The históricos last stand

It‘s been a Cuba-filled few days. Fidel Castro’s resignation, announced on Tuesday morning, caught many off guard. His brother Raúl succeeding him on Sunday did not.

What was surprising however, was his choice of vice-president. Many had expected that job to go to Carlos Lage (56), the man credited with Cuba’s economic growth over recent years. He was the second-in- command after Fidel took ill, and often replaced Raúl at official functions.

But the man who has led the Cuban armed forces as Defence minister for the past 49 years opted for someone closer to home for VP. José Ramón Machado Ventura (77) was with Raúl from their days as guerrillas in the Sierra Maestra — he’s what Cubans call a histórico, that curious species of uniformed dinosaur that surround the brothers Castro at state ceremonies.

Probably more than any other of that generation, he is Raúl’s man. As a doctor in charge of the Health Ministry for many years, he often fought with Fidel Castro over the latter’s meddling in health matters. According to cubanalisis.com it was always Raúl who brought him back into the fold. Since the late 1970s he has been in charge of organizing the all-powerful Politburo. An efficient bureaucrat, he’s also one of the most orthodox where changes in economic policy are concerned.

Machado is not the only old-timer to join the new Council of State. Replacing Raúl as Army chief is Julio Casas Rugiero (72). In fact the average age of the 31-member council is just over 71. Only three of them are under 60. Younger generations, even the die-hards who locals call the Taliban for their revolutionary fervour, have been passed over.

At a first glance the choice of such a group of veteran hands, many of whom were with the Castros from before the fall of Batista, would indicate consistency. Not just for now, but with the aim of keeping the regime going for decades to come. The message Raúl is conveying to the world is clear enough. Fidel or no Fidel, it’s business as usual. The guardians of the revolution are apparently as necessary as ever to keep communism on course.

But there’s another way to read this. Raúl Castro has chosen his ageing comrades to accompany him through this term as president. When those five years come to an end, he will be 81. Many of his key ministers will be on their last legs as well.

More importantly, there’s more than a slight chance that Fidel will be dead and gone and with him that mythical omniscient presence. (During his election speech Raúl said his brother would be ‘hearing the grass grow and finding out what can’t be seen beyond the corners,‘ citing Cuban poet Raúl Roa.)

Meanwhile, by not incorporating a younger generation in the upper echelons of power, Raúl Castro is not exactly paving the way for a smooth transition when his term comes to an end. It would be a lot easier to hand over power now, while things are quiet. In five years there is every possibility that increasing pressures from inside Cuba and abroad will conspire with the failing health of these elderly men, leaving them unable to pass on the torch.

The ambition of a fresh generation of state bureaucrats could be cut short by a popular uprising demanding democracy, or worse. Meanwhile the históricos may not even be alive to provide the iron grip needed to maintain stability.

A successful transition requires that those in power are still strong — even physically — to manage any upheavals, while the group destined to take over has the experience to assume the reigns at the drop of a hat. By pushing his comrades to hold office far beyond retirement age, while denying the young a chance at government, Raúl is setting the stage for a disastrous transition, at least from a Castro perspective.

So what‘s going on? Why sabotage the future government of the regime’s natural successors?
One reason could be that they simply can’t be trusted to carry out the party line. But if that’s the case it’s rather late in the game to find out.

Or perhaps, Raúl and his cronies are so addicted to power that they plan to cling on until the very end. That's certainly the view in Miami.

The also a third explanation. A form of state suicide, that may not be as bizarre as it sounds. The people Raúl is cutting out of the loop — the likes of Lage and Foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque — are not exactly a breath of fresh air. Most of them have a background of student
activism, where indoctrination is at its strongest. These men and women, often hand-picked by Fidel, have shown an unflinching party loyalty and that they can be trusted to carry out the party line. Far from being democrats in the make, it’s more than possible that given a free reign of power these bureaucrats would propel Cuban authoritarianism into the second half of the 21st century.

Meanwhile, many of the históricos, men like Machado and Juan Almeida (81), started out on the revolutionary paths with laudable intentions. Their aim was to overthrow a ruthless dictator and restore Cuban pride and sovereignty. They saw their ideal of a free Cuba slowly turned into an open jail.

Some of these historic comandantes, like Huber Matos left, disillusioned. But others stayed on. At times their paths would cross with that of Fidel, but never too much to warrant being purged. Almeida — equal in rank to Raúl before Sunday — is often credited with protecting would-be victims of state persecution.

Now they are old and rickety, but not as ill as Fidel. So they find themselves at the helm, while the man they have loved, followed and feared for five decades is fading away.

Maybe, just maybe, they have decided to let history run its course. When they run out of steam in five years and there’s nobody ready in the side-lines to replace them, a power vacuum could arise. That would give dissident groups a shot at squeezing in. If the public perceive that the hand-over is messy and the younger generation are seen to be scrambling for the top jobs, then a general outcry and street demonstrations are likely. Much more than they were during the airtight transition that’s taking place now.

