Posted on 06/26/2002 2:18:25 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA - Rejecting Washington's demands that Cuba embrace capitalism, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told hundreds of fellow lawmakers that consecrating socialism in the constitution could help the current system survive after Fidel Castro and his brother Raul die.
Perez Roque's unusual public reference to the mortality of both Cuba's president and his designated successor came Tuesday night, on the eve of a third day examining a constitutional change that would declare Cuba's economic, political and social systems to be "untouchable."
The National Assembly's discussion of the amendment, backed in speeches over two days by nearly 100 lawmakers, comes as Cuba feels increased pressure from at home and abroad to carry out democratic reforms.
There was some public discussion of Fidel Castro's inevitable death a year ago after he briefly fainted in the broiling sun. But Perez Roque's frank acknowledgment of the eventual deaths of both Castro brothers - and their entire generation of original revolutionaries - was rare.
The proposed constitutional amendment is "key," said Perez Roque, to "what we do when the generation that carried out the revolution, and the command of it today, the generation of Fidel, of Raul ... is no longer with us."
"The key is not to be disarmed of our ideas," said the foreign minister, who at 37 is among the youngest of the ranking officials in the communist government.
While many speakers referred to the corruption, poverty, and racial discrimination of Cuba before the 1959 revolution that brought the Castro brothers to power, Perez Roque used another country as a point of reference.
The foreign minister noted that the Soviet Union collapsed "even though 75 percent of the population had supported a referendum against dissolution just a few months before."
Fidel Castro, who will be 76 in August, and Raul Castro, the 71-year-old defense minister, presided over the gathering of nearly 600 National Assembly deputies gathered for the special session. They both are also members of parliament.
Cuban President Fidel Castro, center, speaks with members of the Cuban Legislative Assembly during the second day of a two-day special session aimed at permanently enshrining socialism in their national constitution, in Havana on Tuesday, June 25, 2002. (AP Photo/Cristobal Herrera)
The session originally was expected to take two days, but on Tuesday evening National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon announced that the session - and a nationwide work stoppage - would continue into Wednesday. The government has closed banks, schools and most offices and factories so citizens can follow the sessions, which are being broadcast live on state television.
The government says the proposed amendment is its answer to U.S. President George W. Bush's refusal last month to lift American trade and travel restrictions until the Caribbean island undertakes reforms including multiparty elections.
The measure also appears to be Castro's effort to undermine the Varela Project, a homegrown effort to organize a referendum on the question of reform, said opposition activists and a Latin America specialist who traveled here with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter last month.
"No other country, to my knowledge, has ever tried to make any part of their constitution impossible to change," said Robert Pastor, a political science professor from Emory University.
"This may be a sign that they view Varela as a threat and are trying to pulverize it," said Pastor, who sat in on Carter's meetings with Castro and other high-ranking officials. "If so, this is a sign not of strength, but of fear."
In a telephone interview from Atlanta, Pastor said he had been a delegation adviser and could not speak for the former president's Carter Center, which has not commented on Cuba's proposed amendment.
Pastor said the delegation had extensive talks with senior officials about the Varela Project, which seeks a referendum on whether Cuba should embark on reforms such as freedom of expression and the right to own a business.
A few days before Carter arrived, organizers delivered a petition with 11,000 signatures to the National Assembly. But most Cubans had never heard about the homegrown effort until Carter mentioned it in a speech here. Six weeks later, the unicameral parliament has not responded.
"Does Mr. Bush really think that he will return to sink us in this hell of injustice?" Alarcon asked. "Does he imagine for a moment that we are going to turn over to that corrupt and criminal mafia our lands, our homes, our factories, our schools and hospitals, our research and cultural centers, our child care centers, our retirement homes?" he said. "Does he perhaps suppose that Cubans will renounce the work they have realized, that they will turn over their sovereignty, betray their history and their nation?" Alarcon said.***
The Cuban political system survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and European communist governments. Cuban leaders take credit for this political success. Domestic political instability has declined compared to the early 1990s. The economy has recovered since 1993. The policy changes adopted for this recovery worked as the leadership had hoped. The economy has not regained its level of the late 1980s, and it was hurt by the worldwide recession in 2001-2002, but Cuban leaders believe that the worst is over. Moreover, they believe that no new significant economic reforms are necessary because the recovery remains on course.***
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