Vivir para ver. Nunca pensamos que llegaría a esto. Lo vemos y no lo creemos. Déjenme echarla le la historia. La Revolución de la “justicia social” nacionalizó y destruyó el sector privado de la economía cubana. Se pensó haber acabado así con el supuesto responsable de la miseria colectiva. Nadie pensó que la verdadera miseria estaba empezando en ese momento en ese momento. El Estado cubano quebró en muy poco tiempo porque las revoluciones están siempre divorciadas de la capacidad. Entonces aprovechándose de la guerra fría-Estados Unidos vs.URSS-Fidel le lanzó le lanzó un SOS a los soviéticos para asegurarse de dos cosas: que los americanos no lo invadieran y que le dieran un muy generoso subsidio en dólares para poder subsistir. La nodriza aceptó. Cuba dejaba a un lado pregonaba la soberanía nacional y fue así como se instalaron cohetes rusos en la Isla. Cuba, país sátelite-en América. Vergonzoso, pero la combinación de la necesidad con la incapacidad lo obligaron. Su orgullo quedó sepultado. Años después la nodriza de este “héroe de papel” que nunca expuso su vida en la Sierra Maestra pero que sí aparecía retratado con uniforme de guerrillero y rifle al hombro-eterna alma de pantallero-desapareció del escenario internacional. Se le acabó la Unión Soviética y con ella “la teta” que le daba de comer a la revolución. Qué hacer ahora?. Donde agarrar aunque sea fallo?. Fue entonces cuando le dio la espalda a algo más que a la soberanía. Traicionó también a la doctrina marxista con la que había ideologizado a una revolución que le había vendido al pueblo como nacionalista. “Mas verde que las palmas verdes de Cuba”, como él repetía. Compañeros del 26 de Julio y comandantes que sí pelearon en la Sierra se le revelaron querían a la revolución pero eran contrarios al Comunismo. Todos fueron fusilados en el paredón. A esta traición y a estos crímenes les llamaban “justicia revolucionara”. De esto jamás la historia lo absolverá. Corrió entonces detrás de los hoteleros capitalistas españoles, canadienses y mejicanos para que fueran a hacer buenos negocios en Cuba, verdadero paraíso capitalista donde los sueldos los fija el Estado y no existe el derecho de huelga. Pero los negocios los hacía él y para beneficio de su Régimen. Los sueldos los recibe el gobierno en dólares USA y al obrero cubano le pagan. su trabajo con pesos devaluados. Siempre el colectivo sobre la persona humana y su dignidad. La divisa socialista. Justicia social revolucionaria, lo llaman allá. Este abandono del socialismo por el capitalismo salvaje, o este injerto cuasi-diabólico, en algo alivió la economía de la Isla que se la reconoce como la Isla de Corcho. Pero la economía seguía mal. Miseria con esclavitud es una mezcla explosiva para cualquier Dictador. Además, un mal ejemplo para las otras revoluciones del mundo. Su discípulo venezolano, ese muchachón al que tengo deslumbrado, le he cambiado mi experiencia y asistencia revolucionaria por petróleo barato. Aceptó feliz. Bueno, esto me ayudó algo. Pero poco….Aquello está en verdad muy mal.
Prepárese que ahora es que viene el tercer acto de esta tragicomedia de comediante mas grande que ha producido la Historia. En estos momentos está negociando, agárrense para no caerse, la incorporación de Cuba al Acuerdo Cotonú después que la Unión Europea ha abierto su representación oficial en la Habana. Esta Oficina depende de la Comisaría para el Desarrollo y Ayuda Humanitaria que dirige el danés Paul Nelson. El 23 de Enero Cuba presentó oficialmente su solicitud de admisión al Cotonú. Este fondo reparte 13.500 millones de euros entre casi ochenta de los países mas subdesarrollados y miserables del mundo. Saben ustedes que da a cambio este “pordiosero internacional” para que lo admitan?. Promete flexibilizar los permisos de aquellos cubanos que quieran abandonar la Isla, irse de ese paraíso (?) que prometió hace 44 años y que aún no se ve por ninguna parte. Negocia la limosna con el ejercicio de un derecho que tiene la persona humana. No indigna esto?. No da esto asco?. Y ahora una pregunta, donde queda aquí la soberanía y el orgullo nacional revolucionario?. Dónde queda la dignidad de ese país tan cacareada para enfrentar a ese pueblo noble contra E.U.A. y el capitalismo salvaje del cual vive desde que desapareció la Unión Soviética?. Dignidad Nacional. Soberanía nacional. Doctrina marxista. Todo forma parte del mismo paquete y de la misma estafa: La revolución cubana. Y todavía hay quien quiere copiar este modelo desmodelado. El pueblo venezolano tiene que abrir bien los ojos y verse en ese espejo. DE LÍDER REVOLUCIONARIO A LIMOSNERO INTERNACIONAL. El héroe de papel de la Sierra Maestra con las manos extendidas ahora pidiendo que lo incluyan en ese fondo de ayuda a los países mas misérrimos del mundo. El que tenga ojos que vea….. Nota: En estos días la Revista FORBES coloca a Fidel Castro con un modesto ahorro de $ 128 millones. No se puede comparar esta suma, por supuesto, con la del Bill-Gates, trabajó toda su vida) y éste lo que hizo siempre fue hablar. Como pudo entonces ahorrar esa suma en medio de una nación que está en la miseria?. Es esta una buena pregunta que necesita de una mejor respuesta. DR. VALENTIN ARENAS AMIGO PROFESOR DE INSTITUCIONES POLITICAS DE LA U.C.A.B.

