Cuba cracks down on street crime

El Nuevo Herald Staff

HAVANA -- The prostitutes and hustlers who helped make Cuba's capital a world center of sex tourism have been swept from the streets by a small army of elite police in black berets who are occupying virtually every corner of every zone where visitors and Cubans come into contact.

The police mobilization shut down a booming scene that has been widely portrayed by foreign journalists and novelists over the past five years. A recent growth in street crime has also gotten attention abroad. President Fidel Castro acknowledged as much in announcing the crackdown this month, at one point reading excerpts from a recent Washington Post story on the topic.

The campaign against prostitution and other crime has begun to take on a broader focus in recent weeks.

With prostitutes off the streets and young men no longer offering stolen cigars to foreigners, officers of the Special National Brigade, as well as regular police, are systematically stopping young people on the street, especially males, and checking their identity papers.

Last Saturday morning, 18 officers were spread out along the Malecon, Havana's bayfront drive, between the Hotel Nacional and the Hotel Riviera, about half of them conducting identity checks of pedestrians, drivers and bicyclists. Earlier last week, on Neptuno Street in Old Havana, three young men were told to stand with one hand against a wall while a brigade member examined their credentials.

Some Havana residents applaud the crackdown on crime and prostitution. But the campaign is having other effects as well, says a man who is active in a Roman Catholic parish in central Havana.

``People are afraid to have contact with foreigners,'' he said.

Nevertheless, some Cubans are risking contacts in order to ask for money, although they are doing so far more discreetly than in the recent past. A tourist walking down Calle Obispo last week was approached by a man who said he was an airport worker and remembered the foreigner's arrival the day before.

``Today I am a father,'' he announced loudly, adding softly ``I have to buy the baby's cradle.''

The sweep against young Cubans stands in sharp contrast with a hands-off policy against tourists, at least where minor infractions are concerned. That approach is consistent with the luxury hotels, air-conditioned cars and plentiful food made available to tourists in a country where these are far out of reach of most people.

The leniency toward foreigners is infuriating at least some police.

A foreigner in a rented car who made an illegal left turn onto Paseo de los Presidentes last Friday drew a tirade from an officer but no fine.

``You people are ruining everything we have in Cuba!'' the officer yelled, before walking away.