Soul Searching

...I would say that at this point I'm apolitical...

...The Council of State then chooses the president...

...People would come to us and lodge scores of complaints, which I would run around trying to solve...

...He dic admit, however, that the "old guard"-those over 5( who fought in the Sierra with Fidel Castro-have had hard time transferring power to the next generation...

...While I was talking one morning to an elderly newspaper vendor about upheavals in the socialist camp, he threw up his hands in dismay...

...We've got to be in constant touch with the people and ensure that their concerns are taken into account...

...My conflict with them evaporates...

...4. Speech honoring Cuban internationalists fallen in Angola, broadcast on Havana Domestic Radio and Television Services, Dec...

...9 U.S...

...she reflected...

...Arcos insisted that labelling everyone "revolutionary or counterrevolutionary" is "ambiguous and useless," and he called for dialogue among all sectors, including the Cuban government.' It does seem that the rigid official categories are becoming less meaningful...

...Arnaldo Ochoa, and three other officers were found guilty of drug-trafficking and were executed by firing squad...

...We see terrible splits within the Communist Party itself...

...Once committed to a certain course of action, there is no pulling back...

...Change is inevitable...

...This is just off the top of my head," he assured me...

...But elections for all important national Cuba I leadership positions, including deputies to the National Assembly, are indirect, and no campaigning or opposition parties are allowed...

...You see how we Cubans are starving," he chuckled, lifting up his shirt and pounding his pot belly for emphasis...

...The pre-congress debates are being excerpted on nightly television, and include criticisms of corruption, inefficiency, laziness and the lack of democracy...

...We would not only lose socialism, but our national sovereignty as well...

...For years the United States had been accusing Cuban officials of drug dealing, and we yelled and screamed that it was just Yankee propaganda to discredit the revolution," explained a friend who had fought for two years in Angola under Ochoa's command...

...State Department official lamented, confiding that they fight more among each other than over government policies...

...o I was amazed to hear a State Department official confide that he thought the Bush administration policy was not only counterproductive, but immoral...

...There's not a Havel or a Sakharov in the bunch...

...This attitude was also prevalent among the cane-cutters I spoke with in Guanajay, some 30 miles outside Havana...

...I don't even know what communism is anymore...

...One of the problems here," he said, "is that most Cubans don't realize that they are living in a repressive police state...

...aggression has also thwarted public debate about reforms...

...If the majority of the people were counterrevolutionary, all they need do would be to nominate counterrevolutionaries, and the majority of the delegates would be counterrevolutionaries...

...Things look pretty much the same to me...

...I dropped a bone on the dirt floor, and a skinny young boy grabbed it off the ground and started sucking on it for nourishment...

...7, 1989, and reproduced in FBIS, Daily Report--Latin America, Dec...

...So people started blaming me, when the solutions were out of my hands...

...Living in Angola made me realize the tremendous injustices in this world, and made me more committed than ever to our revolution...

...9. Gillian Gunn, "Will Castro Fall...

...And it will likely authorize direct secret balloting in local party elections...

...Instead of hours of speeches, most of our rallies have none-just good music, dancing, singing, and maybe a short video clip commemorating a historic event...

...Some even fear that he is setting himself up for the only true end for a revolutionary-going out in flames...

...With the crowd outside demanding that such "counterrevolutionary scum" be disbanded, the dissidents called the U.S...

...People were enamored of Fidel Castro and the revolution and were not interested in political reforms...

...journalist, "When the Yankees machine-gun a Cuban boat, or when Bush puts a balloon in the sky to impose TV Marti on us, I for one don't feel the need any longer to debate with the dogmatists...

...But we realized what was happening in time and are now bringing in young people at all levels -from the factory to the province to the politburo...

...You can imagine how we felt when we discovered some of those accusations were true...

...It's a dangerous, reckless policy that aims to provoke a bloody confrontation, a civil war...

...My friend Mirta P6rez, a high school teacher, told me, "It's as if we spent our whole lives believing in God, then suddenly we woke up one day and discovered that God didn't exist...

...Historically, the revolution has tended to crack down on dissent when it feels under attack from the outside...

...The handful of human rights groups that sprang up over the past three years were enjoying unprecedented freedom a year ago...

...I don't want to lose the essence of our revolution...

...Compounding all this is the lasting impact of the "Ochoa scandal...

...The other man was ajanitor in the hotel I stayed in...