De: Fecha: Mar, 25 de Marzo de 2003, 12:44 pm Para:

Anexo un articulo merecedor de réplicas serias (bien fundamentadas con datos, estadísticas, hechos y no acusaciones y preferiblemente desapasionadas) por su obvia parcialización, mala intención, resentimiento y posibles imprecisiones.

Can you believe Venezuela's pollsters? fue escrito por Justin Delacour, a freelance writer and recent graduate of the Masters program in Latin American Studies at the University of New Mexico. He has written for Latin America Data Base (ladb.unm.edu<), a University of New Mexico-based news service. He receives email at jdelac@unm.edu

Lo he extraido de la revista ZMag (www.zmag.org) remitida por Elsa Boccheciampe quien comenta: "Acabo de encontrar un pagina web, aparentemente seria llamada ZMag "A community of People commited to social change"...Preparense para leer los articulos mas distorsionados que se pudo haber inventado alguien. Son el estilo de articulos que nos debe preocupar: serios, con datos y aparentemente escritos por personas imparciales."

Aunque la revista no es "mainstream" y es una clara manifestación del movimiento mundial "anti-establishment", por lo cual no podemos esperar encontrar en ella artículos objetivos, es bueno recordarle a los escritores el peso de sus palabras y en ocasiones, corregir errores e incluso influir en su pensamiento.

Saludos,

Can you believe Venezuela's pollsters? by Justin Delacour Narconews Bulletin February 06, 2003

Over the last year, several correspondents in Venezuela have repeatedly attempted to portray Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as an unpopular leader. The most common basis for these statements has been the recitation of “polls” claiming that Chávez’s approval rating is down to around 30 percent.

The commercial media correspondents rarely cite the source of their polls. So this reporter contacted them, and most of the reporters offered only the names of two Venezuelan companies – Datanalisis and Keller and Associates.

An investigation into the operations of these two Venezuelan polling firms and their relationships with correspondents reveals that, by any fair measure, it is irresponsible for correspondents to cite the two firms’ polls without also mentioning that the two firms are headed by virulently anti-Chavez figures who frequently use polling samples that are unrepresentative of the overall Venezuelan population.

The first factor that calls the polls into question is the well-known political partisanship of the polling firms’ directors, Jose Antonio Gil Yepes of Datanalisis and Alfredo Keller of Keller and Associates.

