Raul Castro: Don't expect detente to change Cuban system

Face saving or perhaps popular supported reality? It's hard to tell how things will play out but I don't think Havana is going to turn into Miami anytime soon. So don't worry, I'm telling people, you've got a good ten years to see Cuba in all it's retro glory. The paranoia of the past will be gone for the most part but plenty remains. You can still take a Soviet era Yak prop plane and watch people type on non-electronic typewriters and use dial phones everywhere.

flamingdem
Cuba Travel Consultant

http://news.yahoo.com/cubans-imprisoned-us-appear-parliament-153425499.html

HAVANA (AP) — Cuban President Raul Castro sent a blunt message to Washington Saturday as the White House works to reverse a half-century of hostility between the U.S. and Cuba: Don't expect detente to do away with the communist system.

Castro's speech to Cuba's National Assembly was a sharp counterpoint to the message U.S. President Barack Obama gave in his year-end news conference the day before. Obama reiterated that by engaging directly with the Cuban people, Americans are more likely to encourage reform in Cuba's one-party system and centrally planned economy.

"We must not expect that in order for relations with the United States to improve, Cuba will abandon the ideas that it has struggled for," Castro said.

Also appearing before parliament, shaking their fists in victory, were three convicted spies just released from long U.S. prison terms. The last imprisoned members of the "Cuban Five" spy ring were freed this week in a sweeping deal that included American contractor Alan Gross and a Cuban who had spied for the U.S., both released from their cells in Cuba as a first step toward the restoration of full diplomatic ties and a loosening of U.S. trade and travel restrictions.

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Wax figures at the Museum of the Revolucion: