Only the Dollar Changes Cuba

SUNDAY MORNING, May 13—The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 destroyed Cuba's economy overnight. Fidel Castro had two choices:Let the U.S. embargo succeed in crushing him, or go into the tourist business,” reported Martha Teichner on the CBS News program. “Fresh money, the swiftest, easiest way of getting fresh money was tourism. Well, it is a way of survival,” one government spokesman told Teichner. But Castro's attitude toward human rights is another matter. “If you look hard, you might find one or two posters left over from the Pope's visit to Cuba last year. They are as faded as expectations that big changes would follow,” said Teichner. “Pope John Paul asked Fidel Castro to open up to the world. Instead, he jailed four prominent dissidents and passed a law restricting Cubans' contacts with foreigners,” she continued. One Church leader was not surprised. “In the field of relations between Church and state, I didn't expect very much,” said Msgr. Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. “Not as long as Fidel Castro remains.”

Belarus Follows Russia in Restricting Religion

RADIO FREE EUROPE, May 21—Belarus President Alyaksandr Likashenka's government has announced that additional foreign priests will not be allowed to enter the country now that the Minsk authorities have allowed the Church to open a seminary in the city, reported Paul Goble. The move “will make it difficult for [the] Church to recover anytime soon from the depredations of Soviet times during which more than 90% of parish churches were destroyed or confiscated,” said Goble. Cardinal Kazimierz Swiatek, the archbishop of Minsk who suffered years of imprisonment at the hands of the communists, credits the rebirth of the Church in Belarus to the 130 Polish priests who arrived after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “[Cardinal Swiatek] suggested the Church faces a difficult future, especially since the new seminary can prepare only 25 candidates for the priesthood annually,” said Goble. He pointed out that Belarus' new policy toward “foreign” religions “mirrors Russian religious legislation in its form, content and consequences.” As in Russia, only a few “traditional” religions (primarily Orthodox Christianity) enjoy uninhibited freedom in Belarus while others must register with the government and operate under restrictions.

An ‘Uneasy Truce,’ in Chiapas

COMPASS DIRECT NEWS, May 25—Protestants and Catholics in Chiapas, Mexico, have reached “an uneasy truce,” according to the Protestant news service, alleging that “Evangelicals have been the target of persecution by Catholics in the village of Saltillo.”

Compass said that representatives of the two communities reached an agreement “allowing 17 Tojolabal Indian Presbyterians who were forcibly expelled from the village to receive land to build a church and school.”

The agreement exempts Evangelicals from helping to pay for Catholic festivals or school projects, said Compass. The Evangelicals and Catholics agreed not to proselytize each other, and the Evangelicals promised not to demand enforcement of arrest warrants issued against 20 village leaders and others accused of a March attack on their community, reported the publication.