Open revolt is not the históricos style, not any more. Instead they have chosen to see the thing through to the very end, trying to ensure that the first generation of revolutionary leaders is also the last. Instead of providing a new crew to save the vessel, maybe the sailors of the Granma are planning to go down with the ship.

Castro: Should I stay or Should I go

Cuba is in the spotlight this week as we quickly approach February 24, D-day for the Castro presidency. On Sunday the recently elected Cuban parliament chooses the 31 members of the Council of State, including the President. Since 1976, when the system was introduced, that job has gone to the líder máximo of the Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz. For obvious reasons Fidel’s need not worry about getting enough votes to win – that part is taken care of. The question is, will he feel like it?


It’s been almost 18 months since Castro took ill and disappeared from the public eye. Since then the only signs of life have been sporadic videos of him in sporting an Adidas tracksuit and a stream of newspaper columns on everything from bio fuels to John McCain. The gravity of his illness is a state secret, but it’s unlikely that at 81 he will ever fully recover his legendary fitness. However, predicting whether or not he feels up to the job of president about as easy running the Cuban ministry of Planning.

There are a number of possible scenarios. First Fidel Castro decides not to take the job. He himself as hinted at that possibility. In his last column, published on Saturday, he announced that next time he would “introduce a subject that should be of great interest to many compatriots, but I won’t say any more.” A letter of resignation, perhaps? In that case the national assembly should appoint a successor.

There is also talk of him taking on a sort of ceremonial role as head of state – possibly at the head of some sort of advisory council or as de juris president but without executive powers. The online news source Diariocritico.com claims that Spanish intelligence officers are sure that Castro will be relinquishing power on Sunday either way. We shall see.

Most Cubans have never known another president and I’m sure Fidel himself has a tough time remembering when he wasn’t the guy in charge. So much for so long, it can’t be easy to let that go. Besides, the situation is being managed by the same group that have been running things since Castro first took ill. That group, made up among others of old-timer and parliamentary chairman Ricardo Alarcón and “youngsters” Vice-President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, is led by Fidel’s younger brother Raúl. They have no reason to do a rush job. As Antonio Arencibia writes on cubanalasis.com, “Why change anything now if for the past year and a half they’ve been governing without Fidel.”

But let’s imagine the Castilian spies are right. Who would take over if he does? How will the Cuban people react if Fidel steps down? Widespread hostility to taciturn Raúl Castro is no secret in Cuba. Even most supporters of the regime prefer to call themselves Fidelistas and not comunistas, pointing out that it’s not the system they support, but the man. Will they rush into the streets to demand more soltura – openness? Probably not. More likely they’ll wait and see what the transition offers.

In the weeks leading up to Sunday some clues have been given to what kind of things might be expected from a post-Fidel Cuba. First of all there was the release of seven political prisoners in a deal brokered by Spain. Four of those arrived in Madrid on Sunday, the other three should turn up in the U.S. in the next few days, according to the BBC. A sincere sign of glasnost or just government spin? Judge for yourself. Take into account, however, that while this was going on at least two other dissidents have been tried, sentenced and carted of to jail without even saying goodbye to their families. The charge, according to independent Cuban journalist Luis Esteban Espinosa, is “pre-criminal social risk.” The judicial answer to the pre-emptive strike.

Secondly there was the incident at an IT-university when a number of students asked Ricardo Alarcón some tough questions. Like why internet access is restricted or why Cubans aren’t free to travel. A video – leaked to BBCMundo – shows young Eliécer Ávila asking “why has domestic trade switched to convertible pesos, while our workers and farmers receive their salaries in the national valuta, which is worth 25 times less?”

Alarcón didn’t know quite what to say. “The government was looking into it,” he said, and mumbled something about being perfectly ignorant of monetary matters, “but I know you can’t switch just like that.”

The dialogue itself is less surprising than you might think. Meetings of the sort between government officials and workers, students, farmers and community groups have been taking place for the past few months. They are part of an effort by Raúl Castro to root out corruption and inefficiency in the communist system. He himself admitted there was “an excess of prohibitions” that “do more harm than good.”

It was the sudden publication of video footage online that caught the regime off-guard. The reaction was one of panic. Ávila was rushed to Havana – neighbours (and some foreign media) claimed he had been arrested a claim he himself denied. He then declared that the whole thing had been blown entirely out of proportion and “the essence of what we were expressing was twisted...We will change the things that need changing within the revolution.”

If the Ávila case is anything to go by, change in Cuba will be a slow and cumbersome road.
The Cuban blogger of Mi isla al medio dia based in Havana – whose opinion is usually well balanced - condemned the international media outcry over the alleged arrest of Ávila, which he put to a press that “wants, perhaps needs for things to go wrong in Cuba.” He also had little to say for the Cuban government’s handling of the affair. The video of the IT-student explaining the “misunderstanding” has been plastered all over the government websites, while the one where he asks his original question is nowhere to be found. The message the government is sending out is simple, El cubano de la isla writes, “What the government cares about is not that Cubans are debating, what counts is that the rest of world should know that everything here is just fine.” But we know it’s not. Lets see if Sunday brings some change.

Published in the Buenos Aires Herald on the morning Fidel Castro announced his retirement.