From: ez007856@hamlet.ucdavis.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Subject: Castro
Date: 29 Sep 92 03:57:06 GMT
Organization: Computing Services, UC Davis

Alguien me mando esa noticia que me parece interesante:


   HAVANA (AP) -- For Fidel Castro's domestic critics, it is no surprise that
the many predictions of his imminent downfall have not been borne out.
   The forceful leader of Cuba's 33-year-old Communist regime retains
substantial support, his grip on power still firm despite a deepening economic
crisis. Castro should be around for a long time to come, dissidents say.
   "The government is in a position to stay in control for years -- if nothing
unforeseen happens," said one of Castro's most prominent critics, Elizardo
Sanchez, president of the Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation.
   A former professor of Marxism, Sanchez has spent 25 years opposing Castro --
and more than eight of the last 11 years in prison for criticizing the system
the dictator built after leading the revolution that toppled the right-wing
Batista government in 1959.
   Sanchez said change is inevitable in Cuba, where communism is "very
vulnerable," too dependent on Castro's personal charisma and weakened by the
loss of political and economic support from the defunct Soviet bloc.
   "No one can say a serious social confrontation won't happen in a week," he
said, although it isn't likely.
   "The government is completely capable of maintaining an almost absolute
social control," he said in a recent interview in his home, where a dining room
serves as the office for his small organization.
   More than a year ago, prominent analysts at a host of foreign research
centers and the U.S. State Department were saying Castro's demise was a matter
of months. Sanchez said he disagreed then and still does.
   "The government in Cuba still has significant support among a good portion
of the population ... and has influence over a great extent of the population,"
he said.
   Castro has staunchly resisted the wave of Western-style democratic reform
that swept away his Soviet bloc allies, depriving him of billions of dollars in
trade and aid.
   Facing the worst crisis since he took power in 1959, he has urged his
country's 10.8 million citizens to accept unprecendented sacrifice, including
severe rationing of basic food items, the shutdown of many factories and the
replacement of cars, trucks and tractors with bicycles and oxen.
   Sanchez said the state is "trying to buy time, hoping for some miracle,"
such as a crisis in Latin America or a reverse for democratic forces in eastern
Europe.
   He contends more and more Cubans are taking exception with Castro's
inflexible stance, but he says they are kept in check by increasing repression.
Several dissidents have been arrested and tried in recent months, receiving
unusually harsh prison sentences of up to 15 years.
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Edelmiro Salas           |\.                     | "Estimo a quien de un reves
easalas@ucdavis.edu      |  \--------------------| 
Dept. of Spanish         |    \.                 | Echa por tierra a un tirano
University of California |../\..\----------------| 
Davis, CA 95616          | \../  >               | Lo estimo si es un cubano
"Puerto Rico y Cuba son  | //\\./----------------| 
de un pajaro las dos alas|   ./                  | Lo estimo si aragones"
reciben flores o balas   | ./--------------------| 
sobre un mismo corazon"  |/                      | --Jose' Marti'
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