Word: cuba
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...even by design. In fact, aside from the specter of European conventional clash after political revolution, the only real worries considered by each side are proliferation-a nuclear was started by a non superpower-or perhaps a non-nuclear superpower clash over some other area (the Persian Gulf, Cuba, etc.) escalating to a holocaust...
...assessing the achievements of his prematurely middle-aged revolution, Castro takes special pride in its social benefits, particularly in the areas of public health care, education, public housing and nutrition. Some of Cuba's progress is indeed impressive. The country has one of the Third World's highest ratios of doctors to overall population (1 to 626 in 1980); Castro confidently predicted last week that within 15 to 20 years Cuba would lead the world in health-care delivery. Illiteracy has been virtually eliminated; Cuba's population now has an average educational level equivalent to junior high...
What Castro failed to mention is that strict food rationing (2 Ibs. of meat a month, 2 oz. of coffee every two weeks) is an integral part of revolutionary Cuban life. Indeed, recalling that Cuba in 1959 had a prosperous middle class, Cuban Expert Wayne Smith, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., notes that "in the great equalizing process, the standard of living has declined...
Castro noted in his speech that at nine sugar refineries under construction in the country, 60% of the components were produced in Cuba. He maintained that mechanization had increased to the point where 100,000 sugar-cane cutters were doing the work formerly done by 350,000, and that similar productivity gains applied to other branches of industry. Castro heaped scorn on some other Latin American nations, particularly Brazil, where huge foreign debts accompany "constant reports of social calamities, unemployment, hunger, inflation...
...Cuban leader made no mention of his country's own foreign-debt crisis, which, in per capita terms, puts most nations in the shade. In the West, Cuba owes Western banks and governments an estimated $3.2 billion, including $1.1 billion in short-term debt to private banks. More than a year ago, Cuba announced that it was unable to meet its payments; efforts to reschedule the debt burden have been under way in Paris and London since last March. But in addition, Cuba owes more than $9 billion to East-bloc countries, principally the Soviet Union...