The electronic communication age has forced more honesty on government propaganda in Cuba. The big lie works only if people hear nothing else. Cuban government technicians may jam Radio Martí from Miami, but they can't block out the whole AM and FM dial. Commercial Florida stations broadcast in Spanish and English without interference, and even Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy come through loud and clear on the northern Cuban coast.
A surprising number of Cubans can watch either CNN or the Spanish-language equivalent. Hundreds of small dish antennas, about three feet in diameter, decorate the roofs of houses and apartments located within a few blocks of the tourist hotels. Manufactured by backroom technicians and sold for around $100, the antennas catch and amplify the electromagnetic radiation that leaks from hotel satellite dishes and their connecting cables. Anyone who buys one gets to watch the same international channels the tourists watch in their hotel rooms.
So the Cuban government can't deny what has happened to socialist countries around the world. Cuban news commentators instead paint a dire picture of the political, economic, and social problems of the ex-socialist countries.
While some foreign observers of the Cuban scene were predicting a year ago that Castro would soon be on his way out, we saw no evidence that it is about to happen. Hungry, desperate people who are struggling to survive don't make revolutions. Rather than plotting to change the government, the people we met were spending their energy trying to solve immediate personal and family problems. Besides, the communists have so totally failed to fulfill their promises that the Cuban people have lost all faith in any kind of government and in revolution as well.
Nor will the U.S. embargo change this picture. The State Department takes the position that the American embargo must be enforced until basic human rights are restored in Cuba, there are free elections, and Cuba compensates U.S. citizens for the properties seized more than 30 years ago. The assumption of the policy is that somehow the embargo will force those things to happen. Yet there's little reason to believe the embargo has ever had or is likely to have any significant impact on the internal politics of Cuba, other than by providing a scapegoat to blame for the country's economic misery.
Ending the embargo would have little immediate impact on the Cuban economy. Since the United States is the only country in the world that refuses to sell products to Cuba or that forbids its citizens to travel to or invest in Cuba, there is nothing that Castro can't buy in the international market, provided he has the foreign exchange to pay for it. U.S. trade and tourism might accelerate the government's accumulation of foreign exchange, but it would also put more dollars in private hands, as the tourist trade is already doing. That might be the most seditious development we could encourage in Cuba. People spending their own money for things they want don't make good socialists.
Just about every Cuban we talked to wanted to know why the United States insists on continuing the embargo and what the Americans hope to gain. They were more puzzled than angry. No one we met was prepared to risk his or her life trying to achieve reform and free elections so the Americans will end the embargo. And it seems that the U.S. demand for free elections is inconsistent with the demand that Cuba compensate the owners of expropriated properties. The Cubans we talked with would not vote for politicians who would divert scarce foreign exchange to pay off debts for something that happened before most Cubans were born.
"We are not going to allow a bunch of Cuban expatriate millionaires in Miami to tell us how to run our country," Pedro Infante told us. "How dare they threaten foreign investors with the future confiscation of their investments. If they think they can come back to Cuba after all these years and take over again, they are crazy." The Cubans we met who had relatives living in the United States were less inclined to criticize "millionaire Cuban expatriates," but they were no more willing than Pedro to follow political guidance from the Cuban-American expatriate community, especially if such guidance put their lives at risk.
While a lot of Cubans, probably the great majority, don't like the government, it seemed to us that a viable opposition is not likely to develop, even if things get worse than they already are. Nevertheless, frustration is so widespread that things could suddenly explode in a spontaneous outburst of frustration and anger such as the unrest in the Philippines when Marcos fell, in Tiananmen Square in China, or in Romania. Castro must recognize that danger. His recent reluctance to appear in public and the decision to cancel this year's May Day celebration suggest he fears that any crowd of people in Cuba could suddenly go on a wild, anti-government rampage like the one that brought down Ceausescu.
Castro isn't just keeping a low profile; he's almost invisible. Listening to Cuban radio stations or watching a Cuban television channel every chance we got, we never heard his voice or saw a video clip or photo of him. To our surprise, there were no pictures of Fidel in the classrooms of the school we visited. We saw only one picture of Fidel in the hundreds of homes, shops, and offices we walked by in our strolls through the streets. One sees more pictures of the independence hero, José Martí, than of Castro. Several different sources confirmed this was not how it used to be. One source suggested that the pictures of Castro had been discreetly removed because so many of them were being defaced.
Castro's public absence produces a continuing rash of rumors that he is either sick, injured, or no longer around. On the day we left, we heard a rumor from two different sources that Fidel had suffered a stroke a few days previously. In fact, he was not only well, he personally hosted a reception for a group of Cuban exiles who had been invited back to Cuba for a conference on immigration.
Come Back to Cuba
As tourists, we could go just about any place we wanted, take pictures of anything we saw except military personnel, and talk to anyone who would talk to us. In Cuba, the tourist can do no wrong. More than 600,000 tourists visited Cuba last year, and tourism may already be bringing in more foreign exchange than the sugar industry. Cuba is attracting customers by making sure the tourist gets first claim on every commodity and service. While meat is a rarity for the average Cuban, tourists get all they can eat. Telephone calls from hotels get priority, so it's surprisingly easy for a tourist to call overseas.
The only kind of money tourists can use in Cuba is the U.S. dollar. Travelers from the rest of the world must exchange their own currencies for dollars to buy things in hotel shops, fancy bars, nightclubs, and restaurants, or to rent a car or hire a taxi. This is a case in which the good money chases out the bad. While the Cuban peso is still exchanged at an official rate of one to one, the black-market rate was running at 100 to one the week we were in Cuba. Since Cubans are now allowed to legally own and use dollars, any Cuban selling any good or service to a tourist demands payment in dollars. Cubans can use dollars to buy scarce items on the black market and in government stores ordinarily reserved for tourists or VIPs.
Everyone wants a job in the tourist industry, where you can earn tips in dollars. College graduates wait tables, mix drinks, and clean rooms. English professors and high-school teachers serve as desk clerks and tour guides. A year ago, Carlos Encinas, a graduate of the University of Havana with a degree in chemistry, was working in a government biochemical laboratory that raised sterile (disease-free) rats for sale to research facilities in other countries. Now he works in the kitchen of a resort hotel as a cook's helper. While that entry-level job doesn't give him much chance to earn tips, it puts him inside the hotel compound with some direct access to tourists and a chance to move into a job that will give him more opportunity for tips.
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