In a recent e-mail interchange, The Los Angeles Times’ correspondent T. Christian Miller acknowledged that the two pollsters are “pretty anti-Chavez,” but he defends their credibility on grounds that "both do door to door polling, to get the poorest of poor represented in their surveys, and also balance for things like gender and region." Miller’s defense of Keller and Gil Yepes is very questionable in view of contrary evidence. However, before presenting this contrary evidence, we would like to point out the problems with the two pollsters’ political partisanship.

Datanalisis' Pollster: Chavez "has to be killed"

Gil Yepes and Keller are not merely “anti-Chavez”; they are openly and virulently anti-Chavez. In a July 8 article in the Los Angeles Times, Miller describes Gil Yepes as a man of “Venezuela’s elite” who “moves in circles of money, power and influence” and “was educated in top U.S. schools.”

It’s certainly shocking that the LA Times quoted Gil Yepes saying that Chavez “has to be killed.”

But it is even more shocking that the LA Times and other commercial media continued to use Gil Yepes’ polling “results” after his homicidal fantasies leaped out of the closet through the pages of last July’s LA Times.

According to T. Christian Miller of the LA Times, Gil Yepes saw an assassination as the only way out of the “political crisis surrounding President Hugo Chavez.” Gil Yepes has since claimed that his quote was taken out of context, and that he was only making reference to an oft-expressed sentiment among Chavez’s opposition.

But let’s look at the full context as reported by the LA Times:

Jose Antonio Gil is among Venezuela's elite.

He moves in circles of money, power and influence. He was educated in top U.S. schools. He heads of one of the country's most prestigious polling firms.

And he can see only one way out of the political crisis surrounding President Hugo Chavez.

"He has to be killed," he said, using his finger to stab the table in his office far above this capital's filthy streets. "He has to be killed."

One need look no further than Datanalisis’ website to find the kind of blatant political partisanship that one normally does not associate with respectable polling operations. For example, in Datanalisis’ summary of a July 2002 report, the polling firm absurdly characterizes the current political conflict as one between the government (“el oficialismo”) and “the rest of the country.”

Despite the preposterousness of this portrayal, it is nevertheless an appropriate demonstration of the deep-seated class hatred by a large segment of Venezuela’s business-led opposition, which prefers to pretend that thousands of poor and working-class Chavez supporters do not exist.

When a massive pro-government demonstration in Caracas on October 13 showed that a good portion of “the rest of the country” supported Chavez, the editorial board of Venezuela’s elite-controlled newspaper El Nacional was incensed. El Nacional, which commissions and publishes polls by Datanalisis, disparagingly referred to Chavez’s supporters as “lumpen” who were lured from the country’s interior with “a piece of bread and some rum” to “come and cheer the great con man of the nation.”

As the Venezuelan anthropologist Johnny Alarcón Puentes points out, the terms "lumpen, rabble hordes, drunks, riff-raff and mobs are only some of the epithets foisted by the wealthy on citizens of dark skin, on street merchants, on workers, on the indigenous and on all those who live in slums or modest neighborhoods and dare raise their voice against the powerful.”

Thus, from the warped perspective of much of the opposition, Datanalisis’ contention that "the rest of the country" opposes Chavez makes sense. Since elites are the people that “matter,” and those of less privilege can be reduced to virtual sub-human status, poor and working-class Chavez supporters do not qualify as part of “the rest of the country.”

Alfredo Keller's "Fight to the Death"

As with Gil Yepes, there is good reason to believe that the pollster Alfredo Keller has come to advocate a violent solution to Venezuela's current political conflict. In Keller's recent letter published by PetroleumWorld.com, he describes the current political standoff as “a fight to the death for power between two counter-posed ideological forces: an authoritarian socialism with a spirit of revenge against a democracy that is open to the market.”

The charge of authoritarianism against Chavez is weak, and is especially hypocritical coming from the likes of Keller.

Here is a country, wracked by unrest, provocation, sabotage and calls for political assassination, a country that suffered a 48-hour military coup last April, where the television media and commercial dailies routinely exhort the public to violence, but the Chávez administration has not arrested or imprisoned a single journalist or opposition leader.

