THE GUARDIAN
Independent Radical Newsweekly
Vol. 32, No. 32
May 14, 1980
Fidel explains Cuba's position on refugees
`Revolution is a voluntary task'
By KEVIN J. KELLEY
Guardian Correspondent
Havana
The biggest rally in the 21-year history of the Cuban revolution was held here May 1 as some 1.5 million Havanans reaffirmed their commitment to creating a new socialist society.
With the continuing exodus of what the Cuban government calls "antisocial elements" as a backdrop, President Fidel Castro told the May Day multitude that the country's younger generation is now facing its first major battle in the long struggle to establish true equality and freedom.
"The work of building socialism, of making a revolution, is a completely voluntary task to be carried out by completely free men and women," Castro declared. "If someone does not adopt this task, to the duties of being a revolutionary, then we don't want them here!"
"Que se vayan!" the throng chanted in response--"Let them go! good riddance!"
"We still have lumpen elements here in Cuba," Castro continued. "We still have upper-class elements. But we have the fewest in this hemisphere. There's no society in the hemisphere with a healthier social environment, with a lower rate of crime, prostitution and exploitation than Cuba's."
Later in his dramatic 1-hour speech, as the sun was setting behind the monument to Jose Marti in the Plaza of the Revolution, the Cuban leader revealed that "a much more serious problem than that posed by the antisocial group" had been resolved. The U.S. government had informed Cuba earlier in the day, Castro explained, that it was calling off military maneuvers and a mock invasion of the Guantanamo naval base which had been scheduled to begin May 8.
"We have shown them our strength and our determination not to be intimidated by their threats and their propaganda," Castro cried, his fist jabbing the podium as he spoke. "They have been saying that the revolution is weakening, that 'we are becoming tired and dejected. They can see here today," the president said as he gestured toward the mass of faces, flags and banners, "exactly what a weak and dispirited revolution they areconfronting."
In the days preceding the May I celebration, Havana was pulsating with a spontaneous militancy and an almost tangible fever. Reacting to last month's takeover of the Peruvian embassy by some 10,000 dissidents and to the ongoing sealift from the port of Mariel, the overwhelming majority of the Cuban people are now taking to the streets to proclaim their support for the revolutionary government and to vent their rage at those who are deserting the cause. This city is festooned with posters, many of them hand-lettered, which denounce "parasites, delinquents, scum and yanquis."
On walks through both the old and modern sections of Havana, this reporter encountered several impromptu demonstrations outside the homes of individuals who have applied for visas to leave Cuba. "Aqui vive un triador" (Here lives a traitor), read a painted banner strung between two pillars in front of one apartment house. The would-be emigre—identified on a sign as "Samuel Rodriguez, apartment 11"—was depicted in a drawing asa slithering worm, or "gusano"—the term applied-to-the approximately 500,000 people who fled to the U.S., during the early years of the revolution. The shuttered windows of apartment 11, which faces onto a street just off the seaside Malecon road, had been pelted with eggs, watermelons and garbage.
The melee that erupted outside the U.S. Interest Section here May 2, when hundreds of Cubans battled a group of former prisoners demanding exit visas, can thus be viewed as a larger and more vehement manifestation of a general attitude of resentment and disgust toward these "antisocial elements." Castro had noted in his May Day speech that these ex-prisoners might be planning some kind of protest at the U.S. compound. Crowds of Cubans were nearby the interest section during the morning of May 2, and when the visa-seekers began chanting"Abajo Castro" (Down with Fidel), the fight broke out. Clearly, there is a great deal of tension and zeal in Havana
CHOOSING SIDES
"This is a very critical period in the history of the Cuban revolution," says Rafael Quinones, a medical student and jazz musician who returned here from Chicago in 1960. "The people are deciding now which side it is they are really on. Are we going to give up and join with the imperialists or are we going to stay and build this new society? That's what the people are asking now."
"We have been quietly striving to overcome our difficulties and inefficiencies," Castro stated on May Day. "We have been working to solve the diverse problems of our revolutionary process. We have also been fulfilling our internationalist commitments in Africa, in 35 nations around the world and in Nicaragua where we have 29,500 volunteers helping to reconstruct a country. That's the Cuban people," he declared, "not the antisocial elements who entered the Peruvian embassy."
But who exactly are these "antisocial elements?" Are they all the "lumpens, criminals, delinquents and scum"excoriated in thousands of posters and in official publications? Are they really like the rats and cockroaches who are caricatured on one billboard as diving into a red-white-and-blue garbage can decorated with dollar signs? And why are they leaving Cuba—because of political persecution or out of economic motivations?
Interviews with Cuban officials, with independent observers, with supporters of the revolution and with some of the "antisocial elements" themselves provide a basis for at least an initial assessment of this phenomenon.
First, the Cuban Communist Party and government have offered their own analyses of the reasons for the embassy takeover and the subsequent sea shuttle from Mariel to Key West. In a document published April 7, the Cuban government traces the history of events leading to the embassy seizure and it sets forth its own position on the current situation.
Those wishing to leave Cuba for the U.S. or any Latin American or Western European nation have always been free to go to the respective embassy and apply for the necessary visa, the publication explains. Many countries, including Peru and Venezuela, refuse to grant authorization for immigration, it continues. Instead, officials at the embassies of those two countries encouraged the unsuccessful applicants to resort to other methods in order to embarass Cuba and to create an impression that only through violent break-ins and takeovers would dissidents be able to leave this country.
A series of gate-crashings then ensued at both embassies, the document explains. In the most recent of these, at the Peruvian facility on April 2, a Cuban guard was killed. The government then announced that it was withdrawing its protection from the embassy, clearly implying that anyone who wished to leave Cuba could enter the grounds of the installation.
