Cuba’s Communists Celebrate 60 Years of Revolution
Raul Castro sees younger Cubans enthused with the Revolution
HAVANA TIMES – Sixty years after the victory of the Cuban revolutionaries over the dictator Fulgencio Batista, the Communist Party leadership has pledged all citizens to the defense of socialism, reported dpa news.
“We feel deeply satisfied, happy and confident, seeing with our own eyes, how the new generations assume the mission of building socialism – the only way for independence,” the head of the Cuban Communist Party and former president Raul Castro said on Tuesday in Santiago de Cuba.
“In the name of our people and full of optimism, I can say: The Cuban Revolution forever!”
On New Year’s Day 1959, the revolutionary army led by Fidel Castro and his brother Raul defeated the government troops after two years of guerrilla warfare; the ousted ruler Batista fled abroad.
The Castros built in the following decades a socialist bulwark in the backyard of the United States.
Health care and education on the Caribbean island have long been exemplary, especially for a third world country, but freedom of expression was all but abolished.
Castro warned of a renewed confrontation with the United States.
“The language of strength and the threats do not scare us,” said the long-time chief of the armed forces.
“We Cubans are prepared for a confrontation that we do not want and that the cooler heads in the US government can hopefully avoid.”
Under growing economic pressure, the government recently allowed a cautious reopening of Cuba: Some small private businesses are now permitted, real estate and cars may be sold freely.
The absolute power of the Communist Party, however, remains untouched, written into the existing 1976 Constitution as well as the new one to be voted on in a referendum in February.
How long can you call this mess a revolution?
Sadly, the issue of Cuba is no longer even a blip on the political radar of US foreign policy. When Cuba was, albeit minor, a player on the world stage, the goings-on in Cuba made the front page of the New York Times. This worked to the benefit of the opposition movement in Cuba, to the extent one ever existed, by guaranteeing a degree of limelight to the hunger strikes and political prisoners who rose to international attention from time to time. Recently however, what happens in Cuba, truly stays in Cuba. This radio silence guarantees the still powerful Castro dictatorship a completely free hand to continue their tyrannical control unfettered. After 60 years of Castro Communism in Cuba, the sad reality is….nobody cares.