BORIS YELTSIN had a New Year's gift for the Cuba people -the cutting of all subsidised trade and aid. Now Cuba will have to pay for everything in hard currency at world prices.
The same applies to other third world countries like Vietnam, Angola The decision will have catastrophic consequences for Cuba. Since the Second Declaration of Havana in late 1960. when Fidel direction of the revolution, Cuba has been massively subsidised by the Soviet Union.
More than that. since Nikka Kruschev's pledge that Cuba was an integral part of socialist territory, the USSR acted as the guarantor against US invasion The result of the new turn is bound to be massive austerity for the Cuban people. The first problem is oil. Even were becoming irregular. The usual shipments did not turn up in late 1991. Cuba was forced to buy oil from Mexico and Venezuela.
But such sources are subject to the threats and pressures of the US; they cannot be guaranteed. The threat to oills compounded by the lack of spare parts for buses from easter Europe. The transport crisis has led to the purchase of large numbers of bicycles from China, as well as the widespread reappearance of horse drawn carts, For the US, the situation in the USSR is a golfen opportunity to deal a fatal blow to the Cuban regime, of all governments world-wide the one that it hates the most.
If the Cuban ladershio faces dilficult economic cholces, i also has to deal with the demands for increased democracy.
Stark austerty policies need the maximum discussion and decision making among the masses, Imposed austerny was a fatal lisw in the strategy of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. But Fidel Castro has set his face against any demands for more remocracy La fatal strategy. Authoritarianism plus austerity is a sure-fire formula for creating mass No. 14 Jan. 18,1992 Page 3
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