 1963.
Stubbs, Jean. Cuba: The Test of Time. Latin American Bureau, London, 1989.
Szulc, Tad. Fidel: A Critical Portrait. Avon, NY, 1987.
Tablada, Carlos. Che Guevara, Economics and Politics in the Transition to Socialism. Pathfinder, Sydney, 1989.
Thomas, Hugh. The Cuban Revolution. Harper & Row, NY, 1977.

CUBAN MAGAZINES (Havana):
Acuario. Félix Varela Institute.
Business Tips on Cuba. Miramar, Havana.
Caminos. Martin Luther King Memorial Center.
Cuadernos de Nuestra America. Centro de Estudios sobre las Americas.
Temas. Centro de Estudios Martíanos.

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	APPENDIX ll

	WHO´S WHO: POLITBUREAU

NAME				Birth/Ed.	Consejo Estado/Min		Occupation

Alarcón, Ricardo		´37 Dr. Phil					Pres. Nat´l Ass.
Almedia, Juan		´28			yes			General
Balaguer, José								DOR head
Campa, Concepción		´51scientist		yes			Dir. Finlay Inst.
Casas, Julio			military					V-M FAR 
Castro, Fidel			´26 lawyer		yes	yes		Pres.
Castro, Raul			´31			yes	yes		No. 2
Cienfuegos, Osmany					yes	yes		Min Tourism
Cintras, Leopoldo		military					Gen. West. Div.
Colome, Albelardo		military		yes			Gen/Min.MinInterior
Garcia, Maria			´44 econ.					Functionary
Garcia, Yadira		´55						Party sec. Matanzas
Hart, Armando		culture			yes	yes		Min.Culture
Hondal, Alfredo		´42						Functionary
Jordan, Alfredo		´50 prof.		yes			Min. Agriculture
Lage, Carlos			´51Dr. med.		yes	yes		VP/ economy chief
Lazo, Estebén		yes						Party sec. Havana
Lezcano, Jorge								Functionary
Machado, José		Dr. med.		yes			Functionary
Palmero, Candido		´47 worker					Party sec. Hav. Prov.
Prieto, Abel			´50 literature					UNEAC pres.
Rizo, Julian			military					Functionary
Robaina, Roberto		´56			yes			Min. Foreign Affairs
Rodríguez, Carlos		journalist		yes	yes		semi-retired
Rosales, Ulises		military		yes			Chief of Staff
Ross, Pedro						yes			CTC pres.
Torres, Nelson		´49 engineer		yes	yes		Min Sugar

Of the 27 members of the Politbureau, 16 are on the Consejo de Estado and 7 on the Consejo of Ministros (as of end 1996). The Consejo de Estado has 33 members, 10 of whom are on the Consejo of Ministros, which has 27 members. Few members of either the state or minister councils, who are not members of the Polibureau, are well known outside their field. Exceptions are: Dr. Carlos Dotres, Minister of Public Health and member of state council; José Miyar, secretary of the Consejo de Ministros and close to Fidel; and Juan Escalona, on both councils, a general, former Justice Minister and National Assembly president. Those considered to be the most important government leaders, after the Castros, are: Lage, Alarcón and Robaina. Important  party leaders also include: Machado, Rosales, Balaguer, Colome, Cintras, Lazo and Almeida.
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	APPENDIX lll

