Havana, Cuba
By Mark Potter, NBC News Correspondent
HAVANA – In the past two months, Cuba has seen more economic and social changes than in recent decades. By the standards of other countries they are not all that dramatic, but in Cuba they are heralded as important openings in a country that has long appeared to be frozen in time. For Cuban citizens, who have been given something new to talk about, the question now is, what's next?
Much has been made recently about Raul Castro relaxing some of the restrictions that were instituted and held in place by his now-ailing brother, Fidel. It comes about a year after he asked the Cuban people to register their complaints about the economy and the standard of living on the communist island.
Cubans, it turns out, had plenty to grouse about: overcrowded buses, pathetically low salaries, poor service at health clinics, dilapidated housing, travel restrictions, shortages in food markets and pharmacies and a dual-currency system where Cubans who get dollars and euros from tourists or relatives abroad live much more comfortably than Cubans struggling to make ends meet with Cuban pesos.
In a series of announcements, the Cuban government recently raised pensions and certain salaries a bit and tried to address some of the other problems. As one official put it, it's an attempt to "make life a little easier."
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Havana Bureau Chief
HAVANA – What a difference a year can make!
Cuba’s International Worker’s Day parade last year had the air of a funeral. The Communist Party faithful had gathered all night expecting to see Fidel Castro when they marched through Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution. But they left disappointed – the man who had ruled Cuba for almost half a century had still not recovered from the intestinal surgery that almost killed him and was a no-show at the parade.
But today as thousands gathered for the annual May Day parade wearing red shirts and waving red flags, thoughts of Fidel were likely far from people’s minds.
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| Reuters |
| Cuba's President Raul Castro attends the May Day parade at Havana's Revolution Square. |
Since he permanently vacated the presidency five months ago and handed power over to his younger brother, Raul Castro has made his mark with his different governing style and realistic eye on the island’s serious problems.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Havana Bureau Chief
Cubans can strike another complaint off their laundry list of grievances about life’s daily grind.
Sunday night, the Cuban government ended its decade-old ban against ordinary people staying at tourist hotels and renting cars. This is Raul Castro’s third edict in less than a month aimed at loosening government controls over consumer spending.
Previous rulings allowed any Cuban to buy a cell phone and pay for cell phone service and anyone with enough money in their pocket to walk into a government store and legally buy electronic items like computers, microwave ovens and DVD players.
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| Roberto Leon / NBC News |
| Bellhop opens door to the Hotel Nacional de Cuba in Havana. |
The old regime of Raul’s brother Fidel Castro strictly limited these luxury items to foreigners or the upper echelon of Cuban society holding privileged jobs. The only way regular consumers gained access had been through purchases on the black market.
Lucy Alvarez, a retired electrical engineer who learned to cut hair to supplement her pension, doesn’t expect to take advantage of her new economic freedoms anytime soon. "We live hand-to-mouth," she said.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez has something to say and she thinks the government is trying to gag her.
For the past 11 months the 32-year-old cyber rebel has ruthlessly disparaged life on the socialist island in her "Generation Y" blog, tackling taboo topics like the country’s aging leadership and what she sees as Raul Castro’s "vague promises of change.".
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| Roberto Leon/ NBC News |
| Cuban blogger Yoanis Sanchez works on her computer. |
She even called for Fidel Castro’s resignation months before he issued it and sarcastically suggested that the next ruler should be a "pragmatic housewife" instead of a soldier, charismatic leader or a great orator.
Since last Thursday, Sanchez charges, Internet users in Cuba are experiencing difficulty logging on to her web site.
She is convinced government censors added filtering software to her page to intentionally slow down the connection.
"So, the anonymous censors of our famished cyberspace have tried to shut me in a room, turn off the light and not let my friends in," Sanchez blogged on Monday.
"It won’t work," she vowed. "This is just fuel for my fire."
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
On Thursday,
Cuba authorized the unrestricted sale of computers, DVD and video players and other appliances in a move that’s being seen as an effort by Cuba’s new leader, Raul Castro, to appease some of the grumbling by residents of the island.
Cuban consumers have complained for years that there is not much here to buy.
The sale in government-run stores of most electrical appliances and electronics have been carefully controlled for years – in many cases restricting their sale to foreigners and Cuba's diplomatic community.
