Kenelm lecturer reflects on past and future of Cuba

     Cuban exile, Dr. Eduardo Zayas-Bazan, remembered the Cuba of 50 years ago as a land of opportunity with the third highest standard of living in Latin America. Bazan delivered Campbell University’s annual Kenelm lecture, Tuesday, September 12, at the Weymouth Center in Southern Pines, N.C.
     “Fifty years ago, Cuba’s was a growing, vibrant economy,” Bazan said. “An economy in which educated and trained individuals could make a living practicing their professions.”
     Today, Cuba’s standard of living is one of the lowest in Latin America with an average per capita income of approximately $3,000 a year. The economy is state-controlled with production owned and operated by the government and about 93 percent of the labor force employed by the state. Architects and engineers, who once made good livings at their trade, are forced to work in service jobs because they can make more money in tips and gratuities than at their own professions.
     “It was always a country of military dictators and authoritarian powers,” Bazan said, “but Cuba always had a strong economy until a wild and crazy risk-taker named Fidel Castro overthrew Dictator Fulgencio Baptista in 1959.”
     Castro declared Cuba a socialist state in 1961 and for 30 years, pursued close relations with the Soviet Union, working with the geopolitical goals of Soviet communism and funding and creating violent subversive activities until the demise of the U.S.S.R. in 1991. Relations between the U.S. and Cuba deteriorated rapidly as the Castro regime expropriated U.S. properties and moved toward adopting a one-party communist system. In response, the U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 and tensions between the two governments peaked during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Recently, Fidel Castro underwent major surgery and is believed to be in failing health. He has temporarily ceded power to his brother Raoul Castro, however Bazan believes the transition is permanent. Will Cubans fair better under Raoul’s control and will Cuba ever become a democracy? Bazan holds out hope.
     “Intelligence sources report that Castro has terminal cancer,” Bazan said. “This is good news for those of us who would like to see a free Cuba. We feel with Castro gone, we will have a chance to become democratic.”
     However, Raoul, like Castro, doesn’t believe in going the democratic route. He would like to build on the socialist state created by his brother, leading Bazan to speculate on a couple of outcomes for Cuba.
     “Either Raoul takes over and a civil war starts, or, hopefully, the Cubans who are leaders in the armed forces are going to intervene and say 47 years is enough,” he said.
     Eduardo Zayas-Bazan was wounded in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, captured and spent a year in prison before being ransomed along with 59 other wounded prisoners who needed medical attention in the U.S. He immigrated to the U.S., becoming a foreign language professor at East Tennessee State University, where he is now Professor Emeritus.
     Bazan currently writes foreign language textbooks and was elected President in Exile of his hometown of Camaguey, Cuba. Since 2002, Bazan has been the editor of Camaguey’s newspaper in exile, “El Camagueyano Libre,” and has served as vice president of the Cuban Cultural Heritage organization since 2006. His desire is to one day return to a free and democratic Cuba.