By Bob Van Leer

  (CANCUN, MEXICO, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2000) - We arrived in Can Cun this afternoon after the short flight from Havana and will be spending overnight before departing tomorrow for home.

  How to sum up the reactions of this short trip? Cuba is doing considerably better today than it was when I last visited in 1992. That was shortly after the Soviet Union and the whole Socialist block in Eastern Europe collapsed and the Soviet subsidy to Cuba was cut off.

  The country at that time was simply traumatized. The Cubans refer to that time as the "special period". According to Cuban figures, in a couple of years the country's economy dropped 34%. The Great Depression in the U.S. wasn't that bad. The Cubans said they turned the corner in 1995 when the economy grew by 2.5 %. There is still rationing of some foodstuffs. The amount of new construction we have seen is minor for a country of this size.

  So the Cubans are living better today than they were before 1995, but this is relative. They are not living well. The start of the problem was the government. For decades Cuba did not support itself but lived on subsidies from the Soviet Union. The Soviets were doing this to embarrass the United States. Cuba was on welfare and welfare was cut off.

  Cuba is now supporting itself and claims it will never renounce socialism. A slogan in big letters over a baseball stadium, "Socialism o Muerte", Socialism or death.

  In practice, Cuba has backed off socialism and this is a reason the country is recovering.
Foreign investments from Canada and Europe have come in and these people are interested in capitalism, making a profit. Cuba has gone to the U. S. dollar standard. Almost all of the money we saw in cash registers was U. S. dollars. We received a few Cuban coins in change, but never a paper peso.

  Cuba now permits ownership of some small businesses, small restaurants being an example.

  We were told everywhere that Cubans were happy and solidly behind socialism. However, by an agreement between the governments, the U. S. allows 20,000 Cubans to immigrate to the U. S. every year. Of these, 15,000 are chosen by lottery. According to an article in National Geographic, June 1999, in 1988, 541,100 Cubans had applied for these visas, about 5 percent of Cuba's population. This does not indicate a happy population.

  Cuba is organized down to block level with Communities for the Defense of the Revolution, an intelligence network that limits opportunities to form any opposition.

  Fidel Castro is 73 and giving no indication of stepping down. Our State Department has indicated no interest in resolving our differences with Cuba as long as Castro is in power. This is geopolitik. This is a lesson to heads of state anywhere in the world that if you arouse U. S. ire, such as allowing the placement of missiles on your soil that can reach the U. S., which Castro did, you will be on the U. S. hit list for your lifetime.

  There isn't much pressure on the U. S. to change position. And the Cuban exile community in Miami has become a major political force opposing accommodation with Cuba. Cuba doesn't have anything we really need. So unless Castro dies or retires or a very liberal U. S. president is elected, it looks like business as usual, no change.

  Tomorrow starts the long journey home, flying from Can Cun to Miami to San Francisco to Medford and finally the drive to Gold Beach.