Lat-Am Watch: Sibling rivalry Cuban style
There’s dissention in the ranks as Fidel speaks out
For the Buenos Aires Herald.
The brothers Castro were long thought to be two sides of the same revolutionary coin, with Fidel’s charisma and intellect complemented by his younger brother’s ruthless zeal. At least that was always the case during the half century or so that the elder Castro was in charge. But since Raúl took over as president in February of this year there are clues that a rift between the two is starting to develop.
The first indication of sibling rivalry came on Friday. In one of his op-ed pieces for the government website Cubadebate the convalescent ex-president wrote that the EU’s lifting of sanctions against Cuba was an “enormous hypocrisy.” That duplicity, wrote Fidel, was highlighted even more by the EU’s Returns Directive that allows for the incarcerating and deporting of illegal immigrants.
That is certainly not the official Cuban line. Only hours before the column appeared, Foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque had said that the bloc’s decision was “a step in the right direction.” The fact that the column was only published online – and not in the Communist Party paper Granma – is remarkable in a country where only a small elite have access to Internet. In lends credibility to the idea that his opinion wasn’t officially sanctioned and possibly directed at those in power. Castro signs off by writing, “I don’t mean to bother (anyone), but I live and think.”
Then came the most surprising announcement. On Saturday Fidel wrote on the same website that “I am not now, nor will I ever be at the head of any group or faction. Therefore, it can't follow that there is infighting in the party.” Surprising, because no one had ever suggested he was at the head of any faction.
A denial by any politician is reason for suspicion. But when a semi-retired communist dictator denies something before it has even been implied, then you know there’s something up.
Oscar Espinosa Chepe, an economist and prominent Cuban dissident agrees. “The fact that Fidel is saying there are no divisions, underscores the fact that there are because he’s referring to something that officially no Cuban knows about,” Chepe told Mexico’s Reforma. He said he felt sure there were “discrepancies within the heart of the party,” and that some people in the Communist Party were trying to use the “figure of the leader.”
In Saturday's column a huffy Castro continues on the defensive, writing that his wasn’t a “diatribe against Europe,” but that he was “simply telling the truth. And if that offends, that’s not my fault.”
If Raul and Fidel differ over anything, then it has to be the economy. The changes the younger Castro has made to the way in which Cuba’s state-driven economy is run since taking over are what’s bothering his elder brother.
Those changes include allowing Cubans to purchase consumer goods such as DVD’s, computers and mobile phones and spending a night in one of the tourist hotels. Of course, these measures only benefit those Cubans whose income is far above the monthly average of 20 dollars.
Fidel Castro has always opposed liberalizing the economy, precisely to prevent these kind of visible discrepancies between Cubans. Only at the very last did he give in to legislating for tourism and small businesses in the early 1990’s after the stop to Soviet subsidies disintegrated Cuba’s economy.
Therefore, although he doesn’t say as much it’s clear to many that Fidel is annoyed over his sibling steering the island along a different course. Another moderate Cuban dissident, Manuel Cuesta Morúa put it like this; “Every time he possibly can, Fidel will show his opposition to these measures... that suppose a ‘return’ of the market.”
Fidel, Morúa told El País, represents the unbending line within the Communist Party, while Raúl heads the pragmatic group that hold that it’s necessary to introduce reforms that benefit the people and reactivate the economy, to make sure the revolution lives. It’s that dichotomy which is why some hinted-at freedoms – such as the possibility to travel abroad – are taking so long to implement, Morúa suggests.
However, none of this means that Fidel is somehow stifling what would otherwise be a free and open society in a matter of months. Not by a long shot. Raúl may be looking to invigorate the economy, but that doesn’t mean he’s headed down the path of perestroika.
Instead he is applying a business model that yielded positive results in the army as defence minister for 50 years. It’s called perfeccionamiento empresarial – perfecting the state company system. What it means is modern management and accounting practices adapted to improve the state-run company, not to privatize it.
“Perfeccionamiento does not aim to turn Cuba into a China or Taiwan in terms of level of development and integration into globalisation. In the end, the objective is political,” Frank Mora, a Cuba expert at the War College in Washington told the Financial Times.
The idea is to defuse the pressure of rising expectations and increasing food costs by implementing some very specific reforms in the way state-businesses operate. By foreseeing in the material needs of the Cuban people, the government hopes they’ll be lulled into apathy, not caring about things like democracy.
If that theory holds – and China’s content nouveau riche would suggest it might – then the Cuban people have an unlikely ally in their former president. For years the only thing that stood between the islanders and their freedom was the rigid consensus within the ruling elite. Ironically, now it’s Fidel Castro who’s doing more damage to party unity than any dissident ever could.