In fact, Chavez often comes under friendly criticism from the left for being too soft on his opposition. Cuban President Fidel Castro recently remarked, "If I have something to regret, it's his excessive generosity and kindness."

Castro continued:

"In what country could there be a coup and then have all the perpetrators meet in a plaza to spend 50 days agitating through television networks, proposing another coup? Not in any country in the world. I believe that there is not a more democratic, more law abiding, more tolerant, more generous man than Hugo Chavez."

The authoritarian label is more applicable to Keller than to Chavez. After anti-Chavez Generals led a short-lived coup d'etat against the Venezuelan President and turned over power to businessman Pedro Carmona and his entourage of right-wing ministers, Keller called the coup "a de facto referendum". As Carmona announced the dissolution of Venezuela's democratically-ratified constitution and democratically-elected congress, Keller peddled the lie that the April 11 opposition march on the Miraflores Presidential Palace had forced Chavez to resign.

Evidence that emerged later suggests that opposition Generals coordinated the shootings of protesters on April 11, with the objective of using the killings as a pretext to depose Chavez and claim that they had rebelled against his supposed orders to open fire on the people. A CNN video photographer, Otto Neustald has admitted that, two hours before any killings had taken place, he filmed a rehearsed press statement by the anti-Chávez Vice-Admiral Héctor Ramírez Perez that Chávez was "massacring innocent people with snipers." While Neustald makes clear that Generals allied to the opposition had foreknowledge that snipers would be utilized, the U.S. and British press corps in Venezuela has maintained a blackout of Neustald's admission.

The real concern for Keller and his avaricious cohorts in the opposition is the "structure of power" that Chavez and his supporters have erected. Steve Ellner, a historian who lives in Venezuela and specializes in the country's labor movement, has pointed out that Chavez's reforms, which include agrarian reform and severance benefits for workers, "have strongly favored labor at the expense of business." Some of these reforms are enshrined in the country's new constitution, which was democratically ratified by the electorate in 2000. The majority of political representatives in the country's new unicameral congress support the reforms.

In his recent letter, Keller expresses fear of the possibility that Chavez could still be in power by August, the month when the constitution allows for a binding referendum on the fate of the government. Although Keller claims that Chavez would lose such a referendum, he says that a political transition of that sort would still represent “a tremendous defeat for the opposition” because the “structure of power… would remain intact.”

Like coup leader Carmona, zealous figures within the opposition such as Keller seek to erase the entire Chavez legacy. But since that legacy has unleashed popular social forces that will rightly resist a return to oligarchic rule, the insistence of Keller and other opposition figures' on such an uncompromising position suggests their willingness to promote violence.

Partisan Pollsters

The known political partisanship of Venezuela’s pollsters causes all sorts of problems with regard to their polling. Firstly, it calls into question whether or not they are posing survey questions in a non-biased fashion. But as any political consultant will admit, a pollster, by phrasing the questions and deciding the “survey sample” of how the poll is “weighted” to specific demographic groups, can get any result he wants.

But even if we were to assume that Keller and Gil Yepes are not loading their questions, the poll respondents’ simple awareness of the pollsters’ political partisanship is likely to skew the polls in favor of the opposition.

We asked Matthew Mendelsohn, a Canadian political scientist and specialist on polling methodology, whether or not the pollsters' well-known political partisanship -- independent of all other factors -- could bias polling results. Although Mendelsohn told us that he lacked knowledge about polling in Latin America, he responded as follows:

"Any perception on the part of the respondent that the questioner is partisan can influence results. You see this with interviewer effects all the time -- male and female, black and white, etc. interviewers get different results. And certainly if the respondent knows that you're a representative from a particular party or group, this biases results.”

Biased Polling Samples

The factors that are likely to bias the polling of Gil Yepes and Keller are not limited to political partisanship alone.

An academic source -- a person that has worked closely with Venezuela's pollsters – said that most of Keller’s polling has been done in the middle class areas of the ten largest cities, meaning that the populous slums where Chavez’s support is concentrated have been largely excluded from Keller’s polling sample.