...the table overflowed with cold cuts, meat, potatoes, bread and salad...

...A leader like Fidel comes once in a century...

...One Communist friend of mine, who spent years studying in the Soviet Union and looks more favorably on perestroika than the official Cuban line, told me before the debates began that he would not voice his opinion at local party meetings...

...I had spent my first days interviewing one government official after another, and had the impression that the revolution was not only alive and well, but thriving...

...The event was reported in the Cuban press as evidence that the people are outraged by dissidence and will spontaneously rise up in protest...

...When I made a cursory comparison between the two countries, he grabbed a notebook off his desk and turned VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 2 (AUGUST 1990) 23R"Ce oni Ame4ieas Cuba I to a scribbled page with two columns, one marked "Cuba," the other "Nicaragua...

...Benefits: Cubans continue to see real benefits from our revolution, whereas the war and economic crisis in Nicaragua wiped out any gains...

...They decided to hold new debates at the provincial party level, so the public could see that the government was serious about soliciting criticism...

...During my visit in March, the house in which a group of dissidents was meeting was surrounded by an angry mob of five hundred...

...Many factors are pulling on the side of tight control...

...Despite his high pos he volunteered two years in Angola and insisted on beinl sent to the front lines...

...Our cojones got us where we are today, and they'll see us through the next round...

...Now wi tell young people to come only if they really want to...

...Julia Martinez is a nurse who spent two years working in a rural clinic in Angola...

...VOLUME xxiv, NUMBER 2 (AUGUST 1990) 25 VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 2 (AUGUST 1990) 25RoiCuba o e era Cuba I C UBA'S DISSIDENTS REPRESENT THE EXtreme end of a society that is undoubtedly highly polarized between what the government calls revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries...

...His only solution, he reckoned, was to join his relatives in Miami and try his luck there...

...Bush...

...We spent the evening discussing the incredible changes in the socialist world, the aftermath of the Ochoa scandal, the state of the economy, and the pros and cons of one-party rule...

...For others, it raised serious questions about the government's legitimacy...

...It's just that it's not worth rocking the boat, especially when you're not sure where the hell the boat is headed...

...4 At the neighborhood meetings held in April to discuss the party's "call," few spoke out...

...One of his first measure was to make participation in party activities optional "We've done away with the old ways of pressuring people to come out to rallies," he explained...

...For 200 years Cuba's national identity has been built on opposition to the rest of the world...

...Unlike the officials, my friends had no ready-made answers...

...Robaina is being touted as the best of a new generation I ml i 1' i New expectations: More than half the population was born after 1959 of leaders...

...So we're telling our party members to talk more with people in their work centers, their factories, their schools, to discuss people's real problems-how production is going, their housing situation, their access to food and clothing...

...But the government also plays a role in stirring up anti-dissident sentiment...

...hostility, it may well continue to inspire the rest of the Third World...

...You know us Cubans, we've got more cojones [balls] than the Soviets and the Yankees rolled together...

...Another oft-cited argument is that the Cuban people are armed, and could rise up if they wanted to...

...While only a few hundred Cubans are involved overtly, it is difficult to gauge how much latent support they command...

...His problem was not his dead-end job, but that he wanted to marry his high school sweetheart, and they had nowhere to live...

...That is clearly the guerrilla mentality, and unfortunately it seems to be the mindset within which Fidel Castro operates...

...Marine by the balls...

...Just prior to the incident, Fidel Castro gave a speech calling the dissidents "cockroaches" who will be crushed by the people...

...That Balari even felt compelled to draw up such a list indicates how troubled he was...

...A leading dissident, Gustavo Arcos, head of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, caused quite a ruckus among the exile community when he conceded that a considerable part of the people "support the Cuban government and its leaders...

...Still other Cuba watchers who favor the revolution, such as sociologist Marifeli P6rez-Stable, question whether it would even garner the support of half the population...

...People complain all the time about the bus system, for example, but there's not much we can do about that...

...11, 1990, quoting Fidel's closing speech at the Sixteenth Congress of Central Organizations of Cuban Trade Unions, Jan...

...In January, for example, youth groups organized a huge candlelight vigil down Havana's seaside boulevard, the Malec6n, to celebrate the birthday of nineteenthcentury independence leader Jos6 Marti...

...As a reform-minded Cuban writer told a U.S...

...SCTX HAT'S MISSING FROM THE PEOPLE'S V power is the power," a former local delegate from a run-down section of Old Havana told me...

