AS EVERYBODY who has visited Cuba knows, the island is one of the most physically beautiful places in the world. - As close to an image of paradise as you could imagine. Beach sands as warm and damp as flesh. There is a haunting quality to the capital, Havana. It’s almost as though a neutron bomb had gone off. The population of the city is a fraction of its pre-revolution peak of several million. They are like survivors in the ruins. Even though muck of the old section has been restored through United Nations grants, most of the city has been decaying _ steadily since La Revolucion. Only the new stadium and the monument to La Revolucion, just above Fidel Castro’s downtown underground bunker, have been added to the skyline since 1959, ' Casiro has had most city- dwellers dispersed to communal : forms spread throughout the jungle, ail the better to keep everyone under control. Few diplomats are so rude as to describe this rnove as a ‘forced exile,”’ or expulsion, or an urban exodus -— at gunpoint — but that’s exactly what it is. Basically, the Cuban population has been cordoned-off in regional concentration camps, a divide- and-conquer tactic nearly as old as Divine Rule itself, and certainly as old as the conquest of the Plains Indians in North America. Poor Cuba, poor Cubans. ., As you drive through the porgeous Cuban countryside, your ’ J vehicle has to stop at an Interior . Police check-point roughly every 15 miles. ‘: There, soldiers with Russian- “nade submachine-guns and mir- * rored sunglasses grunt questions at '- your driver. _.-They peer suspiciously at your ‘ papers. They prow! around your car, eyeing under the back seat, “eyeing you. : They swagger. They radiate ‘menacing power, You do not Joke _ with them. . - You do not take their pictures, either, even though you may have been told that you would be - allowed to take any pictures you ~ wanted. ‘Promises made by a travel agent back in Canada are a joke here on ‘ the ground in Communist-era Cuba. / In reality, your guide hisses at you urgently to put that camera down or we wil] all be in trouble. . Thus, encounters with the Inte- “rior Police every half-hour or so went unrecorded. And no pictures were taken, either, when we rounded a curve ‘of highway and a freshly built wooden prison turret came into view, manned by a trio of heavi- ly-armed soldiers. Behind the facade that the Cuban Ministry of Tourism tries * to conjure, the fact is that Cuba is a police state, with gangs of Fidel’s goons in firm control of the streets, and 1990s-style squads of ‘‘Red Guards”’ spying on and * terrorizing dissidents. I haven’t been to Cuba for years, but I ask questions of pco- ple who still visit there for one reason or another, : 1 follow the reports. And { un- *, derstand the systems. It’s a dic- ~‘tatorship. : Dictatorships may not, in the crunch, behave strategically much ; differently from democracies, but they create a totally different ex- perience for their citizens. “It’s a kind of mental! castration, at the very least. __ The wondrous instrument of the .free-thinking mind should never be limited to the writings of Che Guevara, transcripts of Fidel’s six-hour speeches, and, with luck, the Sunday Times crossword puz- ~ gles. STRICTLY PERSONAL That was all J could find to read in the ‘‘book store’’ at the hotel where I stayed in Havana. Again, this was years ago, but I don’t hear anything about the sit- uation having improved. Rather, as the inevitable col- lapse came in the wake of the drying up of Soviet largesse, state oppression has been stepped up to keep the lid on popular anger. The system is, of course, ideally set up for the army to maintain contro} to the bitter end. The island is, in fact, one huge gulag. I was taken on tours of a couple of resorts being set up exclusively for the use of Canadian tourists. Impolitely, 1 started referring to them as ‘‘frostback ghettos.’’ Whenever our young state- appointed guide started going on too long about the merits of La KING, QUEEN OR DOUBLE 1 DRESSER, 1 MIRROR, 2 NITE TABLES, COMPLETE POSTER BED AT ONE PRICE ! 685-8414 1080 Mainland Street at Helmeken Dowr:town Vancouver, ILC. Revolucion, { would make the sign of the cross, just to throw him off stride, Being disrespectful of authority is a habit only citizens in long- standing democracies can afford to cultivate, Everywhere else, power has been abused so openly for so long, one’s rebelliousness is tempered by the likelihood of being on the: receiving end of some casual state-sponsored atrocity. Cuba has loomed large in the history of the world since Kennedy and Krushchev went head-to-head in 1962 with nuclear missiles and squadrons poised. It was a little bit like Canada at the end of the Second World War, when, despite our small popula- tion, we weighed in with the third largest navy and the fourth-largest air force in the world. Cuba doesn’t have numbers like that, and its claim to have a citi- zens’ army that could be totally mobilized within days, like Israel’s and Switzerland’s, is wishful thinking. That citizens’ army would be about as keen to fight as Iraq’s draftees in the Gulf War. But in terms of sheer political afterglow, Cuba was a big player. {t’s hard to believe now, but 20 years ago Fidel was a hero toa generation of left-leaning people. He may indeed still be to a handful, but they’d have to be idiots who have never visited Cuba to see the oppression for theniselves. The sooner Fidel falls, or is toppled, or dies, the better for the imprisoned proletariat of that beautiful island. The man has been a total megalomanical disaster. And Canada is gearing up to start sending aid? Give mea break! CANADA'S LARGEST THOMASVILLE GALLERY Crllirs THOMASVILLE GALLERY Sunday, August 29, 1993 — North Shore News — 7 ARDAGH HUNTER TURNER Barristers & Solicitors IMPAIRED DRIVING ¢ AFTER. HOURS FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION fiminal Matters Only - 326-3181 986-4366 #300-1401 LONSDALE, NORTH VANCOUVER, BC. FAX 986-9236 DRAPERIES BY S. LAURSEN & SON CUSTOM DRAPERIES AND VALANCES Labour $8.50 per panci unlined, $9. 50 lined. CUSTOM BEDSPREADS & COVERS Low, low prices on blinds & tracks. For FREE Estimates Cali 987-2966 Serving the North Shore for 23 years Duncan B.C. NEW CONDOS With oxeten raring and no mortgage qualification. 1 & 2 Bedrooms with 5 Appliances. These units are being offered below market value and are all fully rented. 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