Our source informs us that Datanalisis’ polling samples are less skewed than Keller’s due to the firm’s superior operational team of field workers and access to Venezuela’s 1998 census tracts. However, the poll that Gil Yepes is currently releasing about the population’s views of the so-called “general strike” and Chavez’s handling of the crisis appears to be highly deceptive.

Here’s another fact unreported by English-language correspondents who cite polls by Gil Yepes and Keller as gospel: Since the “strike” began on December 2, Chavistas are not allowing Datanalisis’ field workers into the Chavista-controlled slums of Caracas and Maracaibo. While Gil Yepes recently released lopsided polls that purport popular support for the “strike,” he fails to mention that his polling sample excludes the populous slums where the “strike” has proved to be a complete failure. The progressive economist Mark Weisbrot, who recently spent time in Caracas, wrote a column for the Washington Post explaining that there were “few signs of the strike” in “most of the city, where poor and working-class people live.”

The academic source said that Keller and Gil Yepes generally do not poll rural inhabitants. The opposition newspapers that commission the polls are not willing to pay the increased costs that rural polling entails. Thus, landless peasants who may benefit from Chavez’s agrarian reform are also excluded from polling samples.

Tainted Pollsters, Tainted Press

In view of the above-mentioned facts, it is mind-boggling to see just how laudatory the English-language press corps is of Gil Yepes and Keller.

AP’s Alexandra Olson calls Datanalisis' “Venezuela's most prestigious polling firm” in a recent report.

The Miami Herald’s Juan Tamayo claims, in an e-mail reply to this reporter, that Datanalisis and Keller and Associates are “the two most credible polling companies in Venezuela.”

Jehan Senaratna of Dow Jones News Wires calls Keller “the head of a respected Caracas-based polling and economic research firm.” Despite his polite remark about Keller, Senaratna tells us that Datanalisis is the “only polling firm that can be considered reliable and unbiased politically.”

Finally, Phil Gunson, a freelance correspondent in Venezuela who has written for several papers, says the “polling organizations that most of us consider to be the most reliable” are Keller and Associates and Datanalisis.

In essence, the correspondents have become so carried away with anti-Chavez hysteria that they are blinded to the fact that the pollsters whom they rely upon are neither credible, reliable, or politically unbiased. How would Keller and Gil Yepes be received in other lands, even in the United States, promoting themselves as respected pollsters while making statements that verge on inciting violence against a democratically elected government?

So the next time a member of the commercial press corps tells you that umpteen percent of the Venezuelan people feel a certain way according to “polls,” ask yourself: Did they identify the source of the “poll”? And if the “poll” was about Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, was the pollster someone in “a fight to the death” or who says “Chávez must be killed”?

In a media-fed democracy, polls and simulated polls can be lethal weapons, too.

Alertas de Robert Alonso Robert Alonso

Quise pasarle por delante al Capitolio de La Habana, una réplica a menor escala del Capitolio de Washington y en un semáforo se me metió una “jinetera”.  Fidel se había ufanado de haber erradicado la prostitución en Cuba.   Ahora me transporté a la Cuba de Batista, al obstinadamente llamado “ el burdel de los norteamericanos”, solo que no vi un solo “gringo”.  Una muchacha en sus treinta años, de voluminoso cuerpo, piel blanca y ojos tristes,  me preguntó para dónde iba a lo que yo le respondí de inmediato, por decirle algo --- pues yo no sabía todavía a dónde me dirigía --- que camino al “reparto” (urbanización) de El Vedado.    Me dijo que también iba para allá y que tal vez podríamos “hacernos un poco de compañía”.   Era evidente que estaba “jineteando”. 

