/IPS DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN/ CUBA: Communist Party Congress Announced in Times of Tension

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Apr 19 1997 (IPS) - The Cuban Communist Party will hold its fifth congress in the near future, with the ghost of economic crisis still not laid in its grave and amidst rising tension with the United States.

The official convocation will be made public this Wednesday during the ceremony to celebrate the 36th anniversary of the proclamation of the Socialist nature of the Cuban revolution, said official Communist Party daily “Granma” Tuesday.

This declaration made by Castro in April 1961, provoked a strong reaction from the United States, which sent a force of 1,500 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trained Cuban exiles to invade the country, although they were repelled in the Bay of Pigs.

A congress has been expected since 1996, which marked the fifth anniversary of the previous meeting, held in Santiago de Cuba, 967 km outside Havana.

The fourth congress, held at the beginning of the worst economic crisis suffered by the Fidel Castro government, granted extraordinary powers to the 225 member Central Committee, in order to help them face up to the situation in a lexible manner.

Preceded by a broad process of social debate, the forum introduced greater flexibility in the party programme and although it maintained the single party principle, it broadened the social base of the organisation and proposed a series of constitutional modifications.

The most relevant transformations including the acceptance of religious believers in the Communist Party and the legal backing for the future opening of the country to foreign capital.

“This is another country,” Milene Perez, a 34 year-old electronic engineer, told IPS, as she waited for a bus to go to work. But Jorge Gutierrez, a 38 year-old computer technician, said “how ever many changes they make it is essentially all still the same.”

In the close to six years since the last Communist Party congress, the Cuban people have lived through the effects of a crisis which caused a 34.3 percent fall in the Gross Domestic Product.

The economic reforms, seen as crushing by some and too cautious by others, included the legalisation of the dollar, the beginning of self-employment and the introduction of a plan to improve internal finances.

The Cuban authorities promoted changes in property, the financial and banking systems, employment conditions and the business structure, opening the nation up to foreign investment.

“There is no doubt an internal recovery dynamic has been developed,” said vicepresident Carlos Lage, the main guiding force for the economic policy, although he admitted the economic situation of the country was still difficult.

The Cuban economy grew 7.8 percent in 1996 and, according to official forecasts, it should grow by a further five percent by the end of this year, due to the recovery of the main economic sectors.

However, official sources recognised the advances made were still not enough to free the economy of the effects of the US blockade, and its new manifestation, the Helms-Burton Law.

The tension increased early this year, when US President Bill Clinton, publically revealed a document to support the democratic transition in Cuba, which basically aims to substitute the Castro regime.

Local observers are agerly awaiting Cuba’s reaction to the agreement between the European Union and the US this week, where the latter is trying to persuade the former to repeal a complaint against the Helms-Burton Law made before the World Trade Organisation.

The conflict arose over the clauses in the Law allowing US courts to process foreign companies “trafficking” in the confiscated property of US citizens on the island.

“As always, the increasing tension between Cuba and the United States has only strengthened the official ideology on an internal plane,” said one university professor, commenting on the official patriotic reaffirmation campaign has which has coincided with the announcement of the fifth Communist Party congress.