...What poses the greatest threat to the revolution: opening up the economic and political system or maintaining tight control...

...Most Cubans I spoke with continue to have great respect for their comandante, and blame the country's woes on middle-level bureaucrats whom they see as corrupt, dogmatic, inefficient, lazy or just plain stupid...

...You must be crazy...

...Reagan...

...Roberto and his family prepared a welcoming dinner for me...

...In fact, the Communist youth movement (UJC) has plastered the walls of Havana with the slogan "Mi onda es la de David" (My slingshot is that of David...

...Then you'll see how much agreement there really is, and how the vast majority-of all ages-would fight to defend these gains...

...Yet, while I was in Cuba in March, the Communist Party emitted a "call" for its fourth party congress next year-a document that advocated a serious reappraisal of important aspects of the Cuban system: the press, elections, religious discrimination, the economy and measures to eradicate corruption...

...Municipal delegates (elected by popular vote) choose the delegates to the National Assembly, who in turn elect the Council of State...

...Certainly those who foresee the imminent overthrow of the government are living in a fantasy land...

...If the Cuban people find their concerns are addressed and reforms do materialize, the revolution will not only be better prepared to confront U.S...

...The government insists that Cuba's socialist system is not subject to discussion...

...The idea is to tighten the stranglehold and make things in Cuba so bad that the people will revolt...

...Bu VOLUMEXXIVNUMBER2(AUGUST 1990) 29 .m . j 4 r i i r Ir I t 29 VOLUMEXXIV,NUMBER2(AUGUST 1990) 1 jCuba I at the same time we're making rallies exciting so that people are eager to attend...

...Given the present one-party system and the absence of public opinion polls on sensitive issues, there is no way to tell what percentage of Cubans are for or against the revolution...

...Name me five other world leaders that are on a par with Fidel...

...Arguments that the millions who show up at revolutionary rallies are indicative of government support hold less water since the Nicaraguan elections, when many Sandinista rally-goers voted for the opposition...

...We are asking the people, in a way we never asked before, to judge all that we have done and to propose what we should do now," claimed Carlos Aldana, chief party ideologist in charge of the process...

...Then he found a banana peel and started sucking on that until I slipped him some food," she recalled, tears welling up in her eyes...

...So it's like comparing mangos and malanga...

...Their sense was that Fidel Castro would win hands down anyway, so why bother...

...6. San Francisco Chronicle, July 5, 1990...

...I certainly wouldn't be carted off to jail...

...7 Furthermore, most votes in the Assembly are unanimous, and appear to be only rubber stamps for the party...

...Ay, chica, I don't understand what's happening in the world...

...Another grave problem with the European parties was that they didn't renovate the leadership," Sudrez continued...

...Cuban Vice Minister of Justice Carlos Amat admits that the government has been more flexible in its treatment of prisoners it considers counterrevolutionary, "when a climate of detente has existed and the revolution has not been threatened...

...The neighborhood meetings were suspended while party leaders regrouped to discuss ways to encourage participation...

...Robaina insisted that the generation gap was a figment of foreign journalists' imagination...

...Fidel Castro insists that people could express their opposition through the People's Power, the legislative system made up of elected municipal delegates...

...Most sensitive is the Communist Party's monopoly on power...

...But nearly all provincial delegates and national deputies are party members, and the party must approve the candidates for the presidency, the Council of State, and the Assembly...

...You foreigners just don't seem to understand that we are a country at war...

...After hearing her complaints about shortages and exasperating bureaucrats, I asked if she was still as supportive of the revolution as she used to be...

...T HERE IS SPECULATION THAT THE 1991 Communist Party congress will recommend direct elections for delegates to the National Assembly...

...In this sense, the greatest support for our dogmatists comes from the United States...

...The party then urged broad public discussion of the document...

...And several years ago you could say the same for Cuba...

...8, 1989...

...He did not express them to me...

...But the major difference is that after 30 years of revolution--as opposed to Nicaragua's ten-the Cuban people are better educated and ideologically more committed to the goal of building a socialist society...

...When I asked if he was worried about a possible cutoff of Soviet trade, Roberto laughed...

...Internal dissent: In Nicaragua, the bourgeoisie stayed and formed the internal network for the Contras, while in Cuba the upper classes fled the country...

...It was probably one of the first times in Cuban history that Fidel Castro attended a rally without giving a long speech...