Estacioné el carro en San Rafael y Galiano  y la invité a tomar un refrigerio cerca de donde estacioné el lujoso vehículo japonés que había alquilado en el aeropuerto.  Fui a trancar las puertas y me dijo que no hacía falta, pues en Cuba no se robaban automóviles... y mucho menos uno como ése.   Me dijo que la gasolina se vende en dólares... así que a nadie en su sano juicio se le ocurriría agarrar una “máquina” (un carro) y “salir volando por ahí”.  La historia es larga, pero la haré corta.  La muchacha era casada con tres hijos pequeños y su marido --- sin ser proxeneta o chulo --- permitía que “jineteara” para “ayudarse”.     Vivía en la casa que sus padres compartían con sus abuelos, donde ella llevaba a sus “clientes”.   Cuando llegaba,  cualquier familiar (incluyendo niños) salía de la casa alegando cualquier excusa,   dejando que ella hiciera su trabajo, el cual mitigaría en algo la miseria de todo su núcleo familiar.   

El padre administraba en su casa un “paladar” que es un pequeño restaurante casero --- “en dólares” --- con un máximo permitido de sillas, donde los turistas --- o cualquiera que pague en dólares --- pueden comer a un costo inferior al de los hoteles de lujo.  

Los cubanos no hablan ni del gobierno ni de la “Revolución”, hablan de Fidel.   “ Fidel no lo permite...”, “A Fidel no le gusta eso...” y así por el estilo.     A Fidel, sin embargo, no le importa mucho que los cubanos se rebusquen “alguito” “jineteando” o montando “paladares” que no sean muy grandes.  Los dólares que se hacen “bisneando” (como ellos llaman a la actividad de hacer negocios por fuera... “matando tigres”) van íntegros para el bolsillo de los cubanos, sin que “Fidel” se quede con nada.   En el caso de los “paladares”, el cubano comparte sus ingresos con el gobierno y la comida que consumen los comensales en estos improvisados y primitivos restaurantes caseros se compra en dólares y generan divisas que terminan en manos del Estado como parte de esa “economía informal”.   Es parte del dinamismo económico que ayuda a mantener “contento” al golpeado pueblo que un día vertió todas sus esperanzas en la “Revolución”.  

Hace apenas unos años, si Fidel agarraba a un cubano con dólares en el bolsillo, lo mandaba de patas a la prisión, con un “juicio” similar al de mi madre, cuya   pena mínima era de cinco años.   Ahora el peso cubano, prácticamente está en desuso, además de ser repudiado y despreciado.  Dólares, dólares y más dólares.  El cubano que no consiga dólares se las ve muy mal.   Lo triste del caso es que conseguir dólares es, en demasiados casos, tremendamente difícil y otras veces: ilegal.   Fidel ha convertido a los cubanos en “ilegales-legales”.   La corrupción es INIMAGINABLE.   Venir de un país como Venezuela, uno de los más corruptos del universo y caer en Cuba es impactante porque uno se enfrenta a la corrupción al más mínimo de los niveles, pero de una manera constante, intensiva, contumaz.  El que un venezolano se impresione con la corrupción exagerada en Cuba es indicativo del grado de corrupción que rige cada paso de esa sociedad.   

La nueva constitución cubana habla  en su preámbulo de aquellos “obreros, campesinos, estudiantes e intelectuales que lucharon durante más de cincuenta años contra el dominio imperialista, LA CORRUPCIÓN POLÍTICA, la falta de derechos y libertades populares, el desempleo y la explotación...”   Evidentemente que a casi medio siglo del triunfo, falta mucho trecho por recorrer.

Seguía conversando con mi “ jinetera” quien notaba que yo estaba más interesado en la conversación con ella que en ella.  De repente, sin que viniera al caso, la muchacha me pidió que le regalara un dólar.  Así, de repente, sin ton ni son: “Oye, regálame un dólar...”  Se lo di y continuamos conversando.  Jamás pensé que me encontraría en una situación tan penosamente absurda.   Le pregunté si había visitado alguna vez mi pueblo de crianza, Pinar del Río y me dijo que ella no va para allá, porque allá no hay turistas, solo miseria.  

La vida en Cuba se desarrolla hoy en torno, no al turismo, como industria... sino a los turistas.   Los turistas se aprovechan despiadadamente de los cubanos y de las cubanas en particular.  Muchos se las llevan a la cama y después no pagan, según “ Cristina”, mi amiga “jinetera”.  

