Letters to editor offer opinions

Cubans have a new vehicle for expressing opinions: letters to the editor of the ruling Communist Party’s newspaper, Granma.

Letters for and against reforms under consideration by new President Raul Castro were published by Granma.

One writer called for the elimination of the dual currency system, a major source of complaint among Cubans, who are paid in Cuban pesos but must buy many consumer goods using Cuba’s hard-currency convertible pesos worth 24 times more.

Publication of the letters was a novelty in a country where the press is controlled by a one-party state that allows no independent media and has a record of suppressing dissent.

It follows a new trend of stimulating public debate started by Castro since he took over running the government when his brother Fidel Castro fell ill in mid-2006.

The older Castro has not appeared in public again, and his brother was installed last month as Cuba’s first new leader in half a century.