...We look at the case of the Soviet Union and we see ethnic conflicts, riots, economic upheaval, and who knows what else...

...Sure, we have a few counterrevolutionaries," conceded Ram6n Sufirez of the Central Committee's Ideological Department, "but 98% of the people are with the revolution...

...Cubans who have worked abroad as soldiers, health professionals or teachers also tend to be dedicated revolutionaries...

...I'll never forget the time I was eating chicken in an outdoor cafe...

...Foreign Policy, No.79, (Summer 1990...

...Marc Cooper, "Semper Fidel," Village Voice, May 1, 1990...

...Ana also fears that opening up to a multi-party system, or even allowing for greater democracy within the current system, could lead to disaster...

...The Communist Party would still remain the dominant one...

...I called my contact at the Interests Section for his reaction...

...Some were afraid, some felt no one would really listen, others apparently NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASfound it hard to think critically after years of predigested "debate...

...Currently, a pre-selected list nominated by the workers but approved by the party is confirmed by a show of hands...

...But I didn't have the authority to solve the problems, not even a problem like getting a stop sign put in at a busy street corner, or ensuring better service at the local pizzeria...

...Gone was the blind optimism so prevalent in earlier years...

...Caught in the middle are probably the majority of Cubans, who recognize the benefits of the revolution and consider themselves socialists, but have many complaints about their system and are uncertain how to make socialism work...

...People are questioning issues that previously were taken for granted...

...Political parties: Cuba's single party provides more ideological cohesion than Nicaragua's multi-party system...

...I was just thinking this out this morning," he said defensively...

...Ram6n Sudrez of the party's Revolutionary Orientation Department admits that the upheavals in Eastern Europe sent a warning signal to Cuban officials...

...Other supporters say the figure is closer to 70%, with 20% apathetic and 10% against the revolution...

...Economy: Here the state owns the means of production...

...During my stay in Havana I was approached, on two separate occasions, by men in their early twenties who wanted to leave the country...

...I was shocked when I visited an old friend who is a music teacher and had been a member of the Communist youth...

...I'm more concerned about getting food on the table than I am about dying for socialism...

...The dilemma facing Ana and Eugenio Balari is the crucial one Cuba faces today...

...At the other end of the spectrum are the disaffected...

...According to one foreign journalist, "Some party faithful even brought up heretical topics such as permitting private business in certain sectors...

...Remember, I interviewed him just after the Sandinista defeat...

...One is that the Cuban government refuses to make changes that appear forced on it by external pressure--from the United States, from the Soviet Union or, worst of all, from the exile community...

...hI fact, he said the revolution basically skipped the middle generation, those from about 35 to 50, and only recentl, has the leadership realized that new leaders must bi cultivated...

...It makes you question your whole belief system...

...One friend whom I consider a staunch revolutionary covered his face with his hands and sighed...

...There is a lot of soul searching going on...

...While direct elections of Assembly delegates are entirely feasible in the near future, no one I spoke with envisioned direct elections for the presidency...

...Among them was a March 7 Moscow News story depicting Cuba as an impoverished police state still mimicking Brezhnev-era communism, and noting with seeming approval the growth of a small dissident movement on the island...

...Fidel Castro went even further, suggesting that "the hand of imperialism, reactionaries and counterrevolution is behind them...

...Some Cubans felt that the harsh sentences meted out to Ochoa and his collaborators were a positive sign that the government was serious about dealing with corruption at the top, not just going after the small fry...

...They held frequent interviews with the foreign press and traveled abroad criticizing the Cuban government...

...For us, it was a way of reviving our history, of making it meaningful to young people," Robaina told me...

...He is said to be a "reformer," t( have differences with the Party leadership, including Fidel Castro, and to have the guts to express these differ ences openly...

...2. San Francisco Chronicle, July 5, 1990, 3. New York Times, March 8, 1990...

...If you talked to workers in Eastern Europe or even the Soviet Union, you'd realize how slim the party's influence was...

...8. Miami Herald, June 12, 1990...

...Here those individuals are the government, and their activities reflect on the system as a whole...

...There can be no doubt that unity around revolutionary ideas...of socialism and communism will be upheld and defended at any price...

...Though only 32, he was recently made ai alternate member of the politburo...

...The fact remains that Cuba and Nicaragua were the only Latin American countries espousing socialism...

...Jimmy Carter...

...You think we should dump him just because some foreigners want us to...

...Once the committees hash out the issues and come to an agreement, then the Assembly usually accepts the committee's recommendations...

