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Oral history
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Sound bites from three scandals
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Blood money
By Suzi Parker
An Arkansas prison-plasma business protected by Clinton cronies led to a scandal that almost toppled the government -- of Canada
(12/23/98)
Portrait of a political "pit bull"
By Russ Baker
Rep. Dan Burton has a few questions to answer about his own history of womanizing and alleged campaign finance irregularities
(12/22/98)
What if it were President Packwood?
By Andrew Ross
Liberals must face up to their hypocrisy in backing a president who lied under oath in a sexual harassment lawsuit
(12/22/98)
Life of the party?
By Joshua Micah Marshall
With Livingston gone, Tom DeLay runs the party
(12/19/98)
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LETTER FROM HAVANA | PAGE 1, 2
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The island is reaching a new equilibrium as it metamorphoses into a service economy while the productive capacity of the state steadily wanes. Take the island's brain drain. Though the government makes available no relevant statistics, many of the country's top professionals have left in recent years, while others have stayed but found other livelihoods. I met a Cuban nuclear physicist and his wife, a doctor, in Bogotá. In Cuba, I rented rooms from families led by a former mechanical engineer and a chemistry professor.
Many students, too, are leaving school as the steady exodus from traditional employment continues. People who can leave the island usually go. Anyone who wants to fly must first collect enough bribe money to negotiate an exit visa. Far more Cubans have paddled out on makeshift wooden rafts. Nearly every Cuban one meets has a relative in Florida, New Jersey or elsewhere in the United States. Most Cubans at least know of someone, too, who died at sea.
Among those who make it, many send back remittances to family members left behind. In 1997, a United Nations study estimated that they totaled around $800 million a year. Most of the dollars that reach the island eventually wind up in state stores like La Epoca. So far the government has maintained its monopoly on foreign consumer goods, and their sales to Cubans earn more for the state now than even foreign sales of the island's main commodity, sugar.
Lots of state goods, materials and other resources, however, are also flowing away from Cuba. Shadowy street hustlers sell boxes of quality Cohiba cigars (or sometimes only harsh imitations) for far less than they would cost in government stores. Diesel fuel, which costs 35 cents a liter in a legal transaction with a government supplier, can be bought on the black market for as little as five cents a liter.
Across the island, Cubans are pilfering government stockpiles like never before. "They know what's going on," said one source who has dealt with party officials. "How could anyone not see it?"
But Fidel Castro's regime is one that, in the past, did not tolerate corruption. Back in the 1980s, Castro even privately lambasted the Nicaraguan Sandinistas for taking with their own hands from what became widely know as their "piñata." Today in Cuba, though Castro still discourages Communist Party members from conspicuous consumption, an unknown number of officials have their own hands inside Cuba's piñata, which is anything on the island owned by the state. Every day Cubans steal more such candy, while all such theft is only the system's loss. As long as most of the dollars, however, still eventually find their way to stores like La Epoca, party officials don't seem to care.
It would be foolish to flag this trend as a sign of Castro's imminent fall. Now 72, he looks more and more like a stubborn old commander in a Gabriel García Márquez novel who outlasts everyone. Castro's old enemy, voluble Miami expatriate Jorge Mas Canosa, died last year.
Nonetheless, it is hard to imagine how the new equilibrium could be self-sustaining over time. The rank corruption that allows it to take place is steadily eroding the social gains of the revolution along with the legitimacy of the state. Despite whatever other criticism one might have of the revolution, Cuba under Castro did succeed like few other developing countries in promoting health services, raising literacy rates and educating its population. Castro also, for better or worse, nationalized private property and produced a society without anyone who was either extremely rich or poor.
Today, however, the quality of all basic services provided by the state, except for those catering to tourists, is declining. At the same time, the underground spread of market forces is only watering criminal syndicates of all kinds that are just beginning to sprout. Meanwhile, the Communist Party has been slow to respond to new challenges like taxation as well as free-market regulation and law enforcement control. New kinds of transactions now occur daily, like the sale of cocaine. Once unheard of on the street in Cuba, it is now available on the Malecon like nearly everything else.
Beneath the veneer of a communist system, the basest kind of capitalist decadence is spreading like mold. Everyone in Cuba, of course, can see it, and the Communist Party youth, especially, has even begun denouncing the fungus out loud. Young Communists often invoke Che, whose memory and example are still widely admired, while promoting a particularly Communist kind of moral revival. They decry the rising rate of prostitution, which they blame on individuals making poor moral choices. Apparently few of these youthful idealists have been to Havana's Museum of the Revolution, which blames the prostitution that flourished before Castro's takeover on capitalist decadence and the harsh choices it forced upon young Cuban women.
Che's New Man was not expected to go for prostitution. But he wasn't expected to look like Dianna, either. Though she won the last two lip-syncing contests back to back, some of her detractors claim that she had an unfair advantage. At both competitions, Dianna's supporters, many of whom she knows from the hospital where she is being treated for AIDS, dominated the audience. The detractors say that their raucous applause may have unduly influenced the judges. Nonsense, says Dianna, CDR No. 12's reigning queen.
SALON | Jan. 4, 1999
Frank Smyth is a freelance journalist who has written about foreign matters for publications including Foreign Affairs, the New Republic and the New York Times.

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R E L A T E D_.S A L O N_.S T O R I E S
Cuba libre A hot art scene brings the world to Havana's door.
