DATELINE–Havana, Cuba

After two bombings rocked Havana’s burgeoning tourist district on Saturday, July 12, 1997, Cuban authorities first claimed that the bombs were from the United States. But as the dust settles outside of the scarred Hotel Capri, the prime suspects appear to be Communist Cubans who live on the island.

Saturday’s explosions, both of which were planted in hotel lobbies, took place only hours before the remains of Ernesto “El Che” Guevarra were returned to Cuba after being disinterred by an Argentinean anthropologist several months ago. The tourism-related blasts also transpired minutes after Cubana Aviacion Flight 787 crashed into off the eastern coast of Cuba, killing an estimated 44 passengers.

Exactly two years ago, to the day, General Arnando Ochoa, the celebrated hero of Cuba’s disastrous military campaign in Angola, was tried and executed on Cuban national television. Publicly, Gen. Ochoa was accused and convicted of helping to smuggle drugs through Cuba – a remarkable feat considering Cuba’s highly aggressive stance towards “domestic security.” Privately, however, it was speculated that Ochoa had become too popular – undercutting the singular figure of General Fidel Castro, Cuba’s “jefe” for the last 40 years.

Indeed, almost four decades ago, the third leg of the Cuban Revolution, Camilo Cienfuegos, was also killed in a mysterious plane crash by the eastern capital of Santiago de Cuba. Cienfuegos had been Fidel Castro’s right hand man during their paramilitary campaign against then dictator Fulgencio Batista.

After his death, Cienfuegos became the first state-sanctioned martyr of the Cuban Revolution and is today revered as one of the four founders of the new Cuban state, along with Che Guevarra, Fidel Castro and Fidel’s brother, Raul. Of the four, only Fidel and Raul Castro are still alive and in power as the acting heads of the flailing Cuban state.

In recent years, Cuba has experienced a series of economic crises due largely to their longtime dependence on the Soviet Union. For the small island nation, the end of the Cold War has also meant the end of subsidies, petroleum, and of their largest trading partner. As a result, the Cuban government has begun an international public relations campaign to promote its tourism industry in the hopes of attracting European and American investors.

While the Cuban Revolution is celebrated throughout the world as a defiant check against the forces of imperialism, its recent emphasis on tourism and apparent disregard for a dramatic rise in prostitution and the tremendous discrepancy between tourists and its own citizens has garnered mild criticism even from its most staunch supporters.

Analysts speculate that the two bombings which took place last Saturday may, in fact, be the work of disgruntled revolutionaries who fear that the country is returning to its pre-revolutionary state as an exotic watering hole for well-to-do foreigners.

The recent popularity of “World Beat” music and a concurrent increase in “eco-tourism” has made Cuba the new Nepal for the affluent and xenophillic. Forty years ago, a similar taste for all things Cuban had reduced the island and its inhabitants to a series of consumable cliches.

Today, those cliches are newly draped in the mystified remains of Che Guevarra, a beacon whose mute light overshadows the mysterious disappearance of Camilo Cienfuegos. Guevarra’s remains will be interred once again this week in a specially designed mausoleum near Santiago de Cuba. And in the brave new world of politics as a tourist attraction, Cuba’s long history of terrorist bombings and tragic disappearances may be its best bet for a brighter economic future.

The Revolutionary Cuban government will celebrate its 38th anniversary in two weeks.