September 14, 1991

WAITING FOR A RED SUNSET ON CASTRO'S ISLAND

ERIC ELLIS, Havana

THERE'S a subtle but revealing change under way in Cuba's revolutionary museums.

Where once they detailed the Cuban people's struggle in toppling the corrupt US puppet Fulgencio Batista in 1959, today's displays stress the impeccable socialist credentials of el jefe maximo (the ultimate leader) Fidel Castro Ruz.

As communism collapses around the globe, previously unseen Partido Comunista de Cuba cards and pre-1959 meeting minutes, aged and yellowing, have suddenly been displayed.

It's as if to reassure Cuba's 10 million people, the world's reluctant standard-bearers of orthodox Stalinism, that their 64-year-old leader has been ideologically sound all along and that it wasn't just Cold War opportunism and a US trade blockade that made Fidel see red. But on the putrid streets of Old Havana, those same Cubans, half of whom aren't old enough to remember the revolution, are less than convinced. Recent events in the Soviet Union and this week's announcement that Moscow will withdraw 11,000 "peace-keeping" Soviet troops merely confirms their scepticism.

"You have to remember we wanted a revolution but nobody told us it would be a socialist revolution," says Luis, a 59-year-old English teacher. Disgusted, he gestures at the miserable scene before him.

A family of rats scurries out of a tumbledown shop that sells just one product, Vietnamese salted shrimps canned in 1986. Across the street, about 100 people clutch their libretas (ration books) and queue in the pouring rain for their weekly loaf of bread. They've been waiting two hours and expect to stand in line for at least another two before being served. It's just another day in Castro's revolution.

As if to apologise for their pitiful plight, Cubans are at pains to explain that Castro was a latter-day socialist, proclaiming his Communist Revolution only in 1961 after the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs debacle.

"We wanted change but we didn't want this," says Luis.

There's no question Cubans are angry but are they angry enough to topple Castroism, as their one-time ideological soulmates have ditched communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union?

"If Cuba was anywhere else I'd say yes," says a Havana-based European diplomat. "But because it is in the US backyard, change, as many Cubans say they want it, true independence like that being attempted in Poland or Hungary, is probably impossible to achieve."

Cuba's United Nations opposition of the American-led military action against Iraq was a popular stance, colourfully articulated in party rhetoric and the ubiquitous billboards that dot the countryside.

One sign on the unused motorway out of Havana has Uncle Sam riding a Tomahawk missile above a devastated desert - the Middle East - as Cuba, represented as an alligator, swats him away with its tail.

"Senor Imperialist, you don't scare us |" exhorts another billboard, its neon focused directly at the Swiss Embassy, which represents the US in Havana

The message is that life might be tough now but at least Cubans are free from the hated Yanqui.

The US bogy is deftly exploited by Castro and is a crucial rallying point in efforts to keep the revolution alive and allow Castro to rise above being blamed for the Cubans' appalling plight.

But freedom by Castro's definition doesn't put food in Cuban bellies nor clothes on Cuban backs.

Cubans are suffering terribly through a so-called "special period" of austerity imposed "temporarily" by presidential decree last October. There is little chance it will be lifted, particularly as Soviet ties are cut and Cuba becomes more isolated.

The misery of daily life in Cuba cannot be underestimated. The SP, as the special period is known, allows Cubans just one kilogram of meat a month (when it's available, which is rare), three eggs a week, one loaf of bread and a kilo of rice a week, all bought through State shops controlled by party hacks. Cooking oil was the latest item to be rationed this week. Butter, sugar and fresh milk are virtually unknown, as are fresh fruit and vegetables.

The libretas also have coupons for one pair of trousers and one shirt a year, and a pair of shoes every second year. Common household goods like bed linen are supposed to be allocated on marriage, if the State gets around to it.

Shoppers are designated special days to buy, usually once every three weeks. If the allocated goods aren't available on that day (which is more often than not), they have to wait until the next special day rolls around.

The SP pervades all aspects of daily life. The once excellent bus system is chronically overcrowded as services have been halved to conserve fuel. Electricity blackouts are common and water supply is irregular. Many parts of Havana are no-go areas for police, having degenerated into seething urban slums.

The depth of Cuba's economic malaise is evident from rampant inflation in the flourishing black market. The peso, which has official parity with the US dollar, was recently trading as high as 20-1, having doubled in just three months.

Perhaps more in hope than expectation, many Cubans feel Castro is on his last legs, that he's lost the plot at the worst possible time.

They claim his hand is directly implicated in keeping food from the stores because the more time Cubans spend battling to survive, the less they'll have for revolt. The abundant croplands throughout Cuba and the laden shelves of party-run stores in Havana's fashionable Miramar suburb suggest there might be more to their claims than cynicism.

Cuba has never really known true independence. For 400 years, the island was in the grip of Spanish colonialism as one of the first discoveries of the hated Columbus. In 1895, the last Spanish possession in the New World was granted nominal self-rule.

But even that notional independence was denied when in 1899 the US, victorious over Spain, took Cuba and Puerto Rico (and the Philippines) as the spoils of war.

Cuban independence hero JoseMarti described Cuba's relationship with the US as "historic fatalism", and for the next 60 years Cuba was effectively a US colony governed by the Mafia and New York crime syndicates. Mob rule turned Cuba into a classic banana republic with the attendant poverty, unemployment and corruption.

