CUBA: Summer Heat Boils Over with Tension, Crisis and Violence

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

Havana, Aug 9 1997 (IPS) - Terrorist attacks, growing tensions with the United States and worsening economic indicators have raised the already hot temperature in Cuba this summer.

The certainty that, whatever happens, hard times are on the horizon is floating in the air, with people openly voicing their concern and skepticism.

“Once summer is over, we’ll experience widespread electrical shortages”, a department store employee said.

August is one of the hottest months in Cuba. Ever since 1994 when a massive flotilla of emigrants – the “balseros”- set sail from Cuban shores, summer has been viewed as a hotbed of social unrest.

The 1994 exodus of 30,000 Cubans following widespread protests on Aug 5, marked the first anti-government disturbances since president Fidel Castro took power 35 years earlier.

In recent days, the temperature has exceeded 40 degrees centigrade, not even the slightest breeze stirs and the sun beats down like never before. The resilience of Cubans is sorely tested and the slightest setback makes tempers flare.

Local observers say that those who planted three bombs in downtown Havana hotels recently shrewdly chose the hottest part of summer for their attacks.

Two bombs went off on July 12, one at the Hotel Capri and the other at Cuba’s National Hotel. Last Monday, another bomb exploded at the Melia Cohiba Hotel resulting in three minor injuries and slight property damage.

Although there is talk that similar events transpired in April, they have never been confirmed by the press nor other government agencies.

The desired outcome of such small scale attacks would be “to diminish tourism, to create an impression of growing internal resistance and to stir disquiet in the populace,” he said.

The Cuban government says it has proof that the material used in the bombs was made in the United States, and that the attacks are linked to Cuban exile groups based in Miami.

Since early in the year, Havana has accused the United States of biological aggression, of conspiring to harden the economic blockade, and of refusing to guarantee the safety of Cuban athletes traveling in the U.S.

President Bill Clinton has launched a plan to promote democracy in Cuba, and has asked European and Latin American countries to increase diplomatic and political pressure aimed at provoking far-reaching change in the Cuban government.

Raul Castro, minister of the Armed Forces and second secretary of the ruling Communist Party, announced on July 26th that a high- ranking U.S. official had promoted internal subversion during a recent visit to the island.

Whatever the source of recent attacks on Cuban security, few Cubans believe that terrorism is a suitable means for expressing political opposition.

According to polls, the overwhelming majority of Cubans say terrorism will only result in a weakened economy, which will oblige rank and file citizens to bear the brunt of consequences.

Reloj Radio, a government station that broadcasts throughout the island, recently announced that this year’s gross national product would grow less than expected.

Cuban officials had hoped its economy would grow by five percent in 1997 until a fall in sugar production lowered estimates to four percent, but even this four per cent number may be too optimistic, local experts say.

Government authorities and experts coincide in their belief that although recent growth rates have exceeded Latin American averages, there has not yet been any improvement in Cuban living conditions since recent growth has come on the heels of poor performance.

Over the past three years the Cuban economy has grown by 0.7 percent, 2.5 percent and 7.8 percent.

However, in 1993 Cuba’s gross national product was 38.4 percent lower than in 1989, the last year of economic expansion prior to the 1990 crisis that depressed all economic sectors, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

With a poor sugar crop at sight this year, Cuba has placed its hopes for economic expansion on tourism and nickel, two areas of production that enjoy strong foreign investment and that have been growing even more rapidly than before the economic crisis of 1990.

However, as Cubans say, “you can’t live on numbers”.

Estimates from the Center for Cuban Economic Studies indicate that the national economy will have to grow at a sustained annual rate of 10 percent before the Cuban populace feels any improvement.

With an average per capita salary of 100 pesos per month, Cubans are increasingly resorting to small-scale informal occupations as the only way to obtain sufficient income to satisfy their most elemental needs.

The dollar is currently worth 23 Cuban pesos at exchange houses, and it is necessary to possess dollars in order to obtain certain products such as detergent and cooking oil.

The Cuban government guarantees citizens certain basic foodstuffs at greatly subsidized prices, although the extent of these subsidies has been significantly reduced. Cubans also enjoy free health and educational services.

Experts believe that “nothing will change” in Cuba while there is a balance between the consequences of the economic crisis and the debt that many Cubans feel they owe to the government as a result of long-standing social policies.

Isabel Jaramillo, a researcher at Cuba’s American Studies Center, says Cuba’s safety and integrity for the remainder of the decade depend “chiefly on economic viability and internal consensus” both of which are indispensable if Cuba is to continue the development course charted by the government of Fidel Castro.