Word: havana
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...travails. Some reforms he instituted since mid-1993 had begun to pull the country back from the brink of disaster after the collapse of the Soviet bloc cut Moscow's aid from a torrent to a trickle and then to nothing. When he legalized individual private business last September, Havana suddenly sprouted plumbers, hairdressers, restaurateurs, repairmen and other overnight entrepreneurs permitted to work for themselves. But the July 1993 legalization of dollar holdings was a two-edged sword. It brought much needed hard currency into Cuba, but also split what had been a largely egalitarian society into two classes...
Even so, Castro seems thoroughly in control. The ability of many Cubans to describe harrowing privation and in almost the same breath profess loyalty to Fidel -- or at worst a kind of numb resignation -- is startling. Raise, 31, an engineer, pauses along the Almendares River in western Havana to watch the return of several rafts that had tried to make it across the Straits of Florida but were forced by bad weather to turn back. "These people are out of their minds," he says. "This is a difficult period of the revolution, but I wouldn't even think about doing...
...have never even been there. They sit here with their stomachs full, talking to each other on their portable phones. What's that have to do with Cuban reality?" But Davis lost credibility in her efforts to sway policy toward Cuba after she kissed Castro during a vilit to Havana last April. The gesture, which she dismisses as a spontaneous social courtesy, still haunts her. Last week, when she stepped onto her office balcony, neighbors shook their fists and shouted "Communist...
Increasingly, Mas Canosa's right to speak on behalf of Cuban Americans is being challenged. Franciso Aruca, who ran shuttle flights to Havana, says the exiles used to have the appearance of homogeneity, always backing the conservative right. Now, he believes, "a lot of Cuban Americans are questioning not only Clinton's policy but are getting mad at the leadership of the community that is linked with that policy...
Many share the desire of Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, founder of a more moderate and less monied organization called Cambio Cubano (Cubans for Change), to see a more measured policy toward the Havana regime, including direct negotiations with Castro to encourage a phased-in democracy. Says Menoyo: "We want the people to emerge from this with their lives, liberty and their rights. The measures that Clinton is taking serve only to make 11 million Cubans -- everyone except Castro -- suffer." He complains that his organization cannot get Washington's ear because it has less money and political influence than Mas Canosa...