Slow pace of reform troubles Cubans

Slow pace of reform troubles Cubans
By Craig Mauro, Al Jazeera's Buenos Aires producer, in Havana

July 26 marks one of the most important dates on the Cuban revolutionary
calendar [EPA]

It is an uncanny thing when you are in Cuba. With no cameras around,
most Cubans on the street will speak freely about their frustrations and
complaints after more than 50 years of socialist revolution. If the
camera goes on, however, almost everyone demurs.

Rolando Crespo, however, does not. He is an archaeologist who works for
the state restoration office. Crespo is married to a doctoral student in
biology, and the two of them have been trying to build their own house
for ten years.

Crespo spoke freely to Al Jazeera, in the middle of the street with our
cameras rolling.

"I hope that our president is truly sensible and intelligent enough to
realise that we need change inside Cuba," he said.

"I ask the president with all of my heart that he think about this and
that please, that he realise we are in a desperate situation."

Growing frustrations

We met Crespo in a store filled with books about Fidel Castro and
posters glorifying Cuba's socialist revolution.

Crespo is proud of Cuban socialism and its accomplishments, but that
does not mean he is not frustrated with the slow pace of reform.

While it is impossible to know for sure, it is likely that many or even
most Cubans in Cuba feel the same way.

Raul Castro, the Cuban president, on a trip last week to three African
countries, summed it up like this: in Cuba "we have an excess of needs,
and an excess of problems".

As an economic slump deepens on this island nation of 11 million people,
the frustrations are growing.

It is in this climate that Raul Castro officiates the 56th anniversary
of the July 26 celebrations marking one of the most important dates on
the Cuban revolutionary calendar.

Last year was Raul Castro's first July 26 as president. There were big
expectations then that he would announce some kind of major economic or
policy changes.

Instead, he warned Cubans of tough times ahead and urged everyone to
buckle down.

This year there are little expectations for any kind of big announcement.

Socialist strides

The July 26 celebrations mark the day Fidel Castro and his brother Raul
led a small band of rebels in a raid on a military barracks in Santiago
de Cuba, the island's second-largest city.

Raul Castro will be celebrating his second July 26 as president [EPA]
The attack failed - Fidel and Raul were arrested - but it is now
commemorated as the day the Cuban revolution began.

Once out of prison the Castro brothers regrouped in Mexico with their
cohorts, including Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Three years later they sailed
back to Cuba in a yacht called the Granma and by January 1959 they had
overthrown the dictator Fulgencio Batista.

The Cuba that Fidel Castro took over in 1959 was a grossly unequal
place, arguably in a near feudal state.

A small group of land-holding elite controlled most of the wealth.
Illiteracy ran high, especially in rural areas, and health indicators
were awful.

Correcting all of this via a socialist economic model was Fidel Castro's
goal.

In the ensuing decades, Castro's governments did make huge strides.

Cuba's literacy rates are among the highest in the world. Some health
indicators surpass those in developed countries. And Cuba today is a
much more egalitarian place than it ever was.

As significantly, Castro succeeded in consolidating what was already a
strong strain of Cuban nationalism, dating back to the country's
independence struggle from Spain and US occupation at the beginning of
the 20th century.

The fact that a small nation like Cuba was able to defy ten presidents
of the huge US superpower, with the world's strongest military just 90
miles (kilometers) away from its shores, helped to make Fidel Castro and
Che Guevara folk heroes throughout Latin America and much of the rest of
the world.

Fighting through adversity

However, the problems today are not few. Cuba's economy strains under
the burden of heavy centralisation. The average monthly salary is $20-30
and 80 per cent of the island's food is imported.

If it were not for the generosity of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan
president, with cheap oil and donated cash, it is not clear if Cuba's
economy would survive.

And economics aside, many political freedoms remain elusive. Most Cubans
cannot get permission to leave the island.

Since Fidel Castro fell ill in July 2006, people inside and outside Cuba
have been waiting for some kind of change, while the regime's enemies
anxiously await its collapse.

Last year, after officially taking over the presidency, Raul Castro
introduced some liberalisation measures.

Cubans are now free to buy imported TVs, computers and mobile phones and
they can stay in hotels - something that was prohibited before.

But the economy is now reeling from a double-punch delivered last year -
the effects of the broader world economic slowdown and a series of
hurricanes that devastated parts of the island.

The government has had to slash its economic forecasts, accounting for
severe contractions in imports and exports.

Cubans like Rolando Crespo say much more reform is now needed to fight
through such adversity.

"I hope that for example those of us who don't get remittance from
abroad, we should be able to open small businesses," he said.

"That is not going to hurt. It can only help. It will be good for the
economy."

Al Jazeera English - Focus - Slow pace of reform troubles Cubans (26
July 2009)
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/07/200972683933718162.html