...Another friend put it more graphically: "For me, drug dealers are the scum of the earth...

...But opponents counter that a well-oiled state security force keeps constant watch over potential rebels...

...2 [See "Channeling Dissent," p.26] It was in this contradictory context that two widely read Soviet publications, Sputnik and Moscow News, were banned after publishing several negative articles about Cuba...

...Most votes are unanimous not because the party says so, but because most issues are worked out during long and hard discussions in the Assembly's committees that meet yearround...

...in fact, they seemed to flip-flop as we talked...

...He talked about an uncle who became a millionaire making records in New York...

...7. Peter Roman, "Characteristics of Representative Government in Socialist Cuba", unpublished mss., pp...

...Eugenio Balari of the Institute of Internal Demand is known abroad as a liberal and a reformist, yet he responded angrily when I asked about a multi-party system...

...People need not be party members to run for office...

...What I want to do, instead, is go out and grab some fucking U.S...

...See "Ochoa's Legacy," p.30] T HE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSE TO THIS NEW situation-complicated by stepped-up U.S...

...When Fidel heard what we were planning, he decided to join us, walking the entire three-mile stretch...

...I want a more open, democratic system, but I don't want to lose the gains we've made...

...I could see a couple of small splinter parties-perhaps a social democratic party on the Right and a 'radical rectification' party on the Left," she speculated...

...Some intellectuals are beginning to feel that a multiparty system is inevitable-both because of outside pressure and because it may be the only system that will allow for a representative spectrum of viewpoints...

...People see him as the glue holding the country together and giving continuity to an otherwise frightening world...

...Neither of us gets along with our in-laws, and it would take us ten years-if we were lucky-to get our own place," he complained...

...Robaina says his main goal is to convince younj people to "love the revolution...

...The elections in Nicaragua rubbed salt in the wound...

...We're very different from Eastern Europe, but we're studying how their parties became ossified, how they lost touch with the people," he told me...

...It's hard to explain, because nothing would happen to me if I did...

...A document issued by the party politburo in late June effectively ruled out any talk of a multiparty system, or any questioning of Cuba's socialist path.' But even within these parameters, there is clearly much to discuss...

...The few who speculated about such elections saw them as coming about only during a post-Fidel transition period...

...If the Soviets cut off Cuba's oil supply, they swore they'd return to the back-breaking task of cutting cane by hand...

...One is my professor friend Ana, who considers herself a revolutionary but is desperate for more freedom of expression...

...In some ways, the tumultuous times have made Cubans more dependent on Fidel Castro than ever before...

...Oftentimes, the solution was impossible because we didn't have the resources...

...After that evening I spent less time with officials and more riding the bus, hanging out in cafeterias, talking to as many people as I could...

...When Fidel gets involved, he gets rid of the bureaucrats and takes the side of the people," she claimed...

...Then, in July, party members were instructed to initiate similar debates at work centers across the country...

...And when I dared question whether 30 years of Fidel was enough, they jumped all over me...

...Even my friend Ana, a university professor who is despondent over the lack of free speech in her department, lamented that if only the professors could talk to Fidel everything could be worked out...

...They looked at me in shock...

...They don't come close...

...We ended up with a fantastic show of music and dancing, and everyone had great fun...

...I asked...

...We thumbed our nose at both superpowers during the Missile Crisis and we're still here...

...Several days later, the government arrested seven dissidents, accusing them of violating the articles of the Penal Code which regulate the right of assembly...

...And Cuba is not like the United States, where you can separate individuals from the government because the government changes every four years...

...Every day I would pass his worksite and see him lounging around smoking a cigarette or sipping a cup of coffee...

...28, 1990...

...To find a top revolutionary leader involved in drugs is like catching your father in bed with your wife...

...We Cubans can't even agree when it comes to baseball or soccer, so how could we fully agree on serious issues about how to run our society...

...She now has two young children and is certainly finding life more difficult than when she was single...

...And I'm sure many people would agree with me...

...Unlike most highlevel offices, where the protocol is stifling, his was abuzz with young people coming and going, interrupting our interview with a question or a comment...

...Many Cubans hope such a measure might make the higher-level leadership more accountable, and therefore cut through some of the red tape...

...I wouldn't lose my job or my party membership...

...If the Cuban Communist Party is not capable of leading a process of political and economic reform, Cuba's grand experiment may be at an end...

