HAVANA : Cuba’s Communists Meet
Facing a rift with its Soviet benefactors and the worst economic crisis of its 32-year rule, Cuba’s Communist leadership opens a four-day congress Thursday that is expected to look into alternatives for propping up President Fidel Castro’s one-party socialist system through limited reforms.
Foreign delegations and journalists have been barred from the congress in the eastern city of Santiago, apparently to allow freewheeling debate among the 1,800 delegates.
Little of the agenda has been revealed, but Cuban officials say the congress will elect a younger Central Committee, discuss ways to bring more people into party and government decision-making and endorse Castro’s push to attract foreign investors into business partnerships with the government.
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