Cuba as a communist success? If by 'success 'you mean a complete and utter failure, and it's a disgrace that people will vacation there, then yes it's a 'success'.If Canada didn't let her citizens travel abroad, we would be screaming bloody murder. If Cuba does it, it's considered OK and a 'success'.
Type cuban and political oppression at google. I hope you have time, because it is not a nice place.
In fact, it's too bad the US (and Canada) isn't a little more proactive. Arm the Cuban people, and let them destroy Castro. I'd pay good $$$ for that.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2000/countryratings/cuba.htm
Cuba
Polity: Communist one-party Political Rights: 7
Civil Liberties: 7
Status: Not Free
Economy: Statist
Population: 11,200,000
PPP: $3,100
Life Expectancy: 75
Ethnic Groups: Mulatto (51 percent), White (37 percent), Black (11 percent), Chinese (1 percent)
Capital: Havana
Overview
In 1999 repression appeared on the upswing again in Fidel Castro’s Cuba, as a draconian new “anti-subversive” law was promulgated, the small independent press targeted for harassment and harsh prison terms, and more than 40 dissidents detained on the eve of a November summit of Ibero-American leaders in Havana. The world’s longest-ruling tyrant hosted a number of U.S. groups, including the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, and delegations of prominent American businessmen, the latter seeking an end to the U.S. economic embargo of the island in place since 1960. At year-end the fate of a 6-year-old Cuban refugee named Elian Gonzalez created a new and uncertain dynamic in the legal and political relationship between Havana and Washington, D.C.
Cuba achieved independence from Spain in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American War. The Republic of Cuba was established in 1902, but was under U.S. tutelage under the Platt Amendment until 1934. In 1959 Castro’s July 26th Movement—named after an earlier, failed insurrection—overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled for 18 of the previous 25 years.
Since then, Fidel Castro has dominated the Cuban political system, transforming it into a one-party state. Communist structures were institutionalized by the 1976 constitution installed at the first congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC). The constitution provides for a national assembly which, in theory, designates a Council of State which in turn appoints a Council of Ministers in consultation with its president, who serves as head of state and chief of government.
In reality, Castro is responsible for every appointment. As president of the Council of Ministers, chairman of the Council of State, commander in chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and first secretary of the PCC, Castro controls every lever of power in Cuba. The PCC is the only authorized political party, and it controls all governmental entities from the national to the municipal level.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which subsidized the Cuban economy, Castro has sought Western foreign investment. Most investment has come from Europe and Latin America, but those funds have not made up for the $5 billion in annual Soviet subsidies. The government claims the economy has rebounded in the past three years, but the “special period” austerity program, involving drastic cutbacks in energy consumption and tight rationing of food and consumer items, remains in place.
The legalization of the U.S. dollar since 1993 has heightened social tensions, as the minority with access to dollars from abroad or through the tourist industry has emerged as a new moneyed class and the desperation of the majority without has increased. State salaries have shrunk to $4 or less a month.
The cycles of repression Castro has unleashed with increasing frequency against opponents, meant to keep at bay social forces set into motion by his economic reforms, continued throughout 1997. Stepped-up actions against peaceful dissidents preceded the Fifth Congress of the PCC held in October 1997, as well as elections the same month to the National Assembly of Popular Power. Two small bomb explosions at hotels in Havana on July 13, 1997, also provided a pretext for action against peaceful opposition groups, which Cuban authorities tried to link to terrorist activities.
Neither the Fifth Congress, where one-party rule was reaffirmed, nor the one-party national elections provided any surprises. Castro proudly pointed to a reported 95 percent turnout at the polls; critics noted that non-participation could be construed as dissent—and many people were afraid of the consequences of being so identified.
The year 1997 also saw the remains of the Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara—eulogized by Castro as an enduring symbol of the socialist “New Man”—repatriated from Bolivia. At the Communist Party congress, Castro alluded to his own mortality and went on to bequeath to the nation his own handpicked successor—his brother, Vice President Raul Castro.
In the aftermath of the visit of Pope John Paul II, January 21-25, 1998, the number of dissidents confirmed to be imprisoned dropped from 1,320 in 1996, to 381 in mid-June, 1998. Part of the decline was due to the release of 140 of 300 prisoners held for political activities or common crimes whose freedom was sought by the pontiff.
In 1999, the brief thaw turned chilly. In February, the government introduced tough legislation against sedition, with a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. It included penalties against unauthorized contacts with the United States and the import or supply of “subversive” materials—including texts on democracy—by news agencies and journalists. In March a court used the new law in sentencing four well-known dissidents to prison terms of up to five years. Castro used the occasion of the Ibero-American summit, which was boycotted by several Latin American leaders, to lash out at Cuba’s small band of vocal dissidents and members of the independent press.
******************************
Real successful.
Email this thread to someone!
posted 27 February 2003 11:55 PM
) is the trademark of countries that have "developed" so much that there is a need for "fast" food. 
