Posted on 07/27/2005 7:40:56 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
HAVANA - President Fidel Castro said Tuesday his government was revolutionizing Cuba's aging electrical system, asking a nation weary of recent breakdowns to be patient while his government works to fix the problems.
Summer heat in the 90s and hours-long blackouts that stop fans and water pumps and cause refrigerated food to spoil have increasingly irritated Cubans and led to reports of small, sporadic protests and scattered anti-government graffiti. While occasional blackouts are common every summer, Cubans say these are the most frequent and longest of recent years.
"We will overcome. Have a little bit of faith," the Cuban leader said in an address of nearly four hours marking the 52nd anniversary of his revolution. It celebrated his 1953 attack on a military barracks, but he did not come to power for another 5 1/2 years on Jan. 1, 1959.
The address before a select group of government faithful and foreign supporters inside Havana's Karl Marx Theater was an unusually controlled gathering that contrasted with the large assembling of masses usually organized for the main July 26 celebration.
Castro said the island's economy grew 7.3 percent in the first half of 2005, and recent attempts to depict Cuba as being in crisis were fabrications by the communist nation's enemies.
"No other revolutionary process has been able to count on as much consensus and overwhelming support as the Cuban revolution has," he said.
Castro also defended the detentions of dozens of opponents during a recent pair of public protests.
He said the government would respond the same way "as long as traitors and mercenaries go one millimeter beyond what the revolutionary people — whose destiny and lives are at risk going up against the most inhumane empire — are willing to permit."
The audience, including hundreds of Americans who arrived this week with a humanitarian aid shipment, cheered Castro and waved large red, white and blue Cuban flags.
Castro also criticized international media based in Cuba, accusing some journalists of siding with the American government "and working in full complicity with the office of the U.S. Interests Section to misinform and deceive the world about the Cuban reality."
The current power crisis is among the more serious domestic challenges faced in recent years by Castro, who turns 79 next month and has been in power for 46 years.
"There is complete consciousness of the dissatisfactions, insufficiencies, shortages and, above all, of the challenges we must overcome ahead," Pedro Saez, the Communist Party chieftain for Havana, said in the party's Granma newspaper Tuesday.
The crisis cost Cuba's minister of basic energy his job a year ago when Castro discovered the severity of the problems. Since then, more than $500 million has been invested to upgrade aging infrastructure and replace broken parts.
Although Castro has encouraged his people to have faith, residents in Old Havana say numerous anti-government writings have appeared on walls around the neighborhood — only to be quickly painted over in the early morning hours by state workers.
Several recent opposition protests were met by much larger groups of government supporters drowning them out with revolutionary slogans and patriotic songs.
"The government knows that these activities by the opposition could play a role in sparking ... commotion," said activist Elizardo Sanchez of the non-governmental Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation.
In other news, the little fat guy is still in charge in North Korea. Of course it hasn't been as hot over there. VIVA LA REVOLUCION!!!
Mexican supporters of the Cuban revolution march in the 52nd anniversary of the assault of the Cuartel Moncada on Tuesday July 26, 2005, in Mexico City. Tuesday marks the anniversary of the armed assault, led by Castro, on a military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago, de Cuba, setting off the revolution that triumphed on New Year's Day of 1959.(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Your tax and/or charity dollars at work.
Well yeah, infrastructure problems tend to crop up when you're so stupid you keep your own revolution going for fifty years, even while you're running the country.
What the Cuban people need is a lot of pound cake. I'm sending some frozen Sara Lee pound cakes over there right now!
Chances are, it cost him his life too. I'll bet Hillary would make a grrrrrreaaaat energy minister, and have this all fixed in a jiffy.
That's what you get for hiring Gray Davis.
I will admit I don't know much about the internal workings of Cuba- but I would like some enlightenment.
Just HOW BIG is Castro's army- and how is it able to repress the majority if the majority of Cubans truly do want freedom? Are Castro's soldiers living so much better than their fellow Cubans that they would not help in a revolution if one starts? Where does loyalty to Castro come from?
Are Castro's supporters so much better off than the regular citizens that they don't suffer when power goes off and there are shortages? Are they so many that the common Cubans can't just get enough and overwhelm them by sheer numbers?
Are the majority of Cubans there so beaten down, or truly so communist in their thinking, that they have no will to overthrow Castro?
Just how does a 79year old keep his country in the 1950's and have it deteriorate to the point Cuba has for this long?
Any Cuban Freepers who can educate me on this?
I had an uncle by marriage who was from Cuba. He left there in the 20's, worked as a jockey for the Mellon family in Pennsylvania and met my Aunt when he raced here, then married her. A more dear or sweet human being has never lived than my Uncle Manuel.
I wish I had asked him more about Cuba while he was alive. He still had family there and he visited up until the 50's I think. He always came back sad for what had happened to his home and prayed hard for the Cuban people to overthrow Castro. He would never have believed they would still be suffering this long. I can't either.
"No other revolutionary process has been able to count on as much consensus and overwhelming support as the Cuban revolution has," he said.
OK, this may be a dumb question, but at what point does a "revolution" become the "establishment"?
"OK, this may be a dumb question, but at what point does a "revolution" become the "establishment"?"
When a society is so cowed into submission and they simply think, "Ay de mi, how much longer can this twittering old windbag continue to live."
"I'm sending some frozen Sara Lee pound cakes over there right now!"
In theory it sounds very much like a sincere humanitarian gesture. But,...dagnabit you'll have 'em all in their inner tubes and washtubs once they get a flavor for the stuff.
How much does one of those cakes weigh anyhow? ;0)
For decades now little fidel has promised that prosperity for the cubans was right around the corner. Looks to me like he is continuing to run the country into the dirt.
I guess he will open the gates of the insane asylums and prisons and send the crazies here again.Sort of take the cork out of the pressure cooker.
How can the cubans not raise up and kill this turd?
Why does the media insist on calling him "president" Castro?
He's about as king as one can get.
They do the same thing with all of the dictators in the world.
Whatever happened to Baghdad Bob?
Did he move to France?
So Cuba's GDP should be about $50 trillion by now.
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