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are eligible for childcare from the time they are 45 days old. "We feel that social, political, and economic rights are all interconnected," said Alfonso.

Self-sufficiency in food

One of the things Cuba is desperately trying to do in the face of the economic crisis is to become self-sufficient in food. "In the past we were 60 percent self-sufficient in food," said Dr. Eugenio Balari of the Institute of Internal Demand. "We're trying to raise that to 80 percent."

The job of the Institute is to forecast demand and to plan accordingly, as there are no market mechanisms at work in Cuba. "We have a centralized, planned economy," said Dr. Balari. "If one product is in short supply, we try to increase production of another, similar product. The goal is to maintain the same level of caloric consumption."

So far, 200,000 people from Havana alone have volunteered to work in the countryside this year to increase food production. Camp Paradiso, outside of Havana, is where members of the Young Communist League work during their school vacations.

"What do you think about having to work instead of being on vacation?" I asked.

"It's fun," said Marisol Delgado, 15, of Havana. "And besides, we're helping to feed our people."

The biggest challenge Cuba faces in the immediate future is its energy crisis. Cuba has no coal, almost no oil, and its few rivers are barely big enough for navigation and irrigation, let alone power. All of its transportation, electricity, and industry are dependent on imported oil, which Cuba now has to buy with dollars on the world market instead of bartering for sugar with the Soviet Union.

According to Dr. Balari, plans are afoot to develop hydro, solar, and wind power, and Cuba has embarked on a joint venture with France to search for off-shore oil. The United States is pressuring France to pull out of that project.

Perhaps most controversial is Cuba's plan to open a nuclear power plant next year, just nine miles from Cienfuegos, one of Cuba's largest cities. One could say that the Cubans are wrong in thinkine that the problem with nuclear power the cap- lies ment, according to Olimpia Sigarroa of the International Relations Dept. of the Cuban Chamber of Commerce. "Tourism is the one field where we now have mixed enterprises, but we're considering 1000 joint ventures with Western Europe, Latin America, and Mexico, " Ms Sigarroa said.

Cuba now maintains diplomatic and economic ties with 136 countries, including Canada, Japan, all NATO except the United States, and most of Latin America and the Caribbean. It is only the United States that maintains an economic blockade against Cuba, which has cost that country $15 billion so far, and costs U.S. businesses an estimated $750 million a year.

Cuba has also made great strides in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, which is all the more amazing when you realize that it is still a small, underdeveloped, Third World country. It is now exporting the world's first effective vaccine against the child-killer meningitis B, another vaccine against hepatitis B, an epidermal growth factor which speeds up the recovery of burn victims, and TPG, which significantly reduces cholesterol with no harmful side effects. Cuba invented and is also exporting Melagenin, a drug used to treat vitiligo, the progressive loss of skin pigmentation, from which 40 million people in the world suffer.

Dollars from tourism

The other field that Cuba is hoping to develop, in order to obtain dollars to buy things on the world market, is tourism. Last year 340,000 tourists from Canada, Europe, the Soviet Union, and Latin America, visited Cuba to take advantage of its sultry climate and relatively cheap prices compared to other countries in the Caribbean. The only tourists who can't go to Cuba are Americans, who would be violating the Trading With the Enemy Act if they spent any money there. (The only exceptions are journalists and professional researchers.)

Every dollar that Cuba takes in through tourism is earmarked for foreign exchange, and so a two-tiered economy is developing. ly, like second-class citizens country.

A more farsighted, but less typical view was expressed by Juan Carlos, 25, in the Young Communist League: "The dollars we get from tourism are needed to raise the standard of living of everyone in the country," he said. True enough, but not necessarily self-evident to a layer of Cuba's youth.

Controversial AIDS policy

One policy that Cuba has implemented, which is perhaps more controversial in the United States than in Cuba, is their strategy of sending everyone who is HIV positive for AIDS to a sanatorium. The Cubans are adamant: This policy, they say, is in no way designed to discriminate against homosexuals (only 37 percent of the people who are HIV positive in Cuba are gay), it is to break the chain of transmission and prevent an epidemic.

