Opinion

The first measure taken by those who seized power in Honduras was to order a curfew. In addition, they suspended most television and radio broadcasts – even that of the American network CNN, which could be accused of everything except sympathizing with the popular and progressive sectors of Latin America.

Like the seemingly never ending US blockade that attacks Cuba’s economy from without, from the inside a corrosion process is gradually eating away at the relatively young 50-year revolution. Nonetheless, taking initiative to stop the rust is much easier said than done.

This “Cuba B” is in no way homogeneous, since each one of its territories – the west, the east and the central region – has its particular characteristics. Nevertheless I am going to use as an illustration the provinces of Guantanamo, Las Tunas and Granma, three of the most backward regions in comparative terms, which came to be as a result of the new political and administrative divisions that have been functioning in the country since 1976.

Seen from the island, “to live Cuban” in Miami means roasted pork and beefsteak with French-fries at the La Carretta diner, Cuban coffee on some corner in Little Havana, dominos, Santeria, the photo of the latest model car in front of your house and the colloquial programming on Channel 41.

The perceptions of Havana toward Miami cannot be understood accurately if one does not look at Cuban cultural views of the United States, for a long time characterized by a dual sense: rejection and attraction. It has been said that being a Third World country, the self-comparison of Cubans to their northern kin constitutes a “natural fact.” Read more

Today, fifty years later, there is still a long ways to go to advance the interests, energies and the wisdom of Cuba’s working people. I believe people lack the real power to make decisions at their work centers, schools, and even in their local governments and provincial and national legislatures.

The day after the announcement on the loosening of travel restrictions, the area in Miami International Airport where the line is formed for trips to Cuba looked like an anthill in disarray, according to what I read in an e-mail from a friend who works in a currency exchange center there.

Most analysts here believe that the domestic U.S. debate over Cuba policy has shifted decisively in favor of those forces who have argued that Washington’s nearly 50-year effort to isolate the Caribbean island has utterly failed to bring about the changes that it was designed to achieve.

One of the implied problems is that the US’ famous double standard continues to raise its ugly head. It is clear, for example, that in its relations with the Saudis, the United States will never ask them to dispense with their form of government.

Washington will never make it imperative that they abandon Wahhabism.

More than fourteen years later, the map has changed: Even if the subject of Cuba is not reflected in the Americas Summit Final Declaration —because of that being considered OAS territory—, the issue will fall like a Juggernaut onto the warm beaches of the Trinidad and Tobago conference site. Read more