Word: cuba
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...place will hasten Castro's demise. But this line of thinking ignores the bedrock of loyalty that many ordinary Cubans feel for Castro, whose revolution has provided every adult citizen with free health care, education and a social-welfare net. Castro has long profited by laying the blame for Cuba's economic troubles on the U.S. Resentment of the embargo--particularly when U.S. sanctions against Vietnam have been lifted--only reinforces a fierce pride. Cubans are nationalists even more than they are socialists or incipient capitalists, and pressuring them from the outside makes even more unlikely the full-scale rebellion...
...despite the recent flurry of economic activity, there are still few guarantees, many pitfalls and no safety net in Cuba's reformation. Castro's economic planner, Carlos Lage, told investors at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the island's economy had ceased its free fall but warned that the recovery will be painful and slow. Cuba leaves much to be desired in basic infrastructure, such as communications and power supply. Moreover, the government has yet to face up to its most difficult challenge: paring down inefficient state-run industries and the loaded bureaucracies that serve...
Little wonder, then, that nowadays Castro's most frequent dinner guests are not fellow ideologues, but globe-trotting tycoons like Pierre Cardin, Ted Turner and Lee Iacocca, who can bring in the additional capital that Cuba desperately needs. In each meeting, Castro vows that he will never abandon socialism but also promises to continue holding open an economic window to the breezes of the free market. ``We have to be ready to conduct the necessary reforms to adapt our country and our economy to the present world situation,'' he says. Rough translation: until Castro gets his country up and running...
...used to hang them. Fidel Castro is trying to adapt that maxim to secure a financial lifeline from the U.S. It is an article of faith in Havana that if only Washington would lift the 33-year-old trade embargo, a vast infusion of American cash would rescue Cuba's economy. Last summer Castro tried to force the Clinton Administration into negotiations about improving ties by allowing more than 33,000 Cubans to flee the island for the U.S. The ploy did not work; the U.S. still holds 28,000 rafters in legal limbo, most at Guantanamo, and has resolutely...
...lobbying opened up U.S. relations with Marxist regimes in the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and even North Korea; a trade mission headed by retired admiral Elmo Zumwalt and his son is visiting Pyongyang this week. So Castro is promising Yankee investors they will make a lot of money in Cuba if they will pressure Washington to end the blockade. He has made some modest gestures in recent months to underscore his appetite for American investment: shaking the hand of Vice President Al Gore in Mexico last December, allowing improved phone service to the U.S. Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba...