and deprivation.
But what is not said is that the Cuban economic crisis - the economy has declined by a staggering 40 per cent in five years - is due not just to the collapse of the USSR but crucially to the 35-year old US economic blockade.
Recently that blockade has been tightened to cover components manufactured by US subsidiaries abroad. What many people don't realise is that non-US firms trading with Cuba face massive penalties from the American government, effectively blocking their exports to the USA. So the US trade embargo prevents many firms internationally doing business with Cuba.
If the US is angry at the flood of boat people heading for Miami, this is a crisis which the US has created itself.
There is no doubt that those wanting to go are a small minority of the Cuban population. Many of them have CubanAmerican relatives in Florida. Many of them have wanted to leave Cuba for a long time, but have been blocked by US immigration restrictions.
After the 'Mariel' exodus more than ten years ago, the United States promised to take 20,000 Cuban immigrants each year. But in fact only a small fraction of this number have been allowed in each year. So there is a build-up of thousands of Cubans disaffected with the regime, with relatives in the US, and wno want to leave.
Exporting malcontents For Fidel Castro and the Cuban government the crisis is a pressure and an embarrassment for the United States, not for them. They are not unhappy to see malcontents go; and it is the United States which is under pressure, having to deal with thousands of refugees heading for its borders.
The US has effectively repudiated its promise of US citizenship for those fleeing Cuba. Its solution to the problem - a detention camp for 40,000 people set up in its Guantanamo base in Cuba - is transparently inhumane.
As a result of the crisis the US has had to get involved in negotiations with Cuba and it is being pressurised to make conK cessions in return for the Cuban authorities restricting the flow of boat people.
That there are thousands of people in 0)
Cuba discontented with the regime should come as no surprise. The combination of the fall of the Soviet Union and the economic blockade have devastated the economy. Basic gains of the 1959 Cuban revolution are being undermined.
For example, Cuba for a long time has had one of the best health services in the world - certainly the best in the third world - with more doctors per head of the population than Britain.
But now there is a shortage of even basic drugs. For example, inhalers for asthma sufferers are virtually unobtainable.
Rations cut
BL Food rations have been drastically cut and the transport system is collapsing -to be replaced by thousands of Chinese bicycles and even the reappearance, in rural areas, of the horse and cart as a WO common form of transport.
Ploughs drawn by cattle or horses have reappeared in the fields, as tractors become unusable because of a lack of
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 68, September 10 1994, Page 13