Island that Dared

by Dervla Murphy

  Her Majesty’s callousness surprised few Cubans and fed the island’s embryonic nationalism.

  In 2005 UNESCO nominated Cienfuegos a World Heritage Site and I found the centre in transition. All Parque Martí’s splendid buildings – mostly former palacios – had been recently restored yet mere yards away stately mansions were literally falling apart; pedestrian-protecting nets ‘roofed’ the pavements. Further out, the old residential districts were pleasing in a predictable way: wide, straight, tree-lined streets and dignified colonial homes in shrub-filled gardens, their charm somewhat diminished by the proximity of affordable apartment blocks for the masses.

  Taking Gustavo’s advice, I looked for lodgings on the Punta Gorda, a two-mile-long tapering peninsula appropriated a century ago by Cienfuegos’s richest merchants. (One guide book, getting its categories mixed, describes it as ‘the aristocratic quarter of the city’.) A stylish boulevard, the Paseo del Prado, leads to a half-mile Malecón where small boys sit on the wall trying to net miniscule fish. Here a row of early twentieth-century villas, art nouveau-flavoured, overlook the wide Bay of Jagua.

  Then one is in a peculiar neighbourhood, its lay-out more Miami than Cuba. Four hotels and a restaurant face an open-plan settlement of gaily painted wooden houses, also early twentieth-century and slightly Potem-kinish; that freshly painted look surely has to do with Punta Gorda being Cienfuegos’s tourist hub. Here too are a convertible-peso pharmacy, a tourist office (never open during my visit), a petrol station (rarely open), and a new free-standing tienda (open ten to five with two hours off for lunch). The luxury hotels are offensively ‘gated’ and as for the restaurant – one stands still and blinks incredulously. It’s what happened when a sugar merchant of incalculable wealth imported the Italian architect Alfredo Colli and teams of artists and craftsmen (including thirty Moroccans) and told them he wanted a two-storey home suggesting Granada’s Alhambra, with three towers of strongly contrasting designs and as many Venetian, Gothic and Moorish motifs as could be applied inside and out, leaving no square inch undecorated. The Palacio de Valle is sufficiently o.t.t. to have reached the realm of entertainment. It took four years to build (1913–17) but its owner, Acisclo del Valle Blanco, reckoned it was worth waiting for.

  Cienfuegos is among Cuba’s most polluted cities and on the far side of the lake-like bay (its outlet to the Caribbean Sea invisible) distant chimney stacks emit fumes perceptible even in Parque Martí – making one question UNESCO’s accolade. Also on that shore is the aborted Juragua nuclear plant, begun in the late 1970s with Soviet aid and designed to provide twelve per cent of Cuba’s electricity from 1993. Seen as one of the Revolution’s most important industrial projects, it was employing one thousand two hundred workers – many highly skilled – when it ‘became dormant’ in 1992. Its Director, Isaac Edilio Alayon, then requested an International Atomic Energy Agency inspection and Juragua was duly declared ‘safe’ (or as safe as such plants ever are). Nevertheless, the Bush I administration, spurred on by Senator Connie Mack of Florida, tried to panic the general public about Juragua’s threat to the whole US eastern seaboard. This was standing reality on its head. In fact Cuba would be at risk, for meteorological reasons, should Florida’s defective Crystal River reactor one day run out of control.

  Behind the ‘Miami’ area, one is back in normal streets of detached, unpainted houses in small gardens. (Very short streets: here the peninsula is less than a mile wide.) Soon I had found a casa particular and been introduced by Nancy and Juan to their three dogs and two cats. The family’s milking nanny was tethered on wasteland across the road. While brewing my initiatory demitasse of coffee, Nancy fulminated against the Spanish-Cuban consortium rumoured to be planning another hotel on that wasteland – ‘eight storeys, blocking our sky’. This little house had one uncomfortable eccentricity: all the windows were kept tightly shut, twenty-four hours a day, in an attempt to deter Punta Gorda’s rampant mosquitoes. My room was oven-like, by reluctant choice; it lacked a fan and I couldn’t tolerate the raucous Soviet-era air-conditioning.

