BELIZE and Cuba

Ask your friends: "Where is Belize?" WAISer Corol Bevier lives there. She will be coming to the conference and can answer that question. She answered my query about travel between Belize and Cuba: Direct air service was suspended because most of the passengers were government officials who wanted free or heavily discounted tickets; now they go via Cancun. WAISer Martin Packard is about to visit Belize. I hope he will send us a posting. Tim Brown reports:

"I was US Consul in Merida in the mid'60s, went to Belize several times, and knew Price personally. While he could have gone to Cuba, he preferred Mexico for medical treatment of a chronic condition because it was better there.

If Fidel is sending his leftovers to Belize, it will be a first. Normally he sends abroad on " solidarity missions" (Africa, Venezuela, CentraL America, etc) only those of his best, brightest, and most loyal who can be spared from their work in Cubaīs world-class system of dollarized clinics dedicated to treating cash-paying foreigners, members of the Party and Secret Police (the army has its own), and foreign ideological sympathizers. I number among my friends several such foreign Marxists who go to Cuba for treatment because for them itīs free, as long as they toe a certain line.

My own guess is that those in Belize are as good as they get. I will leave to the defenders of Castro and his much vaunted medical system how to rationalize this reality with Cubaīs propaganda fantasies."

Ronald Hilton - 2/24/01