With many of his most vocal critics silenced by long prison terms and the island's tourism industry on the mend, 77-year-old President Fidel Castro had much to celebrate on the anniversary of the New Year's Day revolution that brought him to power 45 years ago.
The bearded guerrilla leader now shows his age, but he still has the stamina to give a speech lasting eight hours, as he did at a parliamentary session earlier this month.
A major address by Castro was considered likely over the next few days, although nothing was announced by Wednesday night. Numerous concerts and other cultural gatherings were scheduled around the island for yesterday and today, both official holidays.
But while Castro's government trumpeted its economic turnaround, political opponents complained that they are more oppressed than ever.
"If we wanted to classify 2003 we could say, without doubt, it has been a year of repression," activist Claudia Marquez wrote for the Miami-based Web site Cubanet.
"Not only against dissidence and the independent press, but against the populace in general," wrote Marquez, wife of imprisoned dissident Osvaldo Alfonso.
More than two generations have passed since Castro and his fellow rebels marched down from Cuba's Sierra Maestra mountains to celebrate the hurried departure of then-president Fulgencio Batista from the island on Jan. 1, 1959.
Today, Castro is the world's longest-ruling head of government and president of one of only four surviving socialist systems -- unique in the Western Hemisphere. His leadership over this Caribbean nation of 11.2 million remains unchallenged.
And despite the gleeful predictions a decade ago that Cuba's socialist system would collapse after the Soviet Union broke up and withdrew its aid and trade, the nation last year enjoyed 2.6 percent economic growth, powered by a rebound in tourism. Economic growth for all of Latin America and the Caribbean during the same period was just 1.5 percent.
"United, we struggle. United, we triumph," read the 45th anniversary posters around town, featuring a historic photograph of Castro and fellow bearded rebel leader Camilo Cienfuegos back in January, 1959.
But as Castro's communist government celebrates its survival and exhorts its people to unity, a potent dissident movement still bubbles beneath the surface -- even after the roundup that jailed 75 independent journalists, opposition party leaders and other activists in March last year.
Many Cubans, including Mauro Sampera, 73, publicly support Castro's government.
"For the new year, my hope is for health and that the revolutionary process continues," said Sampera, a retired teacher selling used books in Old Havana, on Wednesday.
"Without the revolution, my four children would not have gone to university," he said.
But there is an increasing sense that not everyone agrees.
"My wishes for the new year? We Cubans have a lot of wishes for the new year. But we cannot talk about them here in public," said a younger bookseller who declined to give his name.
Oswaldo Paya, probably Cuba's best known dissident, remains free and continues to boldly push for deep changes in Cuba's centralized political and economic systems.
Last month, Paya called for a national dialogue, providing a detailed document he says could be used as a guide for a democratic transition.
The government publicly ignored that document, just as it earlier shelved Paya's Varela Project, an effort that delivered to the Cuban parliament more than 25,000 signatures seeking an initiative on rights such as freedom of speech and assembly.
Many of the 75 dissidents sentenced to prison terms of six to 28 years were Varela Project volunteers, accused of being mercenaries working with US diplomats to undermine Castro's system -- charges they denied.
Human rights groups around the globe and democratic leaders condemned the spring crackdown, as well as the firing-squad executions of three men who tried to hijack a passenger ferry to the US.
US President George W. Bush used the crackdown as a reason for further tightening long-standing restrictions on US trade with and travel to the island.
Cuba continued to thumb its nose at the US government and opened its arms to US farmers, buying hundreds of millions of dollars of US agricultural goods under an exception to trade sanctions that were first imposed in 1960 by US President Dwight Eisenhower.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours. The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today. Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say