a tale of three cubas

SOCIALIST CUBA

The Cuban Revolution led to the overthrow of the dictatorial government of Cuban President General Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959 by the 26th of July movement and other revolutionary organizations. The Cuban Revolution also refers to the ongoing implementation of social and economic programs by the new government since the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship, including the implementation of Marxist policies.

CAPITALIST CUBA (TOURISM)

Cuba has been communist since early 1959, and since possibly America’s number one enemy.

Following the fall of the Soviet Union, a major source of aid, Cuba implemented tourism policies in the early 1990s, were driven by the government’s pressing need to earn hard currency. They had a major impact on the underlying egalitarianism espoused by the Cuban revolution. Two parallel economies and societies quickly emerged, their demarcation line was represented by access to the newly legalized U.S. dollar. Those having access to dollars through contact with the lucrative tourist industry (barstaff, hotel receptionists, musicians and taxi drivers) suddenly found themselves at a distinct financial advantage over professional, industrial and agricultural workers.

To insure the isolation of international tourism from Cuban society, it was to be promoted in enclave resorts where, as much as possible, tourists would be segregated from Cuban society. The government tourism policy soon began to be referred to as “enclave tourism” and “tourism apartheid”.

Tourist apartheid might become a permanent regression to the pre-revolutionary state of Cuban society. Tourism has brought exclusive resorts, segregated hotels and a general playground for foreigners swinging through the island looking for Caribbean romance. These are precisely the circumstances the revolution worked 40 years to erase.

The policy of restricting certain hotels and services to tourists was ended by the government of Raul Castro in March 2008.


USA (TERRORISM)

Guantanamo Bay is the largest harbor on the south side of the island and is surrounded by steep hills creating an enclave cut off from its immediate hinterland.

The United States assumed territorial control over Guantánamo Bay under the 1903 Cuban-American Treaty, which granted the United States a perpetual lease of the area. The current Cuban government considers the U.S. presence in Guantánamo to be illegal and the Cuban-American Treaty to have been procured by the threat of force in violation of international law.

The southern portion of the bay is surrounded by the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, established in 1898. Since 2002 the base has hosted a detainment camp for suspected militant combatants from Afghanistan and from around the world, but specifically not for captives taken in Iraq, who qualify for POW status.
Following the election of Barack Obama in November of 2008, the camp was closed.