  Punta Gorda’s semi-rural hinterland illustrates layers of Cuban social history. On expanses of common land, yellow-brown in February, livestock mingle: pony-sized horses, wandering sheep, tethered goats, countless poultry. Rough tracks lead to once-magnificent mansions, now occupied by several families, with weeds and cacti sprouting from cracked walls. Not far off, modest affluence is suggested by new DIY homes, some only half-finished but already lived in. Footpaths winding through tall bushes lead to primitive shacks proving poverty. Even the remotest of these enjoy electricity, but not piped water. Their inhabitants, though adequately clad and well-groomed, are the sort of people Fidel had in mind when he spoke, at the 2003 Pedagogy Conference in Havana, about the ‘many very poor white families who migrated from rural areas to the cities’.

  The sad thing is to observe how poverty, associated with a lack of knowledge, tends to reproduce itself. Other sectors, mostly from very humble backgrounds, but with better living and working conditions, were able to take advantage of study possibilities created by the revolution, and now make up the bulk of university graduates, who likewise tend to reproduce their improved social conditions derived from education.

  Punta Gorda’s sky is dominated by the unlovely arc-lights of the 5 September stadium. This gigantic sports complex, complete with a psychology clinic for sportspersons, was internationally admired in the 1970s. Inevitably the Special Period took its toll and now the place looks as run-down as the nearby apartment blocks – which doesn’t diminish the attendance at every game.

  I had been told I must take baseball seriously, as the Cuban equivalent of hurling in Ireland or cricket in England, a sport that is more than a sport, an activity that permeates and expresses the national soul … Indeed, the numbers of boys who practise on Cuba’s streets (rarely with bats, often using homemade balls and worn-out gloves) did remind me of Irish juvenile hurlers in times past, before our car-infestation. On a Sunday morning I dutifully checked at the stadium but no game was scheduled. Instead, I joined half a dozen small boys who were watching adults practising in a nearby field. Close to our vantage point a goat was tethered – a randy billy, with distinguished horns, who sucked frequently and frenziedly at his agitated penis to the boys’ chortling delight.

  For want of a mentor, this practice game merely baffled me. When one man crouched on the ground wearing a mask and body armour while another stood close beside him, wielding a bat, I couldn’t decide whether the latter was the former’s opponent or was attempting to defend him from balls thrown with lethal force. At intervals, for no reason apparent to me, certain men sprinted around the field as though pursued by a tiger – then suddenly stopped, at no particular point, to loud applause … There was an acute shortage of gear: everything had to be shared. The metal bats shocked me; when hearing of baseball bats being used by our street gangs to beat each other up, I had vaguely visualised something wooden and blunt.

  Soon I moved on, to admire Parque Martí’s eclectic range of buildings and monuments. In 1902, to celebrate the Republic’s delusional birth, Cienfuegos’s workers’ corporation commissioned Cuba’s only triumphal arch. In 1906 José Martí was placed on his marble, lion-guarded pedestal. A smaller version of Havana’s Capitolio, the Palacio del Ayuntaiento, contrasts with the arcaded and perfectly proportioned Teatro Tomas Terry commemorating a ruthless slave-trader, sugar-factory owner and mayor of Cienfuegos. The Palacio Ferreris (early 1900s), with its blue mosaic cupola, fanciful balconies and ornate wrought-iron spiral staircase, is another example of sugar wealth in action.

  At right angles to the theatre is the small cathedral (neo-classical façade, two asymmetrical towers, agreeably simple interior needing some repairs). In the porch numerous faded photographs and posters recall the Papal state visit in 1998 – a P.R. triumph for both host and guest. Although this new alliance took some people aback (and infuriated Florida’s hard-liners) its base was obvious: a shared anti-consumeris
m. Pope John Paul could have delivered Fidel’s 1995 speech to the Social Development conference in Copenhagen:

  It must be stressed in today’s world, a world which prefers to eat money, wear money and bathe in money, that there is something more valuable than money: people’s souls, people’s hearts, people’s honour.