By Mark Schapiro
June 3, 1997

T A B L E+T A L K What did you think of William Bennett's "The Death of Outrage"? Discuss the author, his books and his philosophy in the Politics area of Table Talk ___________________ Don't know much about history? Find out more at barnesandnoble.com! ___________________ R E C E N T L Y Oral history By David Friend Sound bites from three scandals (12/24/98) Blood money By Suzi Parker An Arkansas prison-plasma business protected by Clinton cronies led to a scandal that almost toppled the government -- of Canada (12/23/98) Portrait of a political "pit bull" By Russ Baker Rep. Dan Burton has a few questions to answer about his own history of womanizing and alleged campaign finance irregularities (12/22/98) What if it were President Packwood? By Andrew Ross Liberals must face up to their hypocrisy in backing a president who lied under oath in a sexual harassment lawsuit (12/22/98) Life of the party? By Joshua Micah Marshall With Livingston gone, Tom DeLay runs the party (12/19/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		LETTER FROM HAVANA \| PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - The island is reaching a new equilibrium as it metamorphoses into a service economy while the productive capacity of the state steadily wanes. Take the island's brain drain. Though the government makes available no relevant statistics, many of the country's top professionals have left in recent years, while others have stayed but found other livelihoods. I met a Cuban nuclear physicist and his wife, a doctor, in Bogotá. In Cuba, I rented rooms from families led by a former mechanical engineer and a chemistry professor. Many students, too, are leaving school as the steady exodus from traditional employment continues. People who can leave the island usually go. Anyone who wants to fly must first collect enough bribe money to negotiate an exit visa. Far more Cubans have paddled out on makeshift wooden rafts. Nearly every Cuban one meets has a relative in Florida, New Jersey or elsewhere in the United States. Most Cubans at least know of someone, too, who died at sea. Among those who make it, many send back remittances to family members left behind. In 1997, a United Nations study estimated that they totaled around $800 million a year. Most of the dollars that reach the island eventually wind up in state stores like La Epoca. So far the government has maintained its monopoly on foreign consumer goods, and their sales to Cubans earn more for the state now than even foreign sales of the island's main commodity, sugar. Lots of state goods, materials and other resources, however, are also flowing away from Cuba. Shadowy street hustlers sell boxes of quality Cohiba cigars (or sometimes only harsh imitations) for far less than they would cost in government stores. Diesel fuel, which costs 35 cents a liter in a legal transaction with a government supplier, can be bought on the black market for as little as five cents a liter. Across the island, Cubans are pilfering government stockpiles like never before. "They know what's going on," said one source who has dealt with party officials. "How could anyone not see it?" But Fidel Castro's regime is one that, in the past, did not tolerate corruption. Back in the 1980s, Castro even privately lambasted the Nicaraguan Sandinistas for taking with their own hands from what became widely know as their "piñata." Today in Cuba, though Castro still discourages Communist Party members from conspicuous consumption, an unknown number of officials have their own hands inside Cuba's piñata, which is anything on the island owned by the state. Every day Cubans steal more such candy, while all such theft is only the system's loss. As long as most of the dollars, however, still eventually find their way to stores like La Epoca, party officials don't seem to care. It would be foolish to flag this trend as a sign of Castro's imminent fall. Now 72, he looks more and more like a stubborn old commander in a Gabriel García Márquez novel who outlasts everyone. Castro's old enemy, voluble Miami expatriate Jorge Mas Canosa, died last year. Nonetheless, it is hard to imagine how the new equilibrium could be self-sustaining over time. The rank corruption that allows it to take place is steadily eroding the social gains of the revolution along with the legitimacy of the state. Despite whatever other criticism one might have of the revolution, Cuba under Castro did succeed like few other developing countries in promoting health services, raising literacy rates and educating its population. Castro also, for better or worse, nationalized private property and produced a society without anyone who was either extremely rich or poor. Today, however, the quality of all basic services provided by the state, except for those catering to tourists, is declining. At the same time, the underground spread of market forces is only watering criminal syndicates of all kinds that are just beginning to sprout. Meanwhile, the Communist Party has been slow to respond to new challenges like taxation as well as free-market regulation and law enforcement control. New kinds of transactions now occur daily, like the sale of cocaine. Once unheard of on the street in Cuba, it is now available on the Malecon like nearly everything else. Beneath the veneer of a communist system, the basest kind of capitalist decadence is spreading like mold. Everyone in Cuba, of course, can see it, and the Communist Party youth, especially, has even begun denouncing the fungus out loud. Young Communists often invoke Che, whose memory and example are still widely admired, while promoting a particularly Communist kind of moral revival. They decry the rising rate of prostitution, which they blame on individuals making poor moral choices. Apparently few of these youthful idealists have been to Havana's Museum of the Revolution, which blames the prostitution that flourished before Castro's takeover on capitalist decadence and the harsh choices it forced upon young Cuban women. Che's New Man was not expected to go for prostitution. But he wasn't expected to look like Dianna, either. Though she won the last two lip-syncing contests back to back, some of her detractors claim that she had an unfair advantage. At both competitions, Dianna's supporters, many of whom she knows from the hospital where she is being treated for AIDS, dominated the audience. The detractors say that their raucous applause may have unduly influenced the judges. Nonsense, says Dianna, CDR No. 12's reigning queen. SALON \| Jan. 4, 1999 Frank Smyth is a freelance journalist who has written about foreign matters for publications including Foreign Affairs, the New Republic and the New York Times. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - R E L A T E D_.S A L O N_.S T O R I E S Cuba libre A hot art scene brings the world to Havana's door. By Mark Schapiro June 3, 1997