Word: caribbean
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Castro has chosen to challenge U.S. hegemony in the Caribbean by picking "targets of opportunity"-places where a minimum of aid can yield high propaganda dividends without directly confronting U.S. might. In Nicaragua, Castro did little more than supply arms and some training for the Sandinistas, who also received assistance from Latin America's remaining handful of democracies. Instead of attempting to foment revolutions, the Cuban leader has launched an aggressive campaign of diplomacy and aid that speaks to the social ills plaguing the Caribbean. Says a British Caribbean specialist: "The Cubans did not create these conditions. They were...
...traditional British model that hasn't worked too well." Years after independence, former British colonies remain, almost without exception, poorly endowed with natural resources and handicapped by single-commodity, export-oriented economies that present few opportunities for rapid growth or full employment. Unemployment in the 22 Caribbean nations averages 40%. Millions of their citizens, including thousands of Haitian boat people, have made their way to jobs in America...
...most cases, the new Caribbean nations depend on their former colonial masters to buy their largely agricultural products. Trapped between their dependence on the one hand and their need to assert their independence on the other, many have adopted an anti-Western stance. Even though Cuba survives only by massive infusions of Soviet aid (an estimated $2.5 billion a year), Castro's nose-thumbing attitude toward the U.S. and his admitted achievements-notably the elimination of illiteracy-provide an alluring model for Cuba's neighbors. Says Abraham Lowenthal, a U.S. authority on Latin America: "These countries are satellites...
...million in relief assistance from Havana, they were greeted by scores of U.S. flags fluttering from surviving buildings. The spontaneous display of the flags, (which a merchant had brought to the island to be sewn into colorful shirts) indicated that the U.S. had beaten the Cubans to a Caribbean disaster with tangible aid-for a change...
...Caribbean and elsewhere, claimed Castro last week, "we are being very discreet and trying hard not to embarrass Carter." He made the statement the night before he left New York, at an informal dinner for heads of U.S. news organizations, including Time Inc. Castro claimed that he once talked Panama's Omar Torrijos out of seizing the Canal when negotiations with the U.S. were stalled; that he is eager to begin pulling his troops out of Africa as soon as the situation in Namibia and Zimbabwe-Rhodesia is settled; and that Zbigniew Brzezinski is personally to blame...