"Why was it that the antisocial elements picked the embassies of Venezuela and Peru?" Castro asked on May Day. "We can't forget that it was with the aid of Venezuela that the criminals carried out the monstrous act of Barbados." (A reference to the 1977 mid-air bombing of a Cubana airliner carrying 74 passengers, engineered by individuals now imprisoned in Venezuela whom the Caracas government refuses to try or to extradite to Cuba.)
"We can't forget," the Cuban leader noted, "that it was the navy of Peru which sunk two of our fishing boats in 1977. And we can't forget that it was Peru which unilaterally cancelled the contract for construction of 20 tuna boats by Cuba.
The April 7 document goes on to denounce those who accepted the Peruvian maneuver as "lumpens—parasites in the great majority—antisocial elements." But in a front-page box entitled "News from Mariel" in the April 27 edition of,Granma, the daily newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, the description and definition of the emigres is modified somewhat.
CHASING ILLUSIONS
"Antisocial elements are generally lumpen elements, loafers, parasites, criminals and potential criminals, addicts, etc.," the Granma statement says. "Relatives of Cubans residing in the U.S. are also travelling and are not necessarily lumpen elements," the story adds. "They are, however, generally persons with no sense of national identity and no attachment to their country: They long for the Yankee 'paradise' and are filled with false illusions about that egotistical, ruthless society... . Granma therefore will continue to refer to them all as antisocial elements."
Castro elaborated a bit more on this theme in his May Day speech. "Unfortunately," he said, "some of the people in the Peruvian embassy brought with them young children. We are not going to say that children are lumpen elements.' It is most unfortunate that these people should want to deprive their children of our excellent schools, our fine health care and our bright promise for the future."
The Cuban president also referredt`o reports in the U.S. media that some of the arriving refugees are in fact persons with criminal records. "They are finding out that these people are really lumpens after all," he said.
The April 7 document contains one passage that has caused considerable consternation in the progressive gay community in the U. S. and elsewhere. "While out country does not discriminate against or persecute homosexuals in any way," the publication states, "there are homosexuals among those in the Peruvian embassy, as well as gamblers and drug addicts who are not able to give free rein to their vices here."
With the exception of this initial reference to homosexuals, the government has not singled out gay men or lesbians as components of the antisocial elements. Only two hand-lettered signs denouncing "los homosexuelos" were seen by this reporter among the thousands of posters in Havana.
"You must understand that the attitude toward homosexuality here reflects a culture much different than your own," said an official with the Cuban Institute for Friendship among Peoples (ICAP) who was interviewed by the Guardian May 2. "We saw homosexuality in an incorrect way during the early years of the revolution," he continued. "The revolution made a terrible mistake in 1964 in establishing agricultural reeducation camps for gay people. Nowadays, homosexuals are not at all repressed unless they behave in a scandalous manner.
"A man is not permitted to dress as awoman, and people of the same sex are not allowed to kiss in public," the ICAP official explained. "Yes, there are probably some homosexuals in the Peruvian embassy because they do not feel comfortable in this society. You should know that the situation here is not like your own country where many homosexuals are progressives. Here, a majority of gay people are not revolutionary—are in fact sometimes counterrevolutionary."
A man in his late 40s waiting outside the U. S. Interest Section here for an exit visa meanwhile told the Guardian his own reasons for wishing to leave the country. "I have relatives in Florida and other places in the U.S.," he said. "I have seen and heard about their lives. They have things like a car and good clothes that it is impossible to obtain here in Cuba. I do not see why I should continue to make sacrifices when these others in the States have all these things. I want them, too, before I die."
EXILE VISITS A FACTOR
Other Cuban officials and militant supporters of the revolution point out that the visits to Cuba by relatives from the U.S. in recent years probably account to an important degree for the Mariel exodus. "There's been a very negative impact," a member of a local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution acknowledged in an interview last week. "Many of the relatives have come wearing three or four dresses underneath their regular clothes, carrying appliances and all sorts of lavish gifts. They tell people here that life in the U.S. is like being in a consumer heaven. So some people here decide they don't want to sacrifice anymore for the sake of the revolutionand they leave."
The ICAP official also cited this year's blight on the tobacco and sugar cane crops as an additional motivation for the visa demands. "We haven't at all tried to hide our economic difficulties," he said. "The people are aware of the problems and of the effects of the U.S. blockade. They know that making the revolution is going to require more years of hard work and sacrifice. Those that don't think it's worth it or who want the blue jeans and the tape recorders and the other garbage, we say 'que se vayan'—`good riddance.' "
Despite the crop difficulties, Havana and parts of rural Cuba do not seem worse off economically than two years ago. Every Cuban interviewed said there had been no appreciable change in rationing allocations, while the lines outside food stores appear—if anything—shorter than previously. Housing and factory construction sites are commonplace here and in the Pinar Del Rio Province.
More than any indigenous factor, the 20 year-old U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba is responsible for the economic problems facing this developing nation which has lived in the shadow of imperialism for 300 years. The ICAP official cited as a particularly pernicious example of-the blockade's effects the U.S. refusal to purchase any machinery or product from any country that contains Cuban nickel. Cuba has been striving in recent years to tap its abundant nickel reserves as part of the strategy to industrialize and reduce the country's heavy dependence on sugar cane exports, the ICAP official explained.
Saluting the Cuban people for their 21 years of revolutionary dedication for their manifest determination to continue their struggle, Castro told the May Day assemblage "We showed at Playa Giron [the Bay of Pigs] that imperialism is not invincible. We showed that it can be defeated when the people are organized and militant. We are showing the same thing again here today. We will again defeat imperialism by transforming this enormous energy and commitment into the productive capacity to overcome our difficulties."