Fifty Years Later

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the revolution that has left Cuba a decrepit, poverty stricken, crumbling country.

Here is how it is being covered:

AP writer Anita Snow tells us how Cuba celebrates revolution's 50th anniversary

When President George W. Bush leaves office, the revolution will have outlasted 10 American presidents who maintained strict U.S. sanctions aimed at overthrowing the Cuban leadership.

Yes, the communist regime has outlasted 10 presidents but the difference is that those are freely elected presidents with term limits. But it's not fair to say that they have outlasted 10 presidents. A more appropriate analogy would be that the US became a democratic country 233 years ago and we are still the same democratic country.

William Booth with the Washington Post had this to say:

President Raúl Castro and the Cuban government celebrated the 50th anniversary of their revolution Thursday night in a nostalgic but low-key event that was far removed from the triumphant displays and mass rallies of their socialist glory days, as ordinary Cubans continue to struggle daily through hard times brought on by a sputtering state-run economy and a decades-long trade and travel embargo by the United States.

Lets keep in mind that the US is the ONLY country with an embargo against Cuba. To blame the US for what is wrong with the Cuban economy is beyond disingenuous, it's a down right lie, and the Castro brothers' propaganda, and excuse, of choice as to why their people have to suffer so much.

Jeff Franks of Reuters:

The revolution's landmark anniversary comes at a time when the era of Fidel Castro, now 82 and in poor health, is winding down and uncertainty hangs over the future of the Cuba he built into an improbable world player admired for its social gains but criticized for its human rights record.

The only social gains to be admired is in the area of Education. Cuba does have a remarkable 99.8% literacy rate. But health care in Cuba is nothing like what Michael Moore makes it out to be (unless of course you are an elite government official or a medical tourist). And their housing and infrastructure is crumbling and the people are starving.

Last term I did a term paper on the effects of Communism on Cuba and I came across these sites and articles. Some of them were truly disturbing, and they all paint a picture of Cuba that Castro doesn't want the rest of the world to see.

The Cuban American National Foundation tells us about the Myth vs. Reality of Cuban health care

This article by Isabel Vincent caught my attention because she's reporting from the town my dad is from.

And for a very graphic and disturbing view of what health care in Cuba is like for the Average Cuban look no further than The Real Cuba. I have to warn you some of the pictures on this site are sad, disturbing, disgusting, somewhat explicit and downright heartbreaking but definitely worth a look to get the sense of what universal health care is really like in Cuba for the great majority of the population.

My point with all this is that as that I don't get the point in celebrating a regime that has put Cuba on a backward path. I don't see what these reporters are seeing, or maybe they aren't seeing what I'm seeing and what my parents saw.

I would rather see articles that give a glimpse at the real Cuba, no celebrate the charade the Castro brothers put out for the world.

In my research I came across a couple of articles by Larry Solomon that I think are more fitting.

From Fidel Batista! Fidel Castro Out-Thugs Fulgencio Batista

But Cuba and its U.S.-style constitution was also an economic powerhouse with potent social institutions and impressive accomplishments. A 1958 United Nations report ranked Cuba's vibrant free press eighth in the world, and first in Latin America. Despite its much smaller population, Cuba had 160 radio stations compared to the U. K.'s 62 and France's 50. It had 23 television stations compared to Mexico's 12 and Venezuela's 10. The tiny country supported 58 newspapers, fourth in Latin America behind populous Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.

Cuba once installed telephones at a rapid rate. No more. It once ranked first in Latin America, fifth in the world, in television sets per capita, and also ranked high in radios, automobiles, and many other consumer goods. No more. With the population increased and the housing stock degraded, more people suffer inadequate housing today than ever before, and sanitary conditions have become a scandal through much of the country.

And from Cuba's Cruel Joke

Welcome to Cuba, 44 years into the Revolution that was to industrialize the economy, eradicate hunger and eliminate the gap between rich and poor in this island nation, previously the most prosperous in the Caribbean. Today, the once-muscular Cuban economy is in tatters and its much lauded social safety net a cruel joke. The poor, in reality, are bled to support the lifestyles of the government elite, which lives in luxury - the driveways of the Havana honchos sport Mercedes - while its populace goes hungry.

Some Cubans outside government - increasingly those who obtain patronage positions in the tourist industry, where they receive tips and other payments in U.S. dollars - manage comfortable, if meagre, existences. With dollars, they can shop in the many "dollar" shops, where they can obtain some of the consumer goods, medicines and dairy products that most Cubans, prior to the Revolution, could readily obtain.

The great majority of Cubans, however, are left to fend for themselves in a pitiless system. Most must "do business" to survive, as Cubans put it, because most cannot subsist on the typical wages - the equivalent of about 50 cents a day - that the government sets for them. The old woman at the lunch counter begged for food; other Cubans beg for old clothes or for medicine, or sell peanuts on street corners. Young men sell cigars and other goods in the burgeoning black market; young women sell their bodies in the burgeoning sex trade.

Without dollars, life is grim. People line up at dimly lit government distribution centres, ration books in hand - libretas, the government calls them - for their monthly allocation. The books, which were established in 1962 to "guarantee the equitable distribution of food without privileges for a few," entitle Cubans to 2.5 kilograms of rice, 1 kilogram of fish, 1/2 kilogram of beans, 14 eggs and sundry other basics at subsidized prices. Through the libreta, each Cuban also gets one bread roll a day. Every two months, a Cuban is entitled to one bar of hand soap and one bar of laundry soap. Fresh fruits and vegetables come infrequently; meat might come once or twice a year. Until the mid-1990s, children under seven were entitled to fresh milk, but fresh milk, like butter, cheese and other dairy products, is now off the shelves. Before the revolution, two litres of fresh milk cost 15 U.S. cents, well within the means of the poor.

Cuba's poor are also squeezed in the other necessities of life. Even in central Havana, people commonly carry water by bucket from standpipes in the street to their homes, and then lift the buckets by rope to the higher floors, because their buildings' broken water pipes go unrepaired. Those lucky enough to have working water pipes can get water at the tap - but only at certain times. In one dense urban neighbourhood that I visited, the water flowed from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., during which time families scrambled to fill pots and pans inside their homes for drinking water, and former oil drums outside their homes for washing. About the time that the water came on, the electricity went off - it, too, is rationed by daily blackouts.

In buildings where one or two families might have once lived, today live many. The inner courtyards of Cuba's residences have become miniature shanty towns, cinder block housing units or other improvisations piled on top of one another. The units - often two small rooms totalling 200 square feet - can house an extended family of seven, 10 or even 12. The rooms are often windowless or near-windowless, the ceilings low and oppressive. Among these buildings packed with people lie many identical buildings, but appropriated for government use. In the space that might house 50 or 100 people will sit one government functionary, bored and idle at a desk, the premises otherwise near-empty.