CUBA: Government Celebrates National Day with Optimism

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jul 26 1995 (IPS) - With temperatures as high as last summer’s, but with a less tense atmosphere overall, Cuba celebrated the Day of National Rebellion on Wednesday amidst government optimism that the worst of the hard-hitting economic crisis is over.

August 1994 went down in history as “a very hot summer,” when more than 30,000 Cubans took to the sea in precarious rafts in an attempt to reach the United States, but ended up housed in the U.S. Guantanamo Naval Base, 971 kilometres from Havana.

Although Cuba has not overcome the economic crisis that has plagued it since the disappearance of the socialist bloc in the late 1980s, a year after the exodus government officials are able to point to signs of a timid economic recovery.

‘Radio Reloj’, a government news station, said on Wednesday morning that the source of optimism lies in the fact that “solutions to today’s problems” can finally be seen.

July 26 was declared a national holiday to commemorate the 1953 attack on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes barracks, led by Fidel Castro himself.

The operations are considered to be the beginning of the armed uprising against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, which culminated in the 1959 triumph of the Revolution.

That year, carnival began to be held in July, and the occasion began to be used to make an annual summary of the state of the country’s economic and political situation.

Official sources and experts coincide this year that the government has successfully overcome the worst moments of the five- year economic crisis.

Alfonso Casanova, Deputy Minister of Economy and Planning, said late last year that the country had entered “the end of the depressive phase of the economy.”

According to official figures, Cuba ended 1994 with a modest 0.7 percent economic growth rate, while analysts predict a 2 percent rate for 1995.

A report by the National Office of Statistics revealed this month that the country’s Gross Domestic Product had dropped 34.3 percent over the last five years.

Government officials attribute the slight recovery to the first results of reform measures which have opened the country to foreign investment and restructured the financial system, the business sector and the labour market.

In less than two years, Cubans saw possession of the dollar legalised, the opening of a long list of professions to self- employment, the raising of prices and a number of public service rates, the gradual appearance of taxes and the first signs of job insecurity.

In June, a document by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean recognised that the economic policies put into effect by the Cuban government “have begun to give fruit,” but at “a great social cost.”

According to a survey carried out by the Centre on Socio- Political and Opinion Studies, affiliated with the Central Committee of the governing Communist Party, a majority of the island nation’s inhabitants consider the cost of living to be very high.

However, a Gallup poll indicated that Cubans are in favour of maintaining the main social benefits that they have gained over the last few decades.

“I have never worked so hard in my entire life. But my children are still in school, the doctor is nearby for anything I need, and food products are no longer so hard to come by,” said Rosa Duarte, a working mother.

According to Victoria Velazquez, a high-level member of the Union of Communist Youth, Cuban authorities have created the conditions that allow incidents such as last summer’s to be avoided this year.

“The exodus must not be repeated. People are beginning to see a way out of the crisis, and the latest immigration accords between Cuba and the United States have put an end to illegal departures,” said a professor with the University of Havana.