Status Quo In Cuba Party Statements Indicate No Changes

The last time Cuba’s Communists held a congress, their party appeared on the ropes: The Soviet Union was collapsing, shortages of food and fuel were spreading and a defiant Fidel Castro vowed to save the country.

Six years later, food and fuel are still scarce and the economy’s recovery from crisis is slowing. But the Communists sit firmly in control as they prepare to meet again Wednesday, setting policy that will guide the country until 2002, when President Castro will be 76.

Judging from party statements, big changes are not in store.

“There are no new proposals” of significance, said Phillip Brenner, a Cuba specialist at the American University in Washington, D.C.

Draft statements for the Fifth Party Congress reaffirm a single-party socialist system, reject foreign claims of human rights violations and insist on a state-dominated socialist economy.

The 1991 congress was held in an atmosphere of crisis. The socialist bloc that aided and traded with Cuba had crumbled and the Soviet Union itself would collapse within weeks.

Cuba’s economic output plunged by at least 35 percent over the next three years and the country reluctantly embraced a series of market-oriented reforms to create jobs and attract foreign investment and tourism.

But the government has slowed the pace of reform and last year clamped down on domestic dissent as relations with the United States became even more embittered.

The party’s meeting this week also appears to assert that Cuba’s socialist system will survive the chaos created by the fall of its allies.

The congress, held roughly every five years since 1975, should see the president’s most important speech in months. Castro recently has shunned the spotlight, making only one major appearance since early August.

The congress also will adjust membership in the 25-member Politburo that oversees the ruling party - potentially a key indicator of Cuba’s future in a post-Castro era. The party for years has steadily introduced young blood onto the committee.

Politburo member Esteban Lazo, head of the party’s Havana branch, denied widespread rumors Tuesday that the party sought to create a prime minister’s post to take some of the workload off Castro.

Party officials seem to be leaving no room for organized opposition, stressing the need for national unity.

Multiparty systems are associated with “politicking, injustices, abuses, demagogic promises … fraud, corruption, debasement of politics,” according to a draft policy statement.

State-run television said Sunday that it was a priority to maintain “the unity of all the forces of the people and not to allow that anything, nor anybody can divide them.”

It accuses Washington, which recently tightened its 3-decade-old embargo against Cuba, of financing “annexionist” groups in Cuba to bring the country under U.S. domination.

Plans also seem aimed at rescuing Cuba’s wheezing state sector rather than pushing ahead with market reforms.