That hasn't meant, of course, that people didn’t get their hands on electronic goods. Almost anything here can be bought – mostly at exorbitant prices – on Cuba's flourishing black market.
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By Mark Potter, NBC News Correspondent
HAVANA – During many visits to Cuba over the last two decades, I have never heard so many everyday Cubans openly criticizing life on the island as I did during this last trip to cover Raul Castro officially taking over the presidency from his ailing brother, Fidel.
There have long been Cuban dissidents and independent journalists challenging the socialist government and suffering for their beliefs. The difference now is that common citizens are starting to raise their voices a bit, at least on economic issues.
In past years, such public complaining would have been punished and was rarely heard. People have always griped here, as they do everywhere else in the world, but in Cuba it used to be done much more discreetly, usually after looking both ways to make sure no one from the government was listening.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
Cuba’s rulers seem to have pulled off what many would have considered unthinkable just a few years ago – a systematic and tidy transfer of power from one Castro to the next.
For ages, Cuba watchers feared that the island would either unravel or erupt when Fidel Castro stepped down. Some predicted a political power struggle would ensue, sparking thousands to flee across the Florida Straits on homemade or smuggler’s boats. Others envisioned Cubans flooding the streets to demand democratic freedoms denied under socialist rule.
Instead, when Raúl Castro officially took over the presidency Sunday, the nation serenely went about its daily business.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
Cubans voted Sunday in national parliamentary elections — the first step toward determining whether Fidel Castro will continue as the country’s president or retire after almost 50 years in power.
The ailing Cuban leader — who has not been seen in public for about 18 months — is running for one of the 614 seats on the national legislature, making him eligible to run for president.
That presidential vote takes place Feb. 24, when the newly-elected Parliament holds its first session to elect the executive Council of State and then ratify the president.
If Fidel Castro is again elected president, his term runs for five years — making him 86 years old when his mandate would end in 2013.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
Five years ago, Ian Padrón made a documentary about Cuban baseball and ran afoul of government censors.
He took government money from the Cuban Film Institute and told a story about Cuban baseball, "Out of this League" ("Fuera de Liga").
In his daring piece of work, Padrón touched on a number of taboo subjects. He looked at the tough conditions players face on the island and included interviews with athletic icons who defected to the United States to play Major League Baseball.
No surprise, government censors considered it too controversial for the Cuban public. So it ended up on a shelf – barred from playing in state-run theaters or on television.
Which can often backfire in communist Cuba – anything censored often becomes an overnight success. Cubans love nothing better than passing around forbidden material.
In fact, "Out of this League" became one of the hottest pieces of contraband circulating on Cuba’s underground market. Lots of people here in Cuba saw the 68-minute film.
Still, Padrón was frustrated.
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| AFP/Getty Images |
| Cubans play baseball in a park in Havana. |
"My work deserved a wider audience. I always argued that the Cuban public is more than capable of debating our reality," said Padrón.
Finally, someone in authority seemed to agree with him.
Out of the blue, "Out of this League" aired on Saturday night primetime TV – making television history here.
It’s not often government censors change their minds.
It also marks the first time state-owned television ran images of defectors, considered turncoats by the Cuban government.
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By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer
PERICO, Cuba – This tiny town is in mourning this holiday season.
Forty residents of Perico, some 100 miles southeast of Havana, are believed dead,
drowned at sea on a failed smuggling operation.
The group, which included somewhere between nine and 12 children, set off in the pre-dawn hours on Saturday, Nov. 24, and was expected to be dropped off in the Florida Keys by Sunday.
No one has heard from them since.
"People leave here all the time but they always make it to land, somewhere," said Maria Galban, waiting for some word about the fate of her brother Jorge, his wife and two children, aged 10 and 19.
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| Roberto León / NBC News |
| Maria Galban looks despondent while explaining that she doesn’t know the fate of her brother, sister-in-law, and their two children since they set off in a boat for the U.S. |
This was Jorge’s fourth attempt to leave the island. Twice he ended up in the Bahamas, only to be extradited back to Cuba. On one of those occasions, he spent four months in a Bahamian immigration detention center. Another time, Cuban Border Guards stopped him in local waters.
"He always came back to us. We always heard something," Galban said, as she wept.
Her only consolation comes from living in a relatively small town of approximately 31,000 residents where neighbors treat everyone like family. People say the entire town shares in the collective grief of losing so many people at one time.
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