  By 9.45 a thousand or so worshippers (I made a rough estimate during the sermon) had assembled. In the south transept a smiling teenage band (two girls, two boys) played their guitar, tres, claves and bongo with all the verve expected of Cubans and most people happily swayed along. The drummer was one of the few blacks present. This preponderantly elderly white congregation had a scattering of middle-aged couples and several rows of adolescents and children. An ancient, bald, invalid priest, with sunken cheeks, sat in his wheel-chair to one side of the high altar, being earnestly addressed by a portly, silver-haired, dark-suited man with a self-important expression. Two beribboned girls, in frilly dresses, aged five or six, were hanging about on the altar looking expectant. When the tall, broad-shouldered celebrant appeared in his green chasuble they rushed to greet him and he affectionately hugged and kissed them before leading them by the hands into the sacristy. (At that point, in twenty-first-century Ireland, hairs might have prickled on the backs of some necks.)

  Punctually at 10.00 the pre-Mass procession emerged from behind the altar, led by three teenage girls in low-slung blue jeans and tank-tops that showed lots of midriff despite the porch’s prominent strictures about apparel. (Beggars can’t be choosers and Cuba’s Roman Catholic church is well behind in the popularity ratings.) The teenagers walked abreast, slowly, followed by the celebrant holding one little girl by the hand and two tall thin youths in white surplices, swinging censers. Meanwhile many worshippers were accompanying a children’s choir in rousing hymns. Back on the altar, the celebrant led the other little girl to a nursery-size armchair opposite the wheel-chair, but in a position of equal honour – and there she sat, alone and motionless, for the next hour, looking rather complacent. I tried, but failed, to imagine Zea in this role.

  The teenage girls led the credo and read the epistle and gospel confidently and clearly. At the consecration, when the invalid was wheeled to the low altar table, he steadily held the chalice aloft while uttering the magic words in a quavering voice. Afterwards, many old women queued on the altar to kiss his ring. At the exit the priest chatted with his departing flock, absent-mindedly patting the little girls’ heads while they gazed up at him adoringly, stroking his brocade chasuble at thigh-level. I’m not hinting at anything undesirable; all this simply showed how innocently remote Cuba is from a world traumatised by child-abusing priests and parsons, too often shielded by senior churchmen.

  In Cuba small girls hitch-hike solo, not always at points supervised by Mustards, everyone assuming they will be safe hopping into a car with one unknown male. And obviously they are safe or this custom would not have taken root, Cuban parents being no less protective than others. In Havana I met a New Zealander who insisted that Cuba must have its quota of child molesters – hidden, for ‘image-protection’ reasons – whereas our media provide maximum publicity, thus triggering neurotic fears. I agreed with him about the neurotic fears, palpable now in some countries and dreadfully destructive of wholesome social relationships. But I felt he was missing the point that Castroism has protected Cuba’s population from the moral degradation promoted by Capitalism Rampant – admittedly at the cost of certain fundamental human rights.

  ‘Human Rights’ (denial of) is the anti-Castroists’ biggest stick. Obviously it’s a real stick, but how big is it? Two separate though linked issues confuse this debate: a relentless, multi-faceted US effort to destabilise Cuba, and the West’s predisposition to be deceived by men like Armando Valladares.

  The Valladares case, spanning decades, clearly illustrates how those issues converge. In 1960 this twenty-three-year-old former Batista police officer was convicted of three terrorist bombings and sentenced to thirty years in jail. During the 1970s many prominent Europeans campaigned for his release, presenting him as a tragic, talented victim of Communism, a hero who was managing to smuggle poetry out with the laundry. On his release in 1982 he settled in Spain and wrote Against All Hope, widely read and lavishly praised – especially in the US and Britain. (‘A magnificent tribute to the human spirit’ – Sunday Telegraph. ‘A quiet account of remarkable bravery’ – the Economist.) In his introduction Valladares assures us that he was imprisoned ‘solely for having espoused and expressed principles distinct from those of the regime of Fidel Castro’. (Sabotaging public buildings is of course an increasingly popular way of ‘espousing principles’.) The English translation blurb describes the author as ‘a law student, poet, sculptor and painter’ – just the sort of young man Batista recruited to his police force. It also claims that he ‘suffered torture, starvation and lack of medical care which left him paralysed’. Writing in 1984, Valladares asserted, ‘Today, at this very moment, hundreds of political prisoners are naked, sleeping on the floors of cells whose windows and doors have been sealed. They never see the light of day, or for that matter artificial light’. Around the same date, US legal teams and Amnesty International delegations were inspecting Cuban prisons. They found ‘no widespread complaints from common prisoners about their treatment in the prisons’; and ‘no evidence to substantiate accusations of torture’. They did however find many buildings in dire need of refurbishment and they recommended some quite drastic changes in the administration. On both counts the Attorney General’s office, in charge of all Cuban prisons, reacted positively to their criticisms.

