CUBA CRACKS DOWN ON VICE, CRIME

November 2, 1998 HAVANA -- Cuban police have launched an energetic
crackdown on crime in Havana, which has seen growing hordes of
prostitutes and a surge in violent acts.

Prostitutes, who once swarmed tourist locales, and the shadowy men
offering cheap cigars and independent taxis have all but disappeared
from the streets.

Dozens of new police cars patrol nightly, stopping suspicious vehicles
and ordering any prostitutes still bold enough to go outside to return
home.

Prostitution is not a crime in Cuba, but an order by a Cuban police
officer usually is enough to get anyone off the street. Cuban
authorities occasionally round up prostitutes and put them on buses
back to their provincial hometowns. Pimping and pandering -- making
money off a prostitute -- is seen as a much more serious offense and
can mean several years in prison for repeat offenders.

Communist officials see the crackdown as more than a battle against
crime. For them, it is a war on a "lack of discipline" threatening to
rip the seams of the island's socialist system.

Juventud Rebelde, the weekly newspaper of the Union of Young
Communists, recently described criminals as "enemies of the
Revolution."

Leaders of Havana's ideological neighborhood watch groups, the
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, have met with police
leaders to discuss ways to work together to fight crime.

"There are tendencies and types of crimes never seen before," Gen.
Jesus Becerra, head of the National Revolutionary Police, told a group
of municipal leaders.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman attributed the growing crime problem to
drugs brought into the country by traffickers trying to use the island
for smuggling between Colombia and the U.S.

Drug use in Cuba appears to be limited mostly to marijuana brought in
by tourists. A proliferation of prostitutes and marijuana use in
Havana's discotheques prompted police to shut most of them several
weeks ago.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady