Word: cuban
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Reforms seemed to be in the air when the country's 213-member Central Committee held a special one-day session in Havana two weeks ago and issued what the Cuban Communist Party daily Granma trumpeted as "transcendental pronouncements." The "revitalization" measures initially seemed to be a belated curtsy to the changes initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev. But a closer reading indicated that the proposals were aimed at distancing Cuba from events across the Atlantic...
...most visible sign of a possible fissure within the ruling elite was the execution last July of Major General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez, a celebrated war hero, and three other officers. Though they were charged with drug smuggling and corruption, many Cuban exiles believe their real crime was to pose a threat to Castro and his brother Raul, the Defense Minister and heir designate. Meanwhile, the government jailed at least ten human-rights activists last year. The U.S. State Department's annual human-rights report, which was issued last week, lambasted Cuba's record, which it said had "worsened significantly...
...Thanks to inefficient methods of growing and harvesting, Cuba may be the only tropical island in the world where fruits and vegetables are hard to find. The widening rift between Havana and Moscow has caused other deprivations. The Soviet Union's increasing unwillingness -- or inability -- to continue carrying the Cuban economy has created severe shortages of flour, bread, razor blades and TV sets. The long-standing U.S. trade embargo continues to take its toll as well...
...worst is yet to come. Cuba relies on the East bloc for about 90% of its imports and exports. This trade is based mainly on barter, not cash, and on terms heavily skewed in Cuba's favor: the Soviets, for example, buy Cuban sugar at about four times the market price. But as East bloc countries move toward free-market economies, they are seriously reassessing their ties with Cuba, which cannot pay in the hard currency that Western customers offer...
...Soviets have delivered two advanced MiG-29 fighters to the island. Still, Castro is edgy. For the first time, he suggested publicly in January that the Soviets might abandon him, in which case, he said, Cuba was prepared to live "under a wartime economy." Says Wayne Smith, director of Cuban Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: "Castro sees that the world has turned upside down, so he decides Cuba has to circle the wagons and spit on everybody beyond the wagons...