The Features Mail Cuba: Statistics Full of Fallacies

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I'm amazed that the CRIMSON could have printed, in the interests of "balanced" journalism, the April 10 letter from two Cuban exiles. There are enough magazines like Reader's Digest and the Harvard Independent to publish their views.

But there it is, brimful of lies and prevarication. Yes, before Castro, "Cuba was exporting cattle." Naturally, if big U. S.-owned ranches are raising livestock with all the modern techniques, then "Cuba" goes listed as "exporting cattle." But not because there was a true surplus. Few Cubans ate that beef-it all went to the profitable export trade. Senores Magarolas, also, neglect to mention the fact that Cuba was importing rice, eggs, vegetable oils, tomatoes, potatoes, beans-plus cornflakes and Coke. Cuba's sugar plantations had among the lowest yield in the world; there were no technological innovations since the 18th century. (Migrant laborers who work a 14-hour day are after all cheaper to exploit than machines.) Half the sugar land went uncultivated for the sake of speculation and keeping the world prices up. The situation was: sugar for the international market, but no subsistence crops for the Cubans.

How can the Magarolas state so glibly that "Cuba's past underdevelopment is a myth?" Not only industrialized and non-"dependence on agriculture," but also economic self-sufficiency and basic human survival for everyone-those are the criteria. Figures are worthless bunk. A 1956 per-capital income of $520 is the average of the disparate incomes of millionaires, executives, doctors, campesinos earning less than $100 a year, prostitutes, and the unemployed (over 10 per cent). I lived in Cuba in that year of 1956, and people in Colon and Pinar de Rio didn't even seem to be sharing in that $520. Venezucla's per-capital income is even higher-$800; any visitor to Caracas who has seen the miles of mud-built slums knows that per-capital income, as applied to Latin America, is pure poppycock.

What counts is that, since 1959, Cuba has produced more citrus fruit (for domestic consumption as well as for export) than in her previous 200 years of existence, that Cuba will become self-sufficient in rice and other vegetables during this decade, that the once-non-existent fishing industry is growing fast, that children get free milk, that everyone has enough, that blacks and women have jobs. In view of all this, how can the Magarolas say that the 10 million tons are "monoculture"? The sugar curplus will bring Cuba some badly needed agricultural machines.

And who's more developed now-Venezuela with their shiny Esso skyscrapers and widespread malnutrition, or Cuba with a shortage of Cadillacs but enough food for all? The Cuba that had one unit of housing per 12.9 inhabitants (i. e., one unit per every three families) or the Cuba that is building and providing housing free for everyone? The Cuba that was "only" 20-30 per cent illiterate or the Cuba that is now close to 0.0 per cent? The Cuba that printed 1,000,000 books in 1958 (mostly dime novels, Superman, and bad pornography) or the Cuba that printed 23,000,000 volumes in 1968-mostly textbooks but also history, economics, and best-selling editions of the European classics?

The Magarolas do bring up Imperialism-as practiced by the USSR. Do the Russians own the plantations, the utilities industries, the oil refineries? Are they draining the country of its mineral and financial reserves? No, but we did. Do they have combat soldiers in Cuba? (The only foreign combat soldiers in Cuba are those stationed by us in Guantanamo!) There is not a single mention in the Magarolas letter to the near-absolute control of U. S. business over the old economy. What country used to own the factories where that 23.9 per cent of the labor force worked?

Yes, there is a scarcity of consumer goods-due mostly to the U. S. blockade. But pity the old rich who can't buy the latest Paris fashions. Pity the poor Cubans who can no longer get Fords, TV sets, and Pepsi. And pity the campesino who has been given food and medical car, but, alas, can't attack the government for having done so. Take your pick: lots of consumer "goods" but millions staving, or food for everybody but a lack of transistor radios.

And of course the stock comparison to Fascism Cuban militarism, "totalitarianism," etc.-much of their facts taken from a non-biased source like U. S. News and World Report. Next thing some people will be condemning Vietnamese militarism. The Magarolas, blindly or willfully, blur the distinction between a militarism that is defensive, and the aggressive kind practiced in Ethiopa (or Vietnam). I don't see any Cuban planes zooming in and dropping bombs on weaker countries. With all the commando raids and sabotage and one abortive Cuban invasion to our credit, with the threats of future actions, with the inflow of CIA agents onto the island, talk of militarism seems like a classic case of projection. The simple fact is that Cuba faces war with the United States. With the world's biggest military machine laying Asian countries flat and giving military aid ?? Haiti, Brazil, and Greece, scare stories about Cuban militarism are so much hypocrisy. Not many Cuban exiles seem too concerned about the militarism of General Abrams or General Dynamics.

So 1,000,000 Cubans have left. The Magarolas don't mention the fact that the U. S. Government gives unlimited entry to all Cuban exiles, provides free room and board for six months, and finds them housing and employment. How many Greeks or Guatemalans would come here if we opened up our pearly gates to them? Oddly enough, all these doctors and businessmen weren't angry enough to flee during Batista, when 20,000 people were killed by an even larger secret police, and torture was normal practice. On the other hand, journalists from Germany, France, and the U. S. have shown how Cuban prisoners today are fairly well treated; torture is outlawed, and if it were practiced the news would leak out. Future emigres to the United States form the bulk of the people in labor camps-a mild punishment when you consider that they are deserting to Cuba's number one enemy.

Among the "thousands" (a highly doubtful figure) who were executed there were several hundred Batistiano army officers and police chiefs-by no means idle dissenters. Jaccbo Arbenz and Juan Bosch know that these legally appointed criminals are always the first to topple any leftist government. These are the various factions which the Magaralos feel should have been given a "voice," together with the millionaires, the latifundistas, those who held high jobs in American businesses, and the landlords. Perhaps it is better for Cuba that these "dissenters" have left.

Cuba is a dictatorship, no doubt. But that is the way of young revolutions. In the 1770's and 80's, American colonists shot pro-monarchists, suppressed all pro-British publications, and seized the property of royalists who had fled to Canada. The French-without whom victory would have been difficult-helped considerably. To the nobles, "freedom" had died; for the Americans self-determination had been gained. Those who felt it wasn't necessary ("peaceful channels") look quite silly in retrospect. All new systems go through a dictatorial phase, and that is tragic. But outside powers who do all they can to crush new systems always make matters worse.8 Amory =3, Cambridge