By Um, Yoonsun
HAVANA – Cuba's Roman Catholic cardinal says the country is in one of its worst crises these days, with its people demanding political and economic changes sooner rather than later.
Jaime Ortega, the top Catholic cleric of Cuba, also called on its home country and the United States to resume a meaningful dialogue to normalize relations, in an interview that was released Monday in the church's official monthly magazine.
Ortega said Cubans are openly talking about the shortcomings of their socialist system, what he called a Stalinist-style bureaucracy and a ceaseless lack of worker productivity.
"Our country is in a dire situation," Ortega said in the interview with Palabra Nueva — New Word. He added that the nation is going through its most difficult period in the 21st century.
He said that many have different solutions to the nation's woes, but they all agree on one thing: "that the necessary changes were made in Cuba right away."
"I think this sentiment has become a form of national consensus, and its delay is producing impatience and unease among the people," Ortega said.
Cuba has fallen into what many consider its worst economic cycle since the severe shortages of the so-called "special period" in the early 1990s that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. The island is now handling the fallout from three devastating 2008 hurricanes, a downturn in world tourism and the global liquidity crisis.
President Raul Castro and other top Cuban officials have urged people to work harder and warned that many state subsidies will have to be retrenched. Cubans make minuscule salaries of about $20 a month, but in return the state offers free or near-free health care, education, housing and services.
In the interview, Ortega noted he joined other Roman Catholic clergymen in calling on the government to do whatever necessary to protect the lives of dissidents and political prisoners after a Cuban dissident died in February after a long hunger strike.
The 73-year-old clergyman urged another dissident who has refused food and water for weeks to stop the protest.
"With respect to political prisoners, the church has historically done everything possible to have them freed, not just those that are sick, but others, too," he said.
The cardinal also condemned President Barack Obama for failing to resume a sincere dialogue with Cuba. Ortega said that the U.S. leader has fallen into the same pattern as his predecessors by demanding democratic reforms and an improvement in human rights as a prerequisite to end Washington's 48-year embargo, when those things should rather be the final objective of any talks.
"Once again, the old (American) policy prevails: to begin at the end," Ortega said. "I am convinced that the first thing should be to meet, talk and lead a dialogue. ... That is the civilized way to confront any conflict."
Cuba never banned religion but expelled priests and closed church schools following the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power in January 1959.
Tensions eased in the early 1990s, when the government removed references to atheism from the constitution and allowed believers of all faiths join the Communist Party. The condition gained a further momentum thanks to the historic visit of Pope John Paul in 1998.
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