“Cristina” me dijo que vivía bien en Cuba y que sentía un profundo amor y respeto por Fidel.    ¿Cómo es posible?, me pregunté ingenuamente.  Fidel había hecho de su miserable vida algo “normal”. Su familia abandonaba, “normalmente”, la casa cuando ella llegaba “jineteando”, pero eso a nadie le incomodaba, al contrario, llegaba parte del pan que mitigaría el hambre... y unos cuántos dólares para seguir “bisneando”.  Turistas como monte, más turistas que “jineteras”, aunque parezca absurdo.  La competencia, según “Cristina”, era atroz.

Si bien Castro es detestado y temido, también es amado y reverenciado como lo son -- entre los primitivos -- las deidades sangrientas, pues para el pensamiento del hombre adormitado en su esencia, tan sólo aquel capaz de ser temido merece ser amado, ya que sin odio no puede haber amor, como es timbre de sinceridad, para el que ha sido engañado muchas veces, la brutal felonía.   También existe “el frente”, es decir, el hacer creer que se ama al “Padre de Cuba” cuando lo que existe es un absoluto desprecio.

“Cristina” me propuso que si tenía un “pituza” (blue jean) me llevaba a su casa.    Le dije que todo lo que había traído para mis primas me lo habían quitado en el aeropuerto, a lo que me aclaró que aceptaba un “pituza” de hombre, para su esposo.  Sentí un profundo dolor por aquella muchacha; era un poco mayor que mi hija, pero no mucho.   Una tremenda necesidad de llorar, ahí mismo -- frente a ella -- se adueñó de mí.  Busqué la “Revolución” en “Cristina”, pero no la encontré por ningún lado.   Ahora estaba en Maicao, en los barrios de mala muerte de Santo Domingo, o en algún burdel de quinta categoría de mi patria adoptiva.  Levantaba la cabeza y me encontraba en San Rafael y Galiano, una de las intercepciones más concurridas del centro habanero, que antes de la “Revolución” se parecía a cualquier intercepción importante del “downtown” de Miami, donde se erguía entonces orgullosa la famosa tienda de “El Encanto”.    Un lugar donde jamás uno se hubiera sentado en una mesa con una “callejera”, so pena de fomentar un escándalo social. Tal vez ahí estaba la “Revolución”.   Los escándalos sociales ya no existen, son eventos burgueses del pasado. 

“Cristina” me dijo que ella fue “artista” y una vez salió de Cuba en una gira por las islas del Caribe, cerca de Venezuela.   Le pagaban dos dólares por día y pasó hambre, la que no pasa en Cuba, me dijo.   Lo único que le pudo traer a su mamá de su viaje -- según ella -- fueron unos jaboncitos que se llevó del hotel de mala muerte donde la hospedaron.   Entonces no era “jinetera”, era “artista”.

Extracto del libro Las vivencias de “Paquito” con la “jinetera” Cristina “Regresando al Mar de la Felicidad” de Robert Alonso

El Hatillo 25 de marzo de 2003 robertalonso2003@cantv.net

<a href=www.voanews.com>VOANews Barry Wood Washington 25 Mar 2003, 00:06 UTC

APU.S. investors took a gloomier view of a quick end to the war in Iraq Monday, and sent stock market prices sharply down. The U.S. dollar also fell, while the prices of crude oil went up.

Crude oil prices Monday registered their biggest gain in 15 months as pockets of stiff Iraqi resistance to the U.S.-led invasion raised concern that Iraqi oil may not quickly return to world markets.

Oil for May delivery rose 6.5 percent or $1.75 in New York to just under $29 a barrel. Oil is still priced nearly 28 percent below its peak of just under $40 per barrel touched in late February.

Another development helped push crude higher. Ethnic strife in Nigeria has shut down 40 percent of that country's oil output. Venezuela, meanwhile, is getting its oil production back on line following a crippling strike.

The stock market fell sharply with the main index, the Dow Jones industrials, losing three and a half percent or 307 points to close at just over 8,200. The loss was the biggest in three months and reversed the 235-point gain of last Friday. Volume was light. The market was up sharply last week, its best five-day performance in 20 years.

