CUBA CLAMPS DOWN ON CAPITALISM WITH RETURN TO SOVIET ERA IDEAS

by Peter Fritsch

SANTA CLARA, Cuba -- From colossal weekly protest marches to marathon TV sessions vilifying imperialist oppressors, signs abound of Fidel Castro's hearty return to the Cold War's sloganeering. Gone are the signs for everything from beaches to beer that had cropped up in the 1990s during the cash-strapped communist island's grudging flirtation with capitalism.

"Driving here from Havana, you used to see billboards promoting many different products," says Arturo Gonzalez, archbishop of this central-Cuban city. "Now, those same billboards say 'Socialism or Death.' The hard line is as hard as it's been in years."

Cuba's aging leadership has cultivated a renaissance of the mass protests, bombastic rhetoric and incendiary diplomacy that characterized the island for as long as it stood behind its big brother, the Soviet Union. With the collapse of the Iron Curtain, that defiant stance softened, and Cuba opened itself gingerly to dollars and even to the pope.

But with the worst of the "Special Period" -- an official euphemism for the economic depression that followed the collapse of Soviet subsidies -- behind it, and international pressure about human rights increasing, Cuba is flexing its ideological muscle in a way it hasn't for a decade. "It's really gotten out of hand, and the people are getting tired of it," says a former high-ranking Cuban official.

Take the rallies that began last year as part of Cuba's effort to win the return of the castaway boy Elian Gonzalez. Beginning in a modernistic, open-air structure locals call the protestodromo, the rallies continue every Saturday morning. The familiar theme, repeated with brio: the Revolution's ability to outlive the 74-year-old leader.

Sitting one recent afternoon in her two-room, tumbledown apartment in central Santa Clara, an elderly woman bristles as the television whirring in the background begins broadcasting the "Mesa Redonda," or roundtable. The two-hour show, broadcast each evening, features state journalists and communist nomenklatura serving up the party line on a host of issues.

"Turn that damn thing off," she says.

Pascal Fletcher, a veteran and widely respected British journalist in Cuba, recently became the subject of a roundtable in which his official detractors called him an enemy of the Revolution "disguised as a reporter." The news report that broke the camel's back was a routine account of the near-riot caused when people from the Spanish Embassy went through the streets of Havana tossing candy to children. Mr. Fletcher has relocated to Caracas, Venezuela.

Other foreigners have also felt the clampdown. Mr. Castro recently blasted Argentina for "licking Yankee boots" when he learned that the South American giant was considering sponsorship of a coming United Nations resolution condemning human-rights abuses in Cuba.

Monsignor Gonzalez figures the resurgence of the hard line owes to the divisive effect of Cuba's 1993 decision to allow the circulation of dollars. That fostered an elite class of those with access to greenbacks and the resentment of those without. "It's a desire to turn back that tide of individualism," he says. Colleagues at the archdiocese point to the lack of vacancies at a nearby state re-education camp for young girls drawn to prostitution in pursuit of tourist dollars.

In such an environment, those in the U.S. chomping at the bit for a chance to sell their wares to Cuba aren't likely to make much progress, though they are eager to keep a foot in the door. "Companies are focusing not necessarily on today or what people say, but what they do -- and often there is a great divide between the two," says John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a New York-based business group.

Cuban officials say they won't buy a grain of U.S. rice or an aspirin until all U.S. sanctions are lifted unconditionally.

For that matter, Cuba's international payment problems suggest it isn't the most reliable credit risk. France, Italy and South Africa have all recently shut down credit programs for the purchase of everything from wheat to engine parts based on Cuban payment defaults. Chile is owed some $20 million for fish exports. With Mexico, Cuba is in arrears on about $400 million of commercial credits. Cuba's foreign debt is estimated at $11 billion, excluding its Soviet debt.

Cuba's cash shortfall is partly attributable to its struggling tourism and sugar industries. Though tourism revenues were an estimated $1.8 billion last year, the industry did little better than break even, industry watchers say.

With the present looking so bleak, analysts say, little wonder that officials are turning up the volume on the rich rhetoric of the past. Billboards in Havana trumpeted this month's 40th anniversary of Mr. Castro's defeat of U.S.-backed invaders at Giron Beach, on the Bay of Pigs, as foes reunited at the scene of the Cold War's most famous tropical theater.

While billed as a dispassionate review of historical events, complete with Mr. Castro's first release of secret documents, most of those papers appeared to be aimed at illustrating the young revolution's military prowess and debunking the conventional wisdom that the invasion at Giron Beach failed because of a lack of U.S. air support.

"In the battle of ideas," Mr. Castro said last month, "we dare to predict that the only thing waiting for the imperialists is another gigantic Giron."

Write to Peter Fritsch

Este régimen geriátrico se endurece porque no tiene otra salida. Ya tiene hartos a casi todo el pueblo y sospecho que aun a sus cachanchanes.Comienza un proceso difícil. Definir lo que lo seguirá. Socialismo de otra forma o libertad. El socialismo no tiene futuro pero va a dar que hacer pues las mentes están muy confusas. Por eso es que reclamo corte definitivo con el andamiaje legal de Castro.

END

Peter Fritsch
Staff Reporter

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 12, 2001

Logo

Organización Auténtica