Centrepiece

Said Castro to Kinnock

Colin Welch

If I were elected leader of the Labour Party I would be oppressed by an over- whelming sense of inadequacy and unsuita- bility. Is poor Mr Kinnock, with far less cause, I agree, ever similarly oppressed, perhaps in the grey small hours? I wouldn't put it past this attractive and amusing man. He may not know all he should, but himself he may intermittently know. Our cherished press gallery barman Sam is leaving us for the Tory Central Office — its gain, our great loss. Mr Kinnock was horrified: why hadn't Sam thought of Labour? He didn't know there was a vacancy, Sam explained. Oh, chuckled Mr Kinnock, Labour just is one vast vacancy. A true and humble word in jest?

Apart from the rows, those trips abroad, for instance, each more grotesque and perhaps damaging than the last. Most recently it was Carry On Up Castro: and what a sinister farce!

Our Opposition leader summoned to the great beaver after midnight, kept waiting for 50 minutes, then frivolous badinage about beards, poets, Gibraltar (Mr Kin- nock sought and got Castro's promise to arbitrate), press censorship and success in politics — not only a question of 'capacity', in Castro's statesmanlike view, but of 'the moment' and 'of problems faced'. He should know, whose moment came when Batista hopped it, and he discreetly en- tered Havana a few days later when all was over; he promised to go soon, is still there 26 years later, facing dire problems, many of his own creation and exacerbation, though none so dire as are faced by his luckless victims, slaves and prisoners. Of these last, how many? Three thousand, it is commonly said, referring presumably only to 'political' prisoners accused perhaps falsely of 'plotting' etc. A better figure supplied by the Cuban-American Founda- tion is 15,000, which includes those impris- oned for what would be no offence in civilised countries, like 'hoarding' a saus- age or a few dollars, or failing to greet Castro with the proper friendly affection (a university pal of Castro's got 10 years for this).

Released at last at 3.30 in the morning, Mr Kinnock 'chuckled': 'any meeting with Castro would be memorable', but at this time in the morning it was 'indelible'. `Memorable' I don't doubt: but memorable in what way? And what was there to chuckle about?

Castro's remarks about poets, perhaps, if you have a grim sense of humour. Castro was actually accompanied by the Nobel Prize-winning poet Gabriel Garcia Mar- quez, who must thank his stars that he is a

Colombian, not a Cuban. 'I'd always put a poet in front of a politician,' said Mr Kinnock. 'Yes, in history the poets cannot live without politicians,' Castro mused, `but without poets the world cannot go on.' Castro's Cuba does its best to `go on' without such unacknowledged legislators. One poet, Armando Valladares, after a trial without evidence or witness, con- ducted by an officer reading comics with his boots on the table, spent 22 years in various jails. In an interview in Encounter (June 1983), he described the punishment cells, with roofs of wire netting through which excrement and icy water were daily flung onto the naked prisoners beneath. He had to drag himself about on his buttocks, since he'd broken bones in his feet trying to escape. There was no medical aid, and he is still paralysed in both legs.

He was finally released through the personal intervention of President Mitter- rand. Who in Managua did Mr Kinnock plead for? Senor Valladares joined other Cuban poets in exile, Reinaldo Garcia and Roberto Valero, together with the novelist and poet Reinaldo Arenas (also inter- viewed in Encounter, January 1982) and 125,000 other 'deviants', madmen, thieves and murderers' expelled by Castro's `spring-cleaning'. Are there any poets now left in Cuba, in jail or out? Who can tell? They aren't published, and have to be pretty careful with their manuscripts, which are of great interest to poetry critics in the secret police. Worse than Batista? Yes, says Arenas: total, systematic, no chinks of freedom; all is monitored, house, street, workplace. Even leftwing writers like Pablo Neruda and Sartre are banned in Cuba. Worse than Botha and Pinochet? I don't know, though Botha's misdeeds are checked by a relatively free press and even judiciary. Business might one day force Mr Kinnock into their company. I can't im- agine him meeting them for pleasure, or chuckling afterwards.

Further cause for chuckles may have been afforded by Castro's 'teasing' ques- tion, 'are you going to censor the press?' Castro's press censorship is not teasing, but ferocious and absolute. Even Castro's admirers, who worship him as 'a Moses' leading his people 'away from the captivity of their enemies towards a promised land', find the resultant newspapers 'dull and predictable'. I would prefer the words `systematically mendacious'.

It is widely believed by 'balanced' obser- vers that the Cubans have struck a sort of bargain with Castro. They have surren- dered their liberty and received in return bread, longer lives, less infant mortality, better education and so on. Experience of other communist dictatorships suggests that such bargains are fraudulent; that liberty and prosperity vanish together, as if they were connected, which they are. All the evidence indicates that Castro's Cuba is no exception.

Meat is rationed, half a chorizo sausage per person per year, according to Valla- dares, two kilos of meat. Petrol and clothes

are rationed too: two pairs of knickers a year for each Cuban senora. And this in a

country which under Batista was prosper- ous by Caribbean, Latin American and Third World standards, with a favourable trade balance and a large professional middle class. Cuban statistics are wildly distorted by Castro, his officials and sub- servient press, to exaggerate his achieve- ments. Whether these distortions deceive all Cubans is hard to say; they certainly deceive gullible foreign observers.

After a visit to Cuba and talks with officials, an American Congressional com- mittee typically reported that there were only 187,000 students in pre-Castro Cuba, and that the literacy rate under Castro has soared from 25 to 99 per cent. Professor Norman Luxenburg, writing again in the indispensable Encounter (March 1984), says there were about one million students under Batista (too many?), and the literacy rate was 78 per cent. As for 99 per cent now, is it possible?

In a recent not-unflattering television series, Castro's Cuba was viewed as 'an exemplary model' for underdeveloped na- tions in the Third World. Professor Luxen- burg's figures make it hard to regard pre-Castro Cuba as an underdeveloped Third World nation at all. Before Castro Cuba, with a population of 6.6 million, had more than double the number of doctors caring for the 19 million inhabitants of other Caribbean countries all together. After Castro's coup, the number of pa- tients per doctor in Cuba rose, while in other Caribbean nations it fell.

Castro is not a reliable witness. Again and again he repeats, and respected papers copy, that infant mortality in pre- Castro Cuba was more than 60 per 1,000 in the first year of life. It was in fact 32 per 1,000, far better not only than other Caribbean and Latin American nations but better even than Spain, Italy and Germany at the time. Since then infant mortality appears to have dropped in Cuba to 19; but such decreases have been nigh universal (except perhaps in Russia), and can have little to do with Castroism. By a similar distortion, life expectancy in Cuba is repe- atedly said to have risen from 53 years or `about 50' before Castro to 73 years now. It was in fact pre-Castro 61.8.

Is Mr Kinnock aware of Castro's cruelty, incompetence and mendacity? Or does he think them grossly exaggerated? Or does he, with a sly chuckle, tacitly admire and envy them? Does he excuse all on the Left, find no enemies there? He should tell us, and use meanwhile a longer spoon.