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.
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.
Labels: cuba castro transition
posted by PIT @ 12:36 PM
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