Miami's Celebrations Rebuked in Cuba
ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press
HAVANA - The joyous celebrations by Cuban-Americans in Miami following news of Fidel Castro's illness provoked reactions of disgust by many Cubans on the island Wednesday.
"That's what you can expect from the type of trash that lives in the United States and cares nothing about this country," said Oralis Delgado, a homemaker.
"It shows the type of heart" they have, said Maria Antonia Figueroa, 88, who described herself as an old Castro collaborator.
Footage of the street party aired on Cuba's state television and was reported in Juventud Rebelde, the Communist youth newspaper, which had an editorial headlined "The gusanera of Miami gives shame," using a colloquial term meaning "nest of worms."
Many in Havana saw Miami's celebrations as an expression of violent revenge by Cuban exiles who may have lost property or been separated from their families.
"It stirs the blood. It's one more reason to remain strong," Rogelio Polanco, editor of Juventud Rebelde, said on the program. He called on Cubans to unite behind the mission of the revolution and to keep from giving the United States any opening.
Lazaro Barredo, a journalist and National Assembly deputy, criticized those wishing for Castro's death as "bravuconadas," roughly meaning bullies.
Rest of article
posted by leftside at
5:19 PM
3 Comments:
Perhaps, but it seems capitalism is being embraced by rank and file cubans. You can't stop it, Matthew. You know why? 'Cause it works.
Philip Peters, an expert on the Cuban economy at the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said that such experiments with open-market reforms have helped lift the island’s economy. Such farmers markets, Mr. Peters noted, were supported by Raúl Castro in the early 1990’s, when the government first allowed farmers to sell their surplus crops after the state found itself unable to pay farm subsidies.
Today, Mr. Peters said, there are 300 such markets across the country. And while the state continues to provide families with monthly allowances of rice, beans, cooking oil, milk and other basic items, the so-called “free markets,” have turned some farmers into venture capitalists and revitalized the agricultural sector.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/americas/04cuba.html?hp&ex=1154750400&en=268b3eb63e9643b4&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Capitalism can be more efficient than socialism, that is not in dispute. The trick is using the principles of markets in a contolled and higly planned context to maximize gain and minimize the severe consequences of unfettered free market decision making. The Chinese and Cubans are becoming quite adept at that - and showing a new model to the world that says rapid growth and justice/equality do not have to be opposites.
Cuba has NOT adopted the Chinese model. It is very far from the Chinese model.
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