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Petition wins
legal status for
Chile CP

A petition with over 60,000
signatures gathered from Chileans has
ensured the legality of the Communist
Party of Chile. The required number of
signatures was 35,000. In a recent letter
the Communist Party of Canada
congratulated the Chilean Party on the
success of its petition and observed that
the overwhelming support of the
Chilean people for the party’s
legalization was evidence of the deep
roots it has in the working class and
movements. The Chilean Party is to
hold a mass rally in Santiago’s largest
arena.

1,300 political
prisoners in
S. Korea’s jails

According to the Human Rights
Committee of the National Council of
Churches in Korea, there are currently
1,300 prisoners of conscience in South
Korean jails. Of these, 154 are long
term prisoners, and 57 are categorized
as “non-converted.” Some of the
prisoners are in their 70s and have been
imprisoned since the Korean War —
nearly 40 years.

Poverty stalks
cities in Latin
America

Estimates for the number of
impoverished people in Latin America
has been put at 183 million, or 44 per
cent of the total population of Latin
America. In contrast to the situation
just a decade ago, today poverty is
largely an urban problem, according to
a UN study. While the 1970s were in
general a decade of economic growth,
there is now a marked deterioration in
social conditions, with Argentina and
Uruguay having the lowest rates of
poverty, Peru and Guatemala the
highest.

Mohawks rally
at Canadian
consulate

More than 500 members of the
Bridge, Structural and Iron Workers
Union, mostly Mohawks, demonstrated
last week outside the Canadian
consulate in New York. They
demanded that the Canadian and
Quebec governments withdraw the
army and police from Kahnawake and
Kanesatake and work towards a
long-term peaceful solution to the
crisis. They also expressed their
solidarity with the nearly 100
Mohawks from Kahnawake who work
on the high steel girders in New York.

BY MARC FRANK

HAVANA, Cuba — “It was awesome,
really,” said my 16-year-old sister, attend-
ing 11th grade here in hopes of starting an
exchange program. As a U.S. teenager,
fresh from the United States, what better
judge of the “Criolla-burger,” also known
on the streets of Cuba’s capital city as a
“McCastro” or “Fidel-burger.”

At 11:30p.m. last Monday night, I tried
one myself at the new burger joint on 23rd
and K Street in Vedado. Sure enough, a
hamburger bun equal to any I have ever
seen, and inside, a patty that put the
quarter-pounder to shame.

I closed my eyes and took a bite, then
another and another.

I was drawn to the same spot Wednes-
day night and this time I bought two, and
acola. There is no doubt about it, the new
rage here, made from pork and soya, and
topped off witha spicy sauce, is absolutely
delicious.

Big deal? That’s what I said to myself
when the opening of the Moscow Mc-
Donalds was front-paged as if socialist
countries can’t make their own ham-
burgers, serve them up fast and with a
smile. I figure someone should let the
world know that they can and at least in
Cuba, they are.

Wednesday night I watched as 53 cus-
tomers were served 191 burgers, by one
person, in less than 30 minutes.

Besides, it is a news event. What we
have here is not the opening of one ham-
burger stand but a chain, the first socialist
hamburger chain in the world.

Cuba already boasts pizza and fried
chicken. There are 16 hamburger joints so
far in Havana, open from 16 to 24 hours a
day. By the end of the year they’Il grow to

Criolla-burgers big in Cuba

Homegrown pork
and soya burgers
take no backseat to
Big Mac.

about 50, with many more opening up
across the country.

“For starters, we are talking about serv-
ing one million Criolla-burgers a week,”
says Alejandro Roca, in charge of Cuba’s
food industry. That’s no small number
given Cuba’s population of ten million.

“They are 100 percent Cuban and
come with a cola (also 100 percent
Cuban).”

Cuba’s fast food czar says in the future
that ice cream, milk shakes and fruit juices
will also be sold alongside the Criolla-
burger.

You can buy a Criolla-burger at an
outdoor stand or at a restaurant. The price
is always the same, two pesos, and a coke,
20 cents. And for the environmentally
conscious, these burgers are served on a
piece of biodegradable cardboard, made
from sugar cane refuse. The labour force
is 100 percent union.

“What we have here is far more than
hamburger,” wrote Arleen Rodriguez in
the Oct. 7 issue of Juventude Rebelde. Her
article detailed the euphoric response to
the burger, especially amongst Havana
youth. acca

“The arrival of this 100 percent Cuban
hamburger to our gastronomical world,”
she continued, “confirmed that we can,

the “pork plan” (pork is Cuba’s national

even in hard times, revolutionize our ser-
vices while forming a new consumer cul-
ture not based on profit.”

What more can one say about a ham-
burger?

First, it’s the fruit of a three-year-old
effort to improve food production in Cuba.
To be more specific, what’s known here as

dish) is in turn one of a dozen pieces of the
“food program” that includes the develop-
ment of animal feeds from sugar cane.
Pork production will have doubled by the
end of the year and will double again by
1993.

