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Travel restrictions, gay marriage among issues now discussed freely
By Andrea Rodriguez
Associated Press
Published on Thursday, Feb 07, 2008
HAVANA: Taking up Raul Castro's invitation to speak their minds without fear of reprisal, more Cubans have begun publicly complaining and challenging government policies on everything from limits on Internet access to travel restrictions.
This week some leading figures called for change: Culture Minister Abel Prieto said that he supports gay marriage, and famed folk singer Silvio Rodriguez said he believes all Cubans should be free to travel abroad and stay in the hotels reserved for foreign tourists.
Open challenges of government authority remain rare in Cuba, where the Communist Party dominates all levels of power. But since replacing his older brother Fidel as acting president, Raul Castro has urged Cuban citizens to help shape their country's economic future.
Cubans have responded.
University students, for example, were outspoken in a town-hall style meeting on Jan. 19 with Ricardo Alarcon, the president of Cuba's legislature. A video of the meeting on the Internet shows student leaders challenging him to explain why government policies fail to live up to Cuba's egalitarian ideals.
They asked Alarcon why many basic goods are sold in convertible currency meant for tourists and foreigners, making some necessities virtually inaccessible to state employees paid in Cuban pesos worth much less. They complained about laws prohibiting citizens from entering state-run hotels without official permission. They complained about limits on Internet access, and on rules that make getting a travel visa nearly impossible for most Cubans.
Alarcon ducked questions about the Internet and called travel a privilege, not a right. When he was their age, before the revolution, he told the students, he wasn't able to enter Cuba's luxury nightclubs or exclusive beaches.
However, other powerful Cuban figures joined the calls for societal change.
''I think that marriage between lesbians, between homosexuals can be perfectly approved and that in Cuba that wouldn't cause an earthquake or anything like that,'' Prieto, a member of the party's powerful Politburo, told reporters following a screening of a documentary on Rodriguez's career.
Cuban lawmakers are considering a proposal to allow gay marriages, though its progress in the legislature's closed-door sessions remains unclear.
A 57-year-old writer turned political leader, Prieto is a member of the island's supreme governing body, the Council of State. And he said he supports what Raul Castro has termed a ''debate'' on Cuba's future.
The ''immense majority of intellectuals'' want to ''confront problems, to battle all expressions of bureaucracy in culture and in society and at the same time defend this revolution and socialism,'' Prieto said.
Rodriguez, whose songs have made him a leading voice of the Cuban revolution, described what Cuba is going through now as ''a moment of change, of transition.''
The renowned folk singer is a member of parliament who has long defended the Cuban government in the face of criticism over alleged human rights violations.
Nonetheless, Rodriguez said Tuesday that authorities should ease restrictions that prevent many Cubans from entering state-run hotels, traveling overseas and even within their own country.
HAVANA: Taking up Raul Castro's invitation to speak their minds without fear of reprisal, more Cubans have begun publicly complaining and challenging government policies on everything from limits on Internet access to travel restrictions.
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