...If nothing else, the Sandinista loss served to heighten Cubans' feelings of self-doubt...

...In fact, 26% of the municipal delegates in the 1984 elections were not party members...

...Incidents such as this will help make it clear not only to the outside world, but to the Cuban people themselves...

...What changes...

...Just days after the Sandinista defeat, I interviewed Eugenio Balari, head of the Institute of Internal Demand...

...Socialismo o muerte...

...5. "Call for Fourth Congress," broadcast on Radio Rebelde (Havana) and reproduced in FBIS, Daily Report--Latin America, June 25, 1990...

...The workers did not have socialist values...

...aggression-has been to close ranks and call for loyalty and unity from the population...

...I could go on and on...

...Ay, Medea, who the hell have you been talking to...

...Indeed much had changed...

...Despite an uncertain economic future, the government was pushing ahead with ambitious programs...

...In the hotel, food was plentiful, and the shops were full of goods...

...The congress will likely open party membership to religious believers, who to date have suffered de facto discrimination...

...Cuba's dissidents certainly don't have the stature or following the dissidents in Eastern Europe had," a U.S...

...Sure, there are people, both young and old, who don't consider themselves socialists," he said...

...Denio Camacho from the National Assembly's legal department insists that this impression is false...

...Now several leaders face long prison terms, and a dozen sympathizers have sought asylum in European embassies...

...The rapid changes that swept through Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have left many Cubans feeling isolated and confused...

...6 Unity weighs in more heavily than tolerance when it comes to those who advocate more radical changes...

...In July of last year, a top Cuban military leader, Maj...

...in Nicaragua the mixed economy gave the government less economic leverage...

...When I interviewed Roberto Robaina, head of the Communist Youth League (UJC) in Havana, he was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers...

...31-32...

...Unlike the Eastern European and Soviet communists, the Cuban party still enjoys a great deal of moral authority...

...We could never compete with the money and propaganda the United States would pour in here...

...3 In explaining the ban, the Cuban Communist Party paper, Granma, accused the publications of "justifying bourgeois democracy as the highest form of popular participation" and of holding a "fascination for the American way of life...

...I found others who wanted to stay in Cuba, but have been so worn down by the daily grind that the revolution has begun to lose its meaning...

...I happened to be there interviewing someone at the time...

...But when it's simple things that should be taken care of quickly but aren't because of some bureaucratic red tape, that's when people get disillusioned...

...To tell you the truth, Medea," she answered wearily, "all that yelling and screaming about 'socialism or death' leaves me cold...

...Government officials insist that the malcontents represent a tiny fraction of the population...

...Another brake on reforms has to do with machismo, or what I call the cojones y mds cojones [balls and more balls] syndrome...

...Soul Searching 1. Granma (Havana), Feb...

...Few draw the conclusion that seems obvious to many outsiders: A strong leader who makes so many of the nation's major decisions generates a stifling bureaucracy that is afraid to take risks...

...El DiariolLa Prensa (New York) July 22, 1990...

...Cubans like Roberto bask in the image of David fighting the Goliath superpowers...

...The greatest factor working against reforms, however, is the hostility of the United States, which makes unity seem far more important than tolerance...

...Interests Section (the substica 5 0. E T '0 2 Cigar factory worker: A frustrating bureaucracy has forced most to buy on the black market tute for an embassy given the lack of diplomatic relations) for help...

...As long as there is imperialism, we cannot afford the luxury of a multi-party system," he claimed, pacing furiously back and forth...

...If you give the imperialists an inch, then they take an arm, a leg, they swallow you up...

...But ask those same people if they would like to go back to paying rent for their homes or to start paying for health care, or tell them the schools are going to be private again...

...He went down the list point by point...

...Roberto's family eats well largely because his mother-in-law, who lives with them, has plenty of time during the day to roam the neighborhood stores in search of non-rationed food...

...But one thing I do know, I'm 100% fidelista...

...He was delighted...

...Speaking at a Cuban trade union conference in February, Fidel Castro stressed, "We will never tolerate anything that undermines the unity of our people, that divides our people...

...One was a high school dropout who had a low-paying job in construction...

...The staff seemed to revel in the news, which they publicized overseas...

...My friend Roberto Telles is a mechanic and firmly in the revolutionary camp...

...A much more rational and humane policy would be to work with the present government and push for reforms from within...

...Ay, chica, how can you say that!," exclaimed Silvio Vargas in disgust...