For the Buenos Aires Herald.
The brothers Castro were long thought to be two sides of the same revolutionary coin, with Fidel’s charisma and intellect complemented by his younger brother’s ruthless zeal. At least that was always the case during the half century or so that the elder Castro was in charge. But since Raúl took over as president in February of this year there are clues that a rift between the two is starting to develop.
The first indication of sibling rivalry came on Friday. In one of his op-ed pieces for the government website Cubadebate the convalescent ex-president wrote that the EU’s lifting of sanctions against Cuba was an “enormous hypocrisy.” That duplicity, wrote Fidel, was highlighted even more by the EU’s Returns Directive that allows for the incarcerating and deporting of illegal immigrants.
That is certainly not the official Cuban line. Only hours before the column appeared, Foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque had said that the bloc’s decision was “a step in the right direction.” The fact that the column was only published online – and not in the Communist Party paper Granma – is remarkable in a country where only a small elite have access to Internet. In lends credibility to the idea that his opinion wasn’t officially sanctioned and possibly directed at those in power. Castro signs off by writing, “I don’t mean to bother (anyone), but I live and think.”
Then came the most surprising announcement. On Saturday Fidel wrote on the same website that “I am not now, nor will I ever be at the head of any group or faction. Therefore, it can't follow that there is infighting in the party.” Surprising, because no one had ever suggested he was at the head of any faction.
A denial by any politician is reason for suspicion. But when a semi-retired communist dictator denies something before it has even been implied, then you know there’s something up.
Oscar Espinosa Chepe, an economist and prominent Cuban dissident agrees. “The fact that Fidel is saying there are no divisions, underscores the fact that there are because he’s referring to something that officially no Cuban knows about,” Chepe told Mexico’s Reforma. He said he felt sure there were “discrepancies within the heart of the party,” and that some people in the Communist Party were trying to use the “figure of the leader.”
In Saturday's column a huffy Castro continues on the defensive, writing that his wasn’t a “diatribe against Europe,” but that he was “simply telling the truth. And if that offends, that’s not my fault.”
If Raul and Fidel differ over anything, then it has to be the economy. The changes the younger Castro has made to the way in which Cuba’s state-driven economy is run since taking over are what’s bothering his elder brother.
Those changes include allowing Cubans to purchase consumer goods such as DVD’s, computers and mobile phones and spending a night in one of the tourist hotels. Of course, these measures only benefit those Cubans whose income is far above the monthly average of 20 dollars.
Fidel Castro has always opposed liberalizing the economy, precisely to prevent these kind of visible discrepancies between Cubans. Only at the very last did he give in to legislating for tourism and small businesses in the early 1990’s after the stop to Soviet subsidies disintegrated Cuba’s economy.
Therefore, although he doesn’t say as much it’s clear to many that Fidel is annoyed over his sibling steering the island along a different course. Another moderate Cuban dissident, Manuel Cuesta Morúa put it like this; “Every time he possibly can, Fidel will show his opposition to these measures... that suppose a ‘return’ of the market.”
Fidel, Morúa told El País, represents the unbending line within the Communist Party, while Raúl heads the pragmatic group that hold that it’s necessary to introduce reforms that benefit the people and reactivate the economy, to make sure the revolution lives. It’s that dichotomy which is why some hinted-at freedoms – such as the possibility to travel abroad – are taking so long to implement, Morúa suggests.
However, none of this means that Fidel is somehow stifling what would otherwise be a free and open society in a matter of months. Not by a long shot. Raúl may be looking to invigorate the economy, but that doesn’t mean he’s headed down the path of perestroika.
Instead he is applying a business model that yielded positive results in the army as defence minister for 50 years. It’s called perfeccionamiento empresarial – perfecting the state company system. What it means is modern management and accounting practices adapted to improve the state-run company, not to privatize it.
“Perfeccionamiento does not aim to turn Cuba into a China or Taiwan in terms of level of development and integration into globalisation. In the end, the objective is political,” Frank Mora, a Cuba expert at the War College in Washington told the Financial Times.
The idea is to defuse the pressure of rising expectations and increasing food costs by implementing some very specific reforms in the way state-businesses operate. By foreseeing in the material needs of the Cuban people, the government hopes they’ll be lulled into apathy, not caring about things like democracy.
If that theory holds – and China’s content nouveau riche would suggest it might – then the Cuban people have an unlikely ally in their former president. For years the only thing that stood between the islanders and their freedom was the rigid consensus within the ruling elite. Ironically, now it’s Fidel Castro who’s doing more damage to party unity than any dissident ever could.
posted by PIT @ 10:22 AM
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