  In October 1982, Valladares flew directly from prison to Paris. His supporters and their attendant journalists assembled at the airport to welcome him and were astonished to see a hale and hearty ‘hero’ descending the aeroplane steps, his ‘paralysis’ having been cured en route. The usual suspects funded his subsequent European lecture tour. Then, having obtained US citizenship (a quickie job), he was appointed to represent the US at Geneva as a member of the subsequently discredited UN Human Rights Commission. At that point a disillusioned and embarrassed Regis Debray commented, ‘The man wasn’t a poet, the poet wasn’t paralysed, and the Cuban is now a US citizen’. Debray, a French writer, had acted as Ché’s main link with Fidel during the Bolivian venture.

  Vice President George Bush nominated Valladares as ‘an American hero’ in October 1988 and a few months later the departing President Reagan honoured him with the Presidential Medal. Thus reinforced, Valladares forgot both human rights and international law. On 31 August 1994 he joined in the demand for a military blockade of Cuba and asserted the Florida hardliners’ right ‘to launch military attacks from US soil’ against his homeland.

  In 1994, when Special Period deprivations were at their worst, the US Interests Section in Havana sent an interesting report to the Secretary of State, the CIA and the Immigration and Naturalization Service:

  In the processing of visa applications for refugees, there are still few solid cases. Most of those who file applications do so not out of real fear of persecution, but because of the deterioration of the economic situation. Particularly difficult for USINT and INS officials are the cases presented by human rights activists. Although we have done everything possible to work with the human rights organisations over which we have the greatest control, to identify those activists who are truly persecuted by the government, the human rights cases represent the least solid category within the refugee program. In recent months, accusations have persisted of fraudulent applications made by activists and the sale of letters of support from [foreign] human rights leaders. Due to the lack of verifiable documentary evidence, generally USINT officials have considered human rights cases the most susceptible to fraud.

  From Parque Martí I took a horse-bus back to Punta Gorda, where Gustavo’s friend, Alberto, was expecting me for a late lunch. As I approached his home he overtook me, an eighty-two-year-old pedalling vigorously throug
h the afternoon heat with his toddler great-grand-nephew on a crossbar seat – rather a grand seat, intricately carved and painted sky blue. The toddler’s mamma, Clara, a marine biologist/ecologist allergic to mass tourism, was sitting on the verandah sewing a shirt for little Tomas. This substantial family home (c.1890s) was now divided into three flats and surrounded by ‘development’.

  While Tomas was being fed Alberto and I relaxed in a spacious patio shaded by vines and presided over by a badly chipped marble statue of Minerva. ‘My grandfather stole her, on an ox-cart, in 1897,’ said Alberto. ‘From a sugar-magnate’s garden – he was pioneering “redistribution”, he would have made a good fidelista!’

  I already felt sufficiently at ease to protest, ‘But Fidel never looted!’

  Alberto chuckled. ‘True, he only “redistributed” – why we live in onethird of my grandfather’s home.’

  Had Gustavo not told me Alberto’s age I would have guessed ‘late sixties’. He had a thick grey thatch above keen grey-green eyes in a face so long and bony I thought ‘El Greco!’ His grand-niece was a tall, willowy mulatta, her exuberant African hair and stern Spanish features adding up to great beauty. (Mulattas seem less inclined than blacks to hair-straighten: somebody must have written a thesis on that.) Clara spoke no English, Alberto’s fluency dated back to his Harvard days in the early 1950s.

  Lunch consisted of rice, chicken, salad; for those without convertible pesos, menus are constrained. As we ate Clara raged against the new hotel at the peninsula’s end, not because of its obtrusive ugliness but because it has much reduced the locals’ fishing area – locals who fish in earnest for protein.