	DEMOGRAPHICS

Cuba is the largest of the West Indies´ Greater Antilles, an archipelago of 110,922 square kilometers (42,827 square miles). Shaped like the native caiman (crocodile/plow), its 1,250 kilometers length tapers from 190 in the east to 30 kilometers in the west, and lies in the trade wind belt, near the Tropic of Cancer, east of Yucatan Peninsula, north of Jamaica, west of Haiti.
Geopolitical restructuring in 1976 divided Cuba into 14 provinces. The Island of Youth, formerly called the Isle of Pines and known to Robert Louis Stevenson readers as Treasure Island, is a special municipality of Havana. In addition to this largest of islands (372 square kilometers),  there are 1,600 smaller islets and cays and many have sandy beaches.
The nation’s four mountain ranges are relatively low.The highest peak at Turquino in the eastern Sierra Maestra rises to 1,974 meters. Cuchillo de Toa in Guantanamo is the most tropical rain forest and mountains cover 95 percent of the land area. The Escambray range lays in the central region. Sierra de Los Organos and the Sierra del Rosario, in western province of Pinar del Rio, are known for their unique elephant‑shaped knolls called mogotes.
Eight percent of the land is covered with forests, mostly man‑grown. Evergreens are the most numerous. Evergreens and hard woods have been planted by the billions during the revolution. The national tree is the majestic royal palm. There are other varieties of palms, including the coconut, as well as breadfruit, citruses, the splendrous popular and trumpet.
Cuba is home for 8,000 botanical species; 300 bird varieties are native; 1,000 insect species; and only a few wild animals, none dangerously aggressive or poisonous. There are only two types of snakes, neither poisonous, and a few crocodiles in Zapata de Cienaga. Several indigenous animals are extinct or nearly so, such as the jutia, an edible, groundhog‑like rodent, and the manatee, a docile aquatic mammal, which swims in marshy waters.The rare creature has a cow‑shaped nose and droopy eyes, and can weigh a ton.
Cuba’s warm sea waters contain plentiful varieties of edible fish and shellfish. Among the most delectable are: white sea bass, red snapper, marlin, emperor, queen lobsters and shrimp.
The island‑nation enjoys a subtropical humid climate with moderate temperatures most of the year. Summer highs run between 33 and 37 degrees centigrade. Winter lows infrequently drop to between 2 and 6 degrees. The year‑round average temperature is 25 degrees centigrade, but it is usually quite humid. The dry (winter) season is from November to April and the rainy (summer) season is from May to October.
 Few earthquakes of any significance occur, but cyclones and hurricanes plague Cuba and the Caribbean region annually.The worst storm season is September‑October and March‑April, but heavy winds and swelling seas can occur any time of the year. The term hurricane comes from the Taino word juracan. They are cyclones with winds roaring over 118kph.
Taken as a whole, Cuba is a lovely and peaceful pearl: The Pearl of the Antilles.
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	APPENDIX lV

	CUBA: TENACIOUS ROYAL PALM

                     Avenues of Royal Palms sway in the breeze
                        splendrously erect they straighten
                                proud and tall
                              undulating trunk and pendulous fronds,
                                 dancing like the Guantanamera belle,
                                          immortalized in her song:
                     "Yo soy un hombre sincero de donde crece la palma"
                                     (I am a sincere man from where the palm grows)
                     Royal palm faithfully rooted in fertile soil like its native sons,
                     resolute as the implacable crew of the freighter Hermann
                                        unflinching before hostile thunder,
                     whilst their noble Royal Palm
                        shields the sovereignty in the national coat of arms.
                     Chango god of fire, lightning and thunder
                        dines on chickens and pigs fattened on the palmiche berries
                           cures illness with palm roots
 	                              has his women sweep dirt with its florescence
                                 wraps cigars with its yagua bark
                                     builds house sidings and roofs with its palmitos and fronds.
   Majestic Royal Palm
                  rendezvous for the ebony warrior
                  his svelte copper Ochun
                        elegant trio they:
                     Chango awesome fire-eater, ardent lover
                          Ochun goddess of rivers, deity of sensual love.
                     Royal Palm gallery for godly escapades
                             umbrella rod before hostile rains and lightning
                     protector of farm lands
                        shelter for aborigini, mambi, campesino
                                       refuge for the tocororo,
                                  wearing Cuba´s sovereign colors
                                                  obstinate national bird who chooses to die rather than be caged.

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Havana
December 1991
Dedicated to the Hermann crew who sailed onward to their destiny with bullet holes in their hull, risking death rather than be caged.

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