Tanks in the Streets

For the first time since Fidel Castro took power 3 1/2 years ago, discontent became mass civic defiance. In the port city of Cardenas (pop. 53,000), lying 73 miles east of Havana, crowds surged through the streets shouting, "We are hungry! Down with Communism!" Castro's reaction was to send Russian T-34 tanks rumbling threateningly through Cardenas' rebellious streets.

The revolt started one morning a fortnight ago, when restless crowds began calling for food and denouncing Castro. Before long, thousands of people jammed seven blocks of the business district. When a loudspeaker truck appeared, urging all to go home, promising that food would soon be abundant, the mob overturned the truck, forced the driver to yell, "Down with Communism!" The riot was not quelled until crack troops arrived and occupied the town after sporadic shooting. The toll of wounded or dead is not known; an estimated 400 demonstrators were jailed.

In the past, Castro has been content to denounce the opposition at mass rallies. But now, apparently realizing that words are not enough, he decided on a show of military force, and chose Cardenas as the place.

Into Cardenas came Russian-made T-34 tanks, mortars, four-barreled ZPU-4 Czech antiaircraft guns. Troops in Soviet-style helmets marched grimly past. Overhead thundered three Russian-made MIG jet fighters. Television carried the show to every town in Cuba--along with a warning from the reviewing stand by President Osvaldo Dorticos (Castro did not attend). Denouncing "the wretched counter-revolutionary provocation that took place here," Dorticos spoke in a double negative, but the assembled peasants got the idea. If they "do not allow counter-revolutionary parasites to get away with one single act of provocation," said Dorticos, "we will not have to use those tanks or machine guns on them."

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