CUBA: ‘Fiestas’ Give Revolution New Life

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Sep 30 1996 (IPS) - Cuba’s Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs) have developed new ways of getting people to come to the aid of the ruling Communist Party: street dances.

Facing criticims for being meaningless relics of the days when revolutionary commitment was a passion, the staging of street parties is part of an attempt by CDRs to restore their place at the centre of Cuban life.

Created in 1960, these grassroots bodies were designed to prevent sabotage or other actions by opponents of the government of Fidel Castro. The raison d’etre which the CDRs had in the early years of the revolution has been altered somewhat in recent years.

Now they play a key role in immunisation campaigns, blood collection drives and major community efforts. Many have also evolved into neighbourhood crime watch units and organisers of community “fiestas”.

“Two or three years ago this was kind of dead, and look at it now,” says 58-year-old Laudelina Gomez, a secretary in a state- run company. Interviewed in Pogolotti, known as one of Havana’s tougher neighbourhoods, she sits with four men are playing dominos on a street corner. Several people peel potatos, plantains and corncobs for supper. Children dance.

Over the past few months Pogolotti has been feeling the effects of the changes in the CDRs.

Gomez is happy because the phenomenon reminds her of the days of her youth. But Yamilet Valdes, a resident of the douwntown Vedado neighbourhood, says “that hasn’t reached here yet” referring to CDR-organised community parties.

Rather than the night-long shifts by local residents staked out on every block in Cuba’s cities and towns, many committees focus today on crime prevention.

“Watchfulness is good because nobody wants to be robbed. What I don’t like is people meddling in my life,” said a 23-year-old engineer who goes to the meetings of her local CDR “to make a good impression,” and keep others from “making my life intolerable.”

Considered by Cuban opposition groups among the country’s main repressive bodies, the CDRs keep records on every resident. They are used as a source of information by State security organisations.

“When it comes to the capture of a thief or murderer, everyone understands. But opinions change when the question is the whereabouts of a dissident,” said Eulalio Rodriguez, a Havana resident.

In a 1994 poll by the Centre on Sociopolitical Studies and Opinion of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, 57 percent of the 2,886 people surveyed defined the work of the CDRs as mediocre or bad, and 38 percent as good or very good.

A majority agreed that the CDRs should continue to exist as grassroots organisations, but with a major overhaul of their working style. Only one percent said they should stop “prying into people’s private lives.”

“The CDRs were conceived of as a factor of unity. But there were places and times when revolutionary watchfulness was confused with gossip,” said the national coordinator of the CDRs, Juan Contino, in an interview with the weekly ‘Juventud Rebelde’, the publication of the Young Communists’ Union (UJC).

Contino, a 35-year-old economist, sat on the National Bureau of the UJC early this decade when it was headed at the time by current Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina.

The UJC left behind formalities and red tape, created recreational options for the population, linked political rallies with concerts by Cuba’s most popular musicians and replaced slogans from the past with specially designed political campaigns.

The reason underlying Contino’s designation to head the CDRs was clear, according to local analysts. It was reform-or-perish for Cuba’s main grassroots organisation – which now has the legal status of a non-governmental organisation.

“It is not a secret for anybody that the CDRs are in need of adaptation. We have to help them recover their image – but an enriched one,” said Contino, who wants the committees to be used to rescue the lost traditions of each neighbourhood.

The new strategy is based on reinforcing the committees’ focus on community work, in accordance with the specific characteristics of each area and with the aim of helping people resolve their problems.

Official figures indicate that from 1960 to 1995, the CDRs organised the collection of 1,870 million glass jars and bottles and 318,000 metric tonnes of paper and cardboard for recycling.

Members of CDRs made more than six million donations of blood to the Cuban health system for use in emergencies. The organisational structure of the CDRs, which covers the entire country of 11 million inhabitants, made them ideal actors in vaccination campaigns against tetanus, rabies, chicken pox and polio.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Cuba free of polio last year. The success of the anti-polio campaigns that got underway in 1962 was due to the coordinated action of the Health Ministry and the CDRs, officials said.

Contino said the CDRs are also useful in tree planting campaigns, promoting family and medicinal herb gardens, small- scale development of water resources, and urban clean-up projects.