Second, Cuba’s leaders are clearly lis-
tening to the people, whose number one
gripe is the service industry. The Criolla-
burger boom bursts the myth that fast
foods and convenience stores are cap-
italist creatures. And the Cubans are over-
joyed, rubbing their hands, smacking their
lips and taking bets on what will come
next.

What’s my guess? I’ll put money down
on banana chips. Cooked plantain runs a
close second to pork here and could be an
easy challenge to the french fry. As part of
the food program, new irrigation systems
are being put into banana production on a
crash basis. They always triple and, in
some cases have quadrupled yields.

What to do with all those cooking ban-
anas? Ahhh, I can even taste that salty
banana chip crunching between my teeth
after each bite of my Criolla-burger or sip
of the Cuba-shake.

McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s,
watch out!

Philippines’ activists look to ‘92

President Corazon Aquino of the Philip-
pines came to power on the crest of a revolu-
tionary wave after decades of abuse by a
U.S.-backed dictator and a power elite that
kept millions in poverty.

But Aquino has squandered the initia-
tives that brought her to power in 1986, and
now the country’s popular forces are looking
to replace her, a Catholic activist who works
for human rights on Mindanao island says.

“They are setting their eyes to the elec-
toral process” — state and municipal elec-
tions in 1992 — Karl Gaspar, a Redemp-
torist Brother who was in Vancouver
recently, said in an interview.

Gaspar, who works among the poor and
disinherited in the largest of the Philippines’
more than 7,000 islands, seemed uniquely
qualified to comment on the unstable situa-
tion that has rocked the southeast Asian ar-
chipelago in recent years.

His home town, Butuan City, was the site
of the most recent military coup attempt
coming from the right-wing of the armed
forces. Gaspar himself was abroad at the
time.

The abortive coup, the seventh attempt to
topple Aquino’s government, also em-
broiled the cities of Cagayan de Oro and
Iligan City before being suppressed after a
few days early last month. It was led by a
Col. Noble, aligned with Col. Gringo»
Honosan, a former aid to a member of the
former government, Juan Ponce Enrile.

Gaspar described himself as a member of
a “church group in struggle” and said he is
frequently accused by the country’s right-
wing and fascist forces of being a “com-
munist terrorist.” But his activities are apart

from those of the broad-based National
Democratic Front and the armed struggle
waged by the New People’s Army — al-
though Gaspar was clearly supportive of
those organizations’ general aims.

With Aquino clearly out of favour with
trade unions and other popular organizations
because she has continually caved in to the
right, why is she the target of so many right-
wing coups, he was asked.

The motivation comes partly from the
impatience of some elements of the military
who feel they have not been handed enough

~ power, Gaspar said.

But the United States, which nominally
supports the Aquino government, “could be
behind it. We have no illusion thatthey don’t
play a dual role” in the Philippines.

The most dangerous of the coups was in
the capital, Manila, last December when
rebel forces penetrated wealthy neighbour-
hoods — a first in the history of coup at-
tempts — and briefly held the airport. It
could have been successful, Gaspar said.

But it had no support from the civilian
population, and U.S. planes from the nearby
Clark Air Base “neutralized” the rebel for-
ces, he noted.

“The Americans made their propaganda
case: protect U.S. bases in the Philippines.”

An upcoming treaty proposes to renew
the leases on U.S. military bases for five
more years, even though the overwhelming
demand of the people is for the Americans
to leave — a fact U.S. spokespersons have
acknowledged, Gaspar related.

“Tt is impossible for them to ignore rising
nationalist sentiment. But they still want to
play the same game.

“Despite the Berlin Wall coming down
— God knows what crisis theyll invent in
the future to keep their bases in southeast
Asia.”

For its part, the Philippines government
fears losing revenues from the rental of the
bases, military aid and employment — in-
cluding prostitution — if the U.S. pulls out.

“The continuing influence of the U.S.
government in our internal affairs may be
waning, although of course it won’t end
overnight,” Gaspar commented.

“They are still afraid consolidation and
expansion of the radical left could threaten
their interests.”

It was possible for Aquino, up until 1987,
to forge a broad-based coalition for reform
to the Philippines’ economic and social sys-
tems, Gaspar said. For example, she could
have established a human rights body to try
all the top military officials who bolstered
the regime of the late Ferdinand Marcos.

“At that time we needed a second cathar-
sis (after the 1986 revolution),” he said.

Aquino could have retained the “key -

people in her cabinet who were good and
provided them with support for a package of
aid forreal reform.” Instead, she has increas-
ingly moved toward reconciliation with the
right, Gaspar said.

But the Philippines’ revolutionary left is
still there, despite the military repression,
and can help tum things around, Gaspar said.

Reform groups are eyeing the 1992 na-
tional elections, which include muni-
cipalities where big gains can be made.

“Tt can happen. It happened in 1986. That
didn’t solve everything, but we’ll try again.”

Pacific Tribune, November 5, 1990 « 9

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