Cuba has so far administered 10 million AIDS tests out of a population of 10.7 mil lion, and as of Oct. 16, there were 670 HIV positive, of which 54 people have died. (Compare this to the U.S. where two-thirds of everyone known to be HIV positive is already dead.)

I talked to four people, two of them doctors, who were HIV positive and lived in the sanatorium. I asked if they were unhappy having to be there.

All were indignant. They work the same jobs they had worked previously, make the same salary, and have 24-hour a day medical care.

"You ask if the revolution violates my rights by sending me to the sanitorium?," Chino demanded. "I'm alive because of the revolution!"

Cuba tests all pregnant women, everyone who has been out of the country (in the last few years Cuba has had 600,000 internationalists working abroad, including 300,000 in Africa), the sex partners of those who are HIV positive, and all those admitted to hospitals. It imports AZT and Interferon from France, and provides a (continued on page 12)

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ired live on, red, uar: of ediren eliest number Joyce Stoller a's italist mode of production, and that under socialism a nuke is not inherently dangerous. But Cuba, more than any other country in the world, is treating 10,000 children from the Chernobyl disaster, so they are obviously aware of the danger. They just don't see that they have any choice.

In its scramble for dollars, Cuba is, for the first time, promoting foreign investThere are tourist hotels, tourist restaurants, tourist stores, tourist discos, even tourist taxis that only take dollars, and which Cubans cannot use. And then there is the peso economy marked by long lines, empty shelves, and overwhelming scarcity.

Walking down any Cuban street, it is impossible not to be accosted by Cubans wanting to change pesos into dollars at the rate of 20 pesos for 1 dollar. (The official exchange rate is 1:1.)

Gino Jansson, 22, who speaks five languages and works as a travel guide, told me, "When I'm a translator with a tour, I can't go into the same restaurants the tourists can go in because I don't have dollars."

Malcolm Ahmed, 20, a student in computers added, "We very much like the fashions from the United States. But we can't go into tourist stores to buy it." (U.S. products sold in tourist stores are brought into Cuba through other countries.)

I will never forget the stabbing I felt in my stomach when I excused myself to have dinner in my hotel, knowing that my friends couldn't come with me. "We're hungry," said Malcolm. "Could you buy us some crackers?" He was referring to the tourist store in the hotel where they only take dollars.

Both Malcolm and Gino consider themselves revolutionaries and take for granted the free healthcare, education, and low-cost housing with which they have grown up. As Malcolm said, "I want capital, not capitalism in Cuba."

Fifty-three percent of Cuba's population is under 25 years old, and this generation, raised with egalitarian principles, now feels a keen sense of resentment against "tourist apartheid." They see foreigners buying things they can't buy, and feel, consequentCan the Cuban Revolution survive now that the Soviet Union has backed off on trade relations and joined George Bush's New World Order? This question is being asked by both enemies and friends of the Cuban Revolution. It is a question I've wrestled with since returning from Cuba after a month-long stay in October 1991.

The U.S. blockade against Cuba has been strengthened now that the Soviet Union has capitulated to the "New World Order." If Cuba remains isolated, the Cuban Communist Party (CCP) could be crushed by counter-revolutionary forces.

The effects of the U.S. blockade-both socially and economically— are taking their toll. The dramatically increased scarcity of all goods is generating social forces that are hostile to the revolution and the Castro leadership.

In Havana there is a five-mile stretch of road along the ocean called the Malecón. It is on this stretch of road that Cuba's problems lay exposed in plain view of everyone.

Cubans will approach foreigners, calling out to them, "Hey friend, where are you from? You want to change?" Cubans are eager to trade pesos for dollars. Everyone seems to be hustling for dollars these days. It is not just the troublemakers who are changing dollars. Everyone shops the black market for items not found in the state stores.

The Malecón is a sad place at night. Thousands of hungry and bored Cubans sit atop the tide-breakers looking out to sea. Soviet 1