August 25, 2006
Land of rum and rumba blighted by communism
Two years ago Australian reporter Caroline Overington was sent on assignment to Cuba. She expected a land of dark rum, hot nights, fat cigars and the rumba. What she found was very different. Her review of Luis M. Garcia's, "Child of the Revolution" is also a scathing rebuttal of the hype that Cuba is a socialist paradise.
She writes:
The reality was very different. Cuba was wretched. Every day the photographer and I encountered distressing scenes of women, children and ageing Cubans living in terrible poverty.Elsewhere, we found barefoot children searching through rubbish bins for food. There is a large black population in Cuba - many of them are descendants of sugar-cane cutters - and there were many blacks among the beggars. Women with babies at the breast tugged at our clothes, begging for pennies.
In the Western-style bars, beautiful Cuban girls hung off the arms of Western men.
We drove into the countryside and found people living with open sewers and dirt floors, with no food, no coffee, no rum, no pork, no music, none of the things a Cuban needs to thrive.
Castro's revolution - free food, free education, free health care for all - was a sad, sorry joke. The classrooms were decrepit, the school books so old as to be useless. Store shelves were empty.
It was a police state, too. Nobody would speak ill of Castro (if they did, it was quietly, with a pale, strained face and a furtive glance over the shoulder).
We visited the homes of dissidents and heard that librarians, poets and free-marketeers - good, friendly people - had been taken to prison, some of them sentenced to 20 years or more in a cell no larger than a toilet block, forced to walk around and around in circles, 400km from home in a nation where it's impossible to visit anybody unless you hitch a ride in the back of a creaking, humpbacked truck known as a "camel", made in eastern Europe and liable to break down in the Cuban heat.
It was a terrible shock because, like many people, I'd believed the hype about Cuba: that it was a socialist paradise; that Castro was a visionary leader; that the Cuban people were happy communists. In fact, Castro is a gutless dictator who has never been brave enough to hold a presidential election. Yet across the West he continues to be celebrated as some grand, visionary leader, instead of being derided as a lunatic on his last legs.
Read her editorial at The Australian.
Posted by Ziva at August 25, 2006 03:30 PM
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Comments
INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!
NOW IF WE CAN ONLY GET THE BRITS TO THINK THE SAME.
Posted by: mandingo ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.babalublog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 25, 2006 04:22 PM
Luis M. Garcia is doing great things in Australia. I'm proud to count him among my internet friends.
Posted by: conductor at August 25, 2006 05:53 PM
I wish there were more journalists with the integrity, insight and courage of Caroline Overington.
Posted by: Rubini at August 25, 2006 07:06 PM
A fabulous find!
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at August 25, 2006 07:38 PM
I'm surprised The Australian print it. Guess they finally put journalistic integrity over keeping a Cuba bureau
Posted by: R S at August 25, 2006 09:11 PM
Slowly the truth spreads, eyes are opened...even as far as the Antipodes. Mr. Garcia is indeed doing excellent work Down Under...gotta buy his book.
Posted by: Alberto-Q at August 25, 2006 09:59 PM
Excellent. That is why we should stress to those that INSIST on going to Cuba to at least go to other places besides the tourist places.
Posted by: Max at August 26, 2006 08:33 AM
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