Cubans Whisper of Change to American Reporter

HAVANA, Jan. 1, 2009 — -- Borrowing from Fidel Castro … here are some "reflections" on the state of the Cuban nation on its 50th birthday of the revolution from a reporter who has visited more than a dozen times in the last 15 years.

There is hope in the eyes of today's Cuban. Yes, life is difficult here. Unlike in some other Caribbean countries no one is starving here and the streets are safe anytime of the day and night. But few flourish either. Cubans must struggle to supplement their nearly free rent, health care, education and government food rations that are never enough. Salaries for extras are low and there are virtually no luxuries.

But the election of Barack Obama in the United States has struck a chord here among the people. As Amide Hernandez told us in her Havana living room, "God bless Obama and the changes he will bring about."

She is, of course, talking about the president-elect's promise to immediately end the Bush administration's strict visitation policies and restore American family rights to send cash to their poorer Cuban relatives.

There is even hope among Cubans that "no-drama Obama" may eventually do something dramatic like end the American embargo. The new president has said he won't consider restoring trade rights with Cuba until more than 200 political prisoners are released from prisons here. It's an idea not totally dismissed by Cuban officials who seem ready to negotiate.

In fact, in private discussions with Cuban officials during this visit there seems to be hope even in their eyes. And bureaucrat after bureaucrat has used new phrases for Cuba that hint at the possibility of economic changes. Words like "incentive" and "private."

President Raul Castro's most recent speech sent echoes through the dismal, gray edifices that house layer upon layer of government bureaucracy.

The Cuban president said that all of his economic decisions will now be based upon "individual incentive." And he promised "structural changes" to the Cuban economy. Behind the scenes, Cuban diplomats point to the new agricultural programs as proof.

One program is a grand experiment that actually allows individual farmers to lease land and run their private farm as they wish. Choosing when and where to plant the crops they, not the state, choose.

I visited Jose Reyes Hernandez's little two-acre plot of land outside Havana. He told me, "I've been given this piece of land, it was forest , this was jungle, now I have this." This is row upon row of peppers, beans and tomatoes.

Hernandez, who worked for the state as a truck driver since adulthood, now thrives running his business. He sells his vegetables and milk to day-care centers and state stores and on the free market. And he has a personal incentive -- a profit -- to outproduce the huge state farms that have failed so dismally to feed the Cuban people. Seventy percent of all Cuban food is imported.

Sound like capitalism? It is the first large-scale experiment by the Cuban government -- about 80,000 farmers have been leased land.

Wayne Smith, a former American diplomat to Cuba and now-adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, tells me this private farmer program indicates a "change of attitude, a change of direction. Let's hope it goes forward very energetically because I think it's the key to whether the agricultural system is going to perform or not. You either change the system or you continue to import 70 percent of your foodstuffs, which is not viable. So they need to change and they are in the process of changing."

More importantly, the Cubans acknowledge that it is change. And they now concede it is important that their workers have incentives to improve their own lot, not just make a better Cuban state for all.

For a reporter who has been listening for years to Cuban officials make excuses about low productivity and inefficiency, that is a change the Cuban people can believe in.