Word: castro
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...real reason for refusing to engage in any broad negotiation is emotional. The weight of 35 years of demonizing Castro is not easy to shrug off. Clinton is afraid that Republicans -- and plenty of Democrats -- will scorch him for cozying up to a communist devil. Yet that fear may be exaggerated: the Wall Street Journal editorial page, a powerful voice of conservatives, came out last week in favor of lifting the embargo, arguing that the best way to undermine communist regimes is to open them up to outside goods, exchanges of people and ideas. It worked with the Soviet empire...
...best outcome Washington can wish for is a sudden transformation of Cuba into an open-market democracy, preferably by evolution, though maybe by internal revolutionary upheaval. But it would be unwise to count on such a lucky break. For all his economic bungling, Castro retains strong political control and the loyalty of many Cubans, probably still a majority of them. The new surge of people fleeing is sometimes seen as the beginning of the end for Fidel, but it might equally provide him with a safety valve that drains away the most seriously discontented -- as well as illustrating once again...
...young Cubans, watched by thousands of amazed onlookers, rioted over the suspension of a Havana bay ferry that had been hijacked three times to Florida. As some of the rioters dared to shout, "Down with Fidel!" the demonstration was quickly halted. But the message was not lost on Castro. Unleashing refugees has proved an effective attention getter for him in the past, and he has been disappointed that a Democratic Administration in Washington has not proved more receptive to dealing with him. So Castro let it be known that his police would no longer arrest or even try to stop...
...Castro primarily has himself to blame for Cuba's current 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...
...Castro then returned, disastrously, to Marxist principle. In February and March he cracked down on the flourishing black markets that had sprung up, particularly in food. Police stopped all vehicles coming from the countryside into cities and searched them for contraband food to make sure that farmers sold only to the state, not to private buyers. Food shortages intensified...