CUBA DISPATCH
To Have and Have Not in Havana
A socialist utopia has wealth and poverty--but no freedom.
HAVANA--It's been 43 years since the glorious revolution swept out "neo-colonialism" and installed a people's republic. To see how things are going in Castro-land today, there is no better place to visit than the Museum of the Revolution, located in the ornate presidential palace once occupied by Fulgencio Batista. Wandering through the galleries these days--past exhibits commemorating the achievements of Fidel, Che & Co. in resisting Yanqui oppression--are hordes of . . . Yanquis.
One afternoon last week the galleries were crowded with middle-aged suburbanites from places like Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and Greenwich, Conn., sporting fanny packs, Dockers and sensible shoes. Judging by the name tags around their necks, they had come under the auspices of the Museum of American Folk Art--a legal way to circumvent the U.S.-imposed travel ban, which allows Americans to visit here only for cultural, historical or journalistic purposes.
No doubt they much enjoyed their visit and even bought some tchotchkes in the gift shop--everything from shot glasses to T-shirts emblazoned with revolutionary icons, all available for dollars. The experience was marred only by a midafternoon blackout, not an unusual occurrence in this country whose economy is so backward that its people are often left, quite literally, in the dark.
Prior to 1989, Cuba was kept afloat by massive subsidies from its comrades in the Soviet Union. When Russian communism collapsed, so did the Cuban economy. Not willing to abandon socialism, Castro decided instead to promote tourism and legalize the dollar. This has worked, sort of. More than 400 joint ventures have been set up between the Cuban government and foreign companies, many of them luxury hotels catering to the 1.8 million tourists who visited last year. For Cubans with access to dollars, life is tolerable; for those without--the vast majority in a country where the average salary is 250 pesos ($10) a month--it's not.
Carlos is one of the haves. An agent for foreign, mainly Spanish, companies, he is a rotund man who favors Lacoste polo shirts, shorts and unlaced sneakers. He lives, protected by a Cyclone fence and snarling Doberman pinschers, in a spacious compound stocked with the latest kitchen appliances and a giant screen TV. Out back, by the pool, he entertained a group of visitors sponsored by the American Journalism Foundation with an all-you-can-eat-and-then-some lunch of sausages, pork chops and great heaping bowls of lobster tails. Cigars afterward, and keep the box, amigos. Joining us was a Cuban Olympic champion who arrived in a Mercedes--this in a land where the average car is a 1950s Detroit clunker, and ordinary people aren't allowed to buy new automobiles.
Mike and Alejandro are have-nots. Scrawny young men in their early 20s, they know a little English and like many Cubans spend their days hanging around tourist areas hoping to earn a few dollars. Their eagerness for hard currency is easy to explain. Alejandro lives with five relatives in a tiny walk-up flat with only two beds. His family's Russian-made refrigerator contains little, save some frozen chicken feet. Their food comes from a miserable little bodega where they present a ration card good for a few staples like rice, though delicacies like eggs and meat and fresh milk are seldom available. A few miles away is a supermarket where you can purchase anything you want, as long as you have dollars--which Mike and Alejandro don't have, since like most Cubans they get paid by the government in pesos.
This privation creates an understandable restlessness among the population. In late February a rumor spread that the Mexican embassy would provide visas to all comers. Before long a group of Cubans had rammed a hijacked bus through the embassy gates and hundreds of their countrymen converged in their desperation to escape. The Castro regime responds ruthlessly to such challenges. Plainclothes goons with metal bars beat up the asylum seekers--and a couple of Reuters correspondents for good measure.
Despite such routine repression, Cuba's dissident community appears to be growing. Unofficial libraries are sprouting in private homes, and a petition with more than 10,000 signatures has circulated, calling for a plebiscite on free speech and free elections. Though such a referendum is expressly authorized by the 1976 constitution (Article 88.g), Castro is about as likely to accede to the petitioners' demands as he is to let Elian Gonzalez go back to Florida.
Cuban officials denounce all dissidents as American stooges and blame all their economic troubles on Washington's embargo. These charges are manifestly silly and give rise to suspicions that, notwithstanding his protestations to the contrary, Castro isn't all that eager to see the U.S. embargo lifted. (There was a small pullback last year, allowing Cuba to purchase food and medicine from American companies on a cash-and-carry basis.)
There is no question, however, that Castro would dearly love to see the U.S. travel ban lifted, which would vastly increase the number of tourists coming here. It would make sense for Washington to accommodate its longtime nemesis on this score, for American tourists bring not only dollars with them but also subversive ideas like freedom. The presence of foreigners has already created more breathing space for leading dissidents like Elizardo Sanchez and Oswaldo Paya, who are able to meet openly with visiting journalists.
There seems little chance that the embargo will be lifted entirely until Cuba's human-rights situation improves considerably, and there seems little chance this will happen as long as Fidel is in power. Which means as long as he remains alive U.S.-Cuba relations are likely to be frozen in a Cold War time warp. But afterward, who knows? Fidel is 75 and said to be in failing health. Vicki Huddleston, head of the U.S. interests section here, predicts that "this whole system will be gone after Castro dies." That may be too optimistic, given that, unlike in Eastern Europe, communism here was not imposed by the Red Army and has survived the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.
Questions of "succession" are much on the mind of the regime, which lately has been promoting young technocrats into positions of authority. There is much speculation that a possible successor to Castro may be a former ambassador to the United Nations named Ricardo Alarcon, who is now president of the National Assembly. Smooth, sarcastic and fluent in English, Mr. Alarcon is used to dealing with American journalists and had a ready response for every hardball and zinger thrown his way. All except one. What future is there for socialism following the collapse of the Soviet bloc? I asked him.
At first, waving an unlit cigar to emphasize his points, he veered into predictable criticisms of "neo-liberalism," the fashionable Latin American term for free-market economics. But then he conceded that "the kind of socialism represented by the Soviet Union" didn't work so well either. "We need something different, something that will not be capitalism as it is, or socialism as it was in certain countries." And what might be this Third Way? Mr. Alarcon, reputed to be the regime's top intellectual, didn't have a clue.
Mr. Boot, the Journal's editorial features editor, is author of "The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power," due out in May from Basic Books.
