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.
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