LETTER FROM SANTIAGO DE CUBA:FROM THE elevated balcony bar of the Hotel Casa Granda on the eastern side of Parque Céspedes you have a privileged view of all the bustle below in the balmy plaza at the colonial heart of Santiago de Cuba, the country's second city, which lies at the Caribbean end of the island, almost as far as you can get from Havana.
Across from the hotel, on the square’s west side, is the house of conquistador Diego Velásquez, one of Cuba’s oldest buildings and now a museum of many rooms with furniture and decorations from different periods. On the south side stands the magnificent Catedral de Nuestra Senora de Asunción, on which site a church has stood since 1522.
On the north side of the square is the Ayuntamiento, or town hall, from whose balcony Fidel announced in January 1st, 1959, the triumph of the revolution, and from which more recently Raul, his brother and successor, led the 50th annual commemoration celebrations of that victory.
And then there’s the grand hotel from which we are looking out across the old square, which has itself an interesting past.
When writer Graham Greene visited Santiago in 1957 it was a city under siege as rebels closed in from the surrounding Sierra Maestra Mountains. Greene, who had previously worked for Her Majesty’s secret service, was in town to make contact with representatives of Fidel Castro. He wrote that “the smell of the police station lay over the city”. He said screams could be heard from one particular police station and that a man’s body was often found in the mornings hanging from a lamp post. “He was one of the lucky ones.”
Greene had been warned in Havana by Castro supporters that Santiago “was full of spies, especially the hotel where I would be staying”. He didn’t say which hotel, but it is clear from his description that it was the Casa Granda, from which he emerged fretfully for cloak-and-dagger rendezvous with rebel leaders, including the revolution’s tragic heroine, Haydée Santamaría.
It was little more than a year on from Greene's visit that a victorious Fidel addressed the crowd from the Ayuntamiento.
With all these reminders of Cuba’s turbulent past in view from the long and elegant balcony of the Casa Granda, beneath its hanging plants, balustrades, chandeliers and colourful awnings, as this year comes to a close this seems as good a place as any to consider Cuba’s future.
Early next year President Raul Castro and the Communist Party Congress will hold a key review of the wide-ranging changes he has initiated and proposed over the past two years. Among these, the privatisation of underused state farm land, which has allowed private individuals to farm them, is reported to have been a success. Following on from that, all farms have now been authorised to sell directly to buyers other than the state, such as hotels.
A more problematic area for the review involves the decision last year to cut the number of public sector workers by more than half a million. Some of these have moved into the private sector where they have opened up small businesses such as cafes and restaurants. Bank loans are now planned for such ventures into private enterprise. On the negative side, workers here for the first time fear redundancy.
More recent changes, such as those which allow individuals to sell and buy cars and more importantly, houses, will prove interesting for any review, especially regarding who is buying the properties, many of whom are expected to be foreigners and exiles.
The most urgent review desired by Cubans is the removal of the malign influences of the twin-currency of the Convertible Peso (CUC) used by tourists and the Cuban peso used by most Cubans. Stan, a security guard, earns 260 Cuban pesos per month, the equivalent of just under 11 CUC, yet shoes will cost him 14 CUC. A tourist taxi driver can earn three times Stan’s monthly pay in a few hours.
Another planned change, one desired greatly by younger people in particular, is the promised loosening of restrictions to allow Cubans to travel abroad freely as tourists. It is speculated that the review may give the go-ahead for new legislation on this.
Meanwhile on the US front, little is expected to change. Hopes vested in the Obama administration have petered out. The least-worst outcome is now seen as his return to office.
The one hopeful sign of positive changes for Cubans comes via the Catholic Church, which is now the largest organisation in Cuba apart from the Communist Party. Some 60 per cent of Cubans identify themselves as Catholic. Last year the church played a vital role in negotiating the release of more than 50 political prisoners and President Castro attended the opening of a Catholic seminary outside Havana – the first such opening since the revolution – along with church leaders from Florida. Early next year Pope Benedict will make an official visit to the island.
The archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega, a key figure in the new Catholic/Communist dispensation, supports Raul Castro's efforts to reform the economy and increase individual freedoms. As the Pope prepares for his trip to the island next spring, what might the ghost of "Catholic" writer Graham Greene say of this unlikely rapprochementbetween church and state? Perhaps a wry variation on the old Mexican lament: Poor Cuba, so close to God, so far from the United States.