Castro's revolution was quick and relatively bloodless, a testimony to the bankruptcy of the Batista regime. With the charismatic Argentinian doctor Che Guevera at his side, Castro captivated the world and set about instituting radical social reforms in education, housing, health and agriculture. (Cuban health care is one of the few major successes of the revolution, so much so that today Cuban ailments tend to be those of the developed world and not of the Third World.)

The early 1960s was also the era of superpowers jostling for world authority. Moscow saw the usefulness of an eavesdropping ally in the enemy's backyard and in 1961, soon after nationalising American and British interests on the island, Castro proclaimed his revolution a MarxistLeninist one. Cuba has since been firmly in the Soviet orbit, Moscow-sur-Mer as critics call it.

Strangled by a 30-year US blockade, Castro's independence has been subjugated by annual Soviet aid of more than $5 billion, unrealistic trade concessions and the latest in Soviet military hardware to equip the world's largest per capita armed force.

In Havana, Ladas and Volgas ply the streets, Russian is the imposed second language and the Soviet Embassy the biggest show in town.

Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika has taken the heat out of the relationship. Trade with Moscow is now a year-to-year "transitional" proposition and since January 1 has been denominated in US dollars. The Soviet Union was supposed to send 13 million tonnes of oil last year. Only 10 million arrived and even less is expected this year.

At the same time, the deal under which Moscow bought Cuban sugar at four to five times the world price is also over. The Soviets take just two-thirds the previous amount at half the price. Cuba is out of pocket by more than $US2 billion a year.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin has said he considers the Soviet-Cuba relationship irrelevant and this week's announcement from the Kremlin suggests the reconstituted Gorbachev feels the same.

The silence from Havana during last month's failed Kremlin coup was deafening. This week, Havana simply said Moscow's decision to withdraw troops was made without consulting Cuba, breaching "international norms and the agreements which exist between the two countries".

Diplomats in Havana say Gorbachev and Castro are on "something less than speaking terms". Privately, Castro is said to do little to conceal his contempt of Gorbachev.

In Havana's east, a dusty construction site puts Castro's predicament into sharper perspective.

Last month this site became a modern sporting city welcoming more than 40 nations to the 1991 Pan-American Games, the biggest international event ever staged by this veteran of Olympic boycotts.

But for Cuba, which finished fourth on the 1980 Moscow medal list, the last Olympics it took part in, the Games were more than an opportunity to display Cuban sporting prowess. Cuba topped the medal list, beating a substandard US team.

Following quickly on the heels of a Mexican summit of Latin leaders, where Castro begrudgingly signed a pro-democracy communique, the games were also an expensive ($US300 million) effort to stop Cuba sinking further into international isolation and put it on the tourist map.

Says Raul, an engineer: "Many people are asking how so much can be spent on something that lasts just two weeks when they have to line up for hours every day just for the basics of life."

All other options exhausted, Castro is relying on tourism as the saviour of his revolution.

Whole districts such as Varadero, a beach resort 100 kilometres east of Havana where New York Mafiosi patrolled in the 1950s, are virtually Cuban-free zones where sunburnt Germans, Canadians and Italians roam its crystal beach spending marks, dollars, and lire to fill the hole left by Moscow.

A poll in Old Havana's backstreets suggests Havaneros know what's going on elsewhere in the world, despite the news blackout in the party newspaper, Granma. Cuba is bombarded by international propaganda to compete with its own. The BBC and Voice of America have strong followings. Another good guide has been the gradual closing down of former cultural centres by the newly democratic governments in Eastern Europe.

A favourite, if often unreliable, source of news is the Miami-based Radio Marti, part-funded by the US Government. Openly subversive, often outrageous, Radio Marti titillates Cubans with tales of the PCC's wanton corruption, and lurid details of Castro's bedroom and party room carnal activities.

Deserted and isolated, the Castro regime seems bankrupt of money and ideas. Slogans around Havana stress the uniqueness of Cuban socialism, that it's not like the fragile Eastern European model, that it was popular and not imposed by war or Soviet hegemony. The rhetoric rings hollow.

Party minds have placed special emphasis on translating the revolution to a disaffected youth craving jobs, material goods and a future. Unofficial figures from foreign embassies suggest it's a losing battle. Youth suicide has tripled in the past five years. Many of the victims have been soldiers returning jobless from Cuba's adventures in Angola.

Some concessions to token Westernness have been made, such as the recent appearance of a chain of kiosks dispensing soggy pizza, hamburgers and cola, dubbed "McCastros" - or as Havana wags have it, "Malcastros" (a play on the Spanish word for bad or sick).

To counter growing youth discontent, Castro has installed 34-year-old Roberto Robaina as the youngest member of the Cuban politburo. Charismatic and good-looking, he seems groomed for greater things and is increasingly spoken of as a successor to Castro.

Robaina's hand is evident in a new crop of slogans like "Follow Me" and "We Can Do It Together" springing up in Havana to replace Castro's defiant" Socialism or Death".

Robaina is expected to take a leading role at the PCC congress scheduled to be held in Cuba's second city, Santiago de Cuba, next month. With Soviet communism discredited, Cuban observers expect him to push a Cuban brand of perestroika, seen as essential to break the US blockade and ease the economic crisis.

That would put him on a collision course with Castro, who refuses any major concessions.

"When you open the window you not only let in fresh air but flies," he was recently quoted as saying. "Use capitalist methods? That would be crazy. We ought to develop a vaccine against the madness that is capitalism."