Gold was higher and the dollar lower.

Travel-related stocks were the hardest hit as advance reservations for air travel are down amid war and terrorism related worries impact. Delta Airlines is the last carrier to announce capacity reductions and further staff reductions are expected. Oil and defense related issues closed higher.

PM - Monday, 24 March , 2003 18:35:00 Reporter: Darcy Lambton

Mark Colvin presents PM on ABC Local Radio, Monday to Friday, 6:10pm. Join Mark for 50 minutes of current affairs, wrapping the major stories of each day.

MARK COLVIN: It's been an edgy Monday for the Australian share market; it shed 10 points in the session. Doubt is creeping back into the market after the weekend's military setbacks. Last Friday, Wall Street posted its biggest weekly gain in 20 years, amid expectations that war will be short, sharp and victorious. But Wall Street may turn ugly when it reopens, if Australian stocks are any anything to go by. Darcy Lambton reports. DARCY LAMBTON: Around the world, investors are anxiously waiting to see how events take shape on Wall Street this week. Today's downward performance on the Australian share market underline the fears of many. Peter Ward of Austock Brokers expects similar declines in the US. PETER WARD: Features on the US market for this morning's opening are negative, so we'd certainly expect things to at least open up on a downward basis, and probably stay that way, I would have thought, some throughout the duration of the day. DARCY LAMBTON: The US rally last week was huge, but the market's mood of optimism remains fragile. Certainly, room for upward momentum is tight. US stock prices already reflect expectations of a swift military defeat for the Iraqi regime. But if Iraq's fight back continues, Wall Street's previous bullishness may beat a hasty retreat, and that would have implications for share markets around the world, including Australia's. Tim Rocks, Secretary Strategist at Macquarie Bank, says the potential downside is sizeable. TIM ROCKS: Generally, the economic situation in the world is not great, and in fact the recent data that we get out of the US has been deteriorating. On top of that, the US profit outlook has not been that great as well, and what's more in Australia that those things are reasonably negative as well. The economy has been slowing down, and Australian profits have been disappointing as well. If Iraq doesn't get better, and all these other things are bad, then it's easy to see the market continuing to slide below the bottom that it reached about two weeks ago. DARCY LAMBTON: Do you expect to see big swings in the market? We had like 20-year highs reached in the US last week; could we see similar falls downwards, sharp falls downwards, if events in Iraq don't according to plan? TIM ROCKS: Oh absolutely. The next few weeks is going to be incredibly volatile. The market is going to jump up and down with hourly movements, perhaps, in the outcome of the war. So, it's going to be a pretty sort of scary environment for investors that are sort of watching those sort of day-to-day movements. DARCY LAMBTON: In the current climate of soaring equities, oil prices have crumbled, falling to around US$27 a barrel. They're tracking border confidence for a quick Iraqi capitulation. But unlike the 1991 Gulf War, the world economy isn't best prepared for an eruption in prices. Then, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries had spare capacity of 6 million barrels per day if supplies were seriously disrupted. That figure is now only 2 million. The after affects of Venezuela's general strike, and a 20 per cent reduction in Kuwaiti output aren't helping. Meanwhile, the US is contending with dangerously low oil inventories, not to mention a current account deficit of 5 per cent of GDP. It's an unpalatable cocktail, that, mixed into a messy war with Iraq, poses major economic concerns. Tim Rocks, of Macquarie Bank. TIM ROCKS: Oil prices affect petrol prices, and petrol prices are a big direct expense in everybody's budget, and they're also an indirect offence, because there's transportation costs associated with everything we buy. When we go to the supermarket, all those goods need to be transported using, sort of, the cost of petrol. So businesses get squeezed and they try and sort of pass on those extra costs to the consumer. So that does mean that your hip pocket really gets hurt when oil prices are high. So if those petrol and oil prices continue to rise, then it does have a big economic affect. MARK COLVIN: Tim Rocks, of Macquarie Bank, ending that report from Darcy Lambton.