Back to the Murk

At first it seemed to be only a lovely nugget of perestroika -era irony. The Communist Party paper in Havana announced Friday that two Soviet publications were henceforth banned from Cuba for “justifying bourgeois democracy” and showing “fascination for the American way of life.” It seems that the weekly Moscow News and the monthly Sputnik, former propaganda magazines that have been reborn under glasnost as promoters of reform, now contain ideas sanctioned by Moscow but considered too radical for the Cuban masses.

On Monday, however, the news was far from humorous. Three human rights activists, Elizardo Sanchez, Hubert Jerez and Hiram Abi Cobas, were arrested and detained by security police before dawn Sunday morning. The Cuban government has given no reason for the arrests and the men have not been formally charged. The three are the last leaders of the fledgling Human Rights Party, an illegal coalition of human rights groups whose cause is now in jeopardy.

The detentions and the magazine banning are the most recent stages of a general crackdown that began last September. Since then, Cuban authorities have arrested more than two dozen human rights activists, jailing most of them for petty crimes. The repression has not been limited to dissidents; in June, Castro publically tried and executed one of his top aides, General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez, for corruption and drug-trafficking. Other government officials have received the same treatment in the last several months.

The atmosphere of repression is thick and thickening. Even his Soviet benefactors are alarmed. When Mikhail S. Gorbachev visited Cuba this past May, the tension between the leaders was evident as Castro enthusiastically described Cuban socialist achievments and Gorbachev replied politely but without vigor.

It is clearer than ever that Cuban leader Fidel Castro has become completely unconcerned with human rights, due process or international opinion. He is sticking resolutely to his own repressive agenda, refusing to heed the new socialist call to reform and integrate with the rest of the world. Even as the rest of the socialist world turns slowly outward, Castro is steering Cuba straight back into the Stalinist murk.