The isle of broken dreams

The dream beckoned. Tired of the corruption, gangsters, and dictators that had become staples of 20th Century Cuban politics, the Cuban people opened arms to the brash young revolutionary who promised a new beginning on Jan. 1, 1959. Peace, stability, and prosperity all were within grasp for the Caribbean island that then had the second-highest per-capita income in Latin America.

Now, 40 years to the day, the Cuban people suffer a revolution in ruins. The excruciating reality was comprehensively documented in this week's Herald series 40 years of Castro by staff writers Juan O. Tamayo and Fabiola Santiago, and in John Dorschner's Special Report, The Vanishing Revolutionaries.

Thus on this New Year's Day, as on many before, there is sadness for countless Cubans on the island and among the million-plus exiles scattered in diaspora across the planet. All who love freedom should take pause, too. Yet another year dawns for a spitefully intransigent government in Havana. Yet another year has passed with exiles celebrating Nochebuena in Miami and elsewhere far from the homeland.

How much longer, dear Lord? Forty years of sacrifice and suffering, isolation and separation, and for what? A megalomaniac's pipe dream that has left a once-proud nation battered and bankrupt, selling its patrimony and souls to foreign investors for hard currency.
Promises versus reality

Fidel Castro, who led the 26th of July Movement into power, refuses to let go the reins. He mocks the people whom he allegedly serves by regularly electing himself head of state on ballots where opposition candidates are banned. This is the man who early on promised freedom from imperialism and corruption, a diversified economy, an egalitarian society. ``I am a man who knows when to leave,'' he said in his first major speech in 1959 in Havana. ``We cannot ever become dictators.''

But what did he actually do? Calling the United States the imperialist enemy, he traded relations with it for dependency on an imperial Soviet Union. So when annual Soviet subsidies of up to $5 billion ended in 1991, Cuba's anemic economy went into tailspin. Food consumption now falls below 1950s' levels, as does production of such staples as milk, beans, and coffee.

Even the sugar harvest, source of vital export earnings, this year yielded well under 1958 figures. The narrow reliance on sugar and tourism that Castro so criticized has been supplanted by reliance on . . . sugar, tourism, and remittances from Cubans abroad. As historian Hugh Thomas describes it, today's Cuba has a ``19th Century economy'' with living standards ``at less than half'' what they might have been without the revolution.

Factor in the desperation for hard currency, and Cuba has a widening gulf between those who have, and don't have, dollars. The results include widespread corruption, everything from prostitution to theft to black marketeering. So much so that gains -- whatever they may have been -- also have been corrupted.

Thus ordinary Cubans' access to health care is curtailed by lack of sutures, antibiotics, and other medical supplies while well-off foreigners fly in for cosmetic surgery. Then there is the educational system that puts political indoctrination above all else to produce great moral deception along with high literacy. So much for the egalitarian ``socialist paradise.''

Castro and his allies blame the 37-year-old U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba for this national catastrophe. No, sir! The United States did not make the Cuban state export revolution and squander resources on fruitless wars in Africa and Latin America; it did not impose upon Cuba a centralized economy that, as the Soviet empire well demonstrated, simply does not work; it never has prohibited Cuba from buying technology, industrial goods, food, or medicine from any other nation.

Cuba's failures are its own. Principally they have been the failures of Fidel Castro, now 72. In 40 years the dictator has allowed no challenge to his power. He has used seemingly disastrous events, such as the Mariel boatlift, to strengthen his iron-fisted control. He has manipulated world opinion by rationing foreign-press visas and gagging Cuba's independent press. He has persecuted and jailed peaceable dissidents. Moreover, whenever U.S. administrations appeared open to improving relations, he has found a way to sour them -- the latest notable example being the shoot down by Cuban MiGs of two Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996, which killed four South Floridians.

Next year in Havana

With reason, we are pained and frustrated with the stalemate in Cuba. But we cannot let old hurts kill our compassion, love, and hope. Last year Pope John Paul II visited the island, and we now see greater tolerance for religious freedom. Dissident voices persisted in the face of certain harassment and jailings. Cultural and academic exchanges increased. In South Florida, too, we see increased acceptance of varied voices, healthy debate, and an encouraging yearning for reconciliation with the people of Cuba who have suffered for 40 years.

Let us each in our way contribute to the rebuilding of Cuba's civil society -- be it through communication with loved ones, moral support, or material contributions. Let us encourage healthy, respectful conversation within the exile community. We have more in common -- the goal of a free Cuba -- than our differences in strategy. Let us focus on the future. Have faith that democracy will triumph, someday. Let us continue dreaming, in the hope that positive change will finally visit Cuba in 1999.