"Stalinist-style bureaucracy"

The Catholic Cardinal is now openly criticizing the Cuban government of Raul Castro. According to the BBC Cardinal Jaime Ortega is saying that the Communist State is suffering from the worst crisis in decades due in part to the US Embargo, the decline in the World economy, and the fall of the Soviet Union.

From the BBC:

The 73-year-old prelate said that people were openly talking about the deficiencies in Cuba's socialist system, calling it a Stalinist-style bureaucracy producing apathetic workers and low productivity.

"Our country is in a very difficult situation," he warned. "Certainly the most difficult we have lived in this 21st Century."

Other reports that "Damas de Blanco" (Ladies in White), a protest group against human rights abuses, made up mostly of wives of victims of the regime, has become emboldened. They are increasing the number of protests, and their intensity.