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Curzon
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Curzon

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February 24th, 2008

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The Torch Passes

Today, Raúl Castro is expected to officially become President of Cuba. In June 2005, I profiled Raúl as the “likely successor” to Castro when he died or resigned. What do we know about this guy?

castros.jpg

That Raúl was destined for this moment is no secret. Fidel long declared that his younger brother should asume power in the event that Fidel fell ill or were to die, and now that it has actually happened makes Cuba one of a very few ipso facto monarchical communist states (along with North Korea). And Raul has been groomed for this day since Fidel took power in the late 1950s, and has previously served as head of the Communist Party and the armed forces. He was Armed Forces Minister before taking the new position of head of state.

Those celebrating the tyrant’s passing had better think twice. Raúl started in the world’s eye when he was at his brother’s side during the invasion of Cuba, and after many positions heading the armed forces, he is widely regarded as more hardline than his brother. He was a close friend of the genocidal ‘Che’ Guevara, and was involved in the original Granma expedition. He has called for the US to normalize relations with Cuba, engages in diplomacy such as his recent visit to Vietnam, Russia, and his work with the Chinese military.

What is to actually happen when he becomes president remains to be seen. But regardless, at the ripe age of 76, we can’t imagine him to hang around too much longer considering his brother fell ill with cancer at age 79 and has resigned at 81.

ALSO: did you know that US$10 in 1940 could have solved our half-century Cuba problem?

ADDITIONALLY: I haven’t criticized the BBC in a long time, but this headline is the latest exhibit in why its political leanings are so blatant and repulsive: “Cuba to select Castro’s successor.” The headline made me do a double-take and think there was to be open voting or a democratic selection. Of course it will be Cuba’s National Assembly, packed full of military strongmen and “Raulistas”, who will vote today and likely elect the little Castro into the driver’s seat.

UPDATE: Jesus, next BBC crap headline on this topic: Raul Castro set to steer pragmatic course. Of all the hundreds of headlines on the topic at present, that’s the only one which gambles at predicting a sunny future for the new leader in Havana.

UPDATE 2: Biased BBC has more on this very topic here.

Comments to this entry

TC
February 24, 2008
8:20 pm
Seems like a case of you inferring the following

"made me do a double-take and think there was to be open voting or a democratic selection"

rather than the BBC implying it by their headline. The headline does say selection, not election, after all. Subtle difference, no?
Phil (Pacific Empire)
February 24, 2008
9:58 pm
TC: But it also states "Cuba to select" implying that the Cuban people actually had a say in the matter. You could say "Cuba" as a shorthand for the Cuban people, but who would consider it to mean the National Assembly?
Richard
February 24, 2008
11:15 pm
Americas political obsession with Cuba reminds me of the Turks with Cyprus,Serbia with Kosovo and China with Taiwan.
I wonder how much Cufa really means to the younger generation of Cubanao-Ameicanos?
Curzon
February 25, 2008
12:35 am
Americas political obsession with Cuba reminds me of the Turks with Cyprus,Serbia with Kosovo and China with Taiwan.
I wonder how much Cufa really means to the younger generation of Cubanao-Ameicanos?
There are three big reasons for America's "obsession" with Cuba:
1. It is former US territory and was discussed as a possible statehood candidate.
2. It is the closest hostile country to the US for many thousands of miles (at least until Venezuela's Chavez came to power).
3. There is a large exile Cuban community in the US.
Jesus Reyes
February 25, 2008
3:06 am
Since Karl Marx said, "Follow the money" or something like that, then I think the two most important things about Cuba is that currently oil companies from India, Canada, Brazil, and China are drilling in the North Cuba Basin where the USGS says there is 5 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion c.f. of gas. That's enough to give Cuba "global" significance. Cuba's sugar industry collapsed with the Socialist Bloc but now in the age of ethanol Cuba is quietly rebuilding that industry. The potential is for 3 billion gallons per annum or $7 billion annually. Enough to be the 3rd largest producer behind US and Brazil.

Raul Castro is a centrist. While he remains a committed communist and a fidelista, he has been always far more pragmatic and administratively competent than his older brother. Raul is just a transition government to Carlos Lage who is even more liberal and competent. Lage is the man who put Cuba back together after the Soviet Bloc collapsed by significantly liberalizing the economy. Cuba has been transisting since then. He is in favor of the Chinese model. The only two hardliners are Jose Ramon Machado and Felipe Perez Roque but their influence seems to be declining.

Whatever is in the future, I think you can rule out the "collapsing/Yeltsin/looting" model.
dj
February 25, 2008
5:05 am
Yep, The have been consulting a lot with Beijing, it shows that it is not about the ideology but about power all along.
theCardinal
February 25, 2008
12:04 pm
Jesus Reyes is right about Raul Castro's pragmatism. Much like the PLA was the only functioning part of the Chinese gov't Raul's military was and is the only efficient dept in Cuba's Gov't. He seems to be a decent manager and much like the PLA elements were put in positions to run the economy he seems inclined to do the same. Rumors have been flying for years that he wanted to liberalize the economy, turning his back on his more radical past - Raul was the harsher Castro. It was Raul who was the committed Marxist. Fidel never liked to get his hands dirty while Raul, much like Che, could kill without compunction. When Fidel first mentioned Raul as his successor it was as a threat - making it clear that he was the more temperate of the two.

Best book on all this is Brian Latrell's "After Fidel." Very slender and easy read that foretold the transition we are witnessing right now.
Lexington Green
February 25, 2008
4:54 pm
Raul is probably like his predecessors. The security and secret police chief who serves a tyrant is one of the few people who actually has some awareness of the condition of the country, since his spies listen to real people and he hears things no one would dare to tell the tyrant. Joseph Fouche, Napoleon's secret police chief was acutely aware of who was with the regime and who was against. Similarly, Beria, despite being a homicidal maniac, was aware of how bad things were in Russia and how far behind the West Russia was, and wanted a thaw in domestic tyranny and foreign confronation so the USSR could catch up. Himmler knew sooner than anybody else that the game was up, and tried to defect. Andropov, Gorbachev's mentor, similarly knew that the USSR was in far worse condition than many others in the leadership believed, for the same reason. A similar pattern may have existed in China, but I do not know the history there.

So, if Raul is true to this pattern, he is likely to be a combination of hard-handed authoritarian and pragmatic, incremental reformer. Having lived in the shadow of the charismatic brother all these years, he is unlikely to try to fill that role. I suspect there will be nobody to give four hour public speeches for a while. I don't think the Cubans will miss that very much.
Jim
February 28, 2008
7:56 am
You're too hard on the BBC. "Blatant and repulsive?" You're frothing at the mouth, man!

Try actually reading the article. I quote: "It is understood that he was the only nominee in a vote seen as a formality." It adds that it happened behind closed doors. No intimation of democracy anywhere. All in your head.

And "Raul Castro set to steer pragmatic course". This a summary of Raul's speech, of his own plan, not a rabidly left-leaning promulgation. So what?

Reading the article, you get: "Raul Castro has been there with him [Fidel] all along but he lacks his brother's charismatic appeal and is far more of a pragmatist than an idealist.

That could serve him well in his new role as head of state and government of a country that teetered on the edge of economic collapse following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. " No bright, sunny, Technicolor future there, just a cautious piece of speculation.

Why the mouth-frothing?
Curzon
February 28, 2008
8:15 am
Jim: you'll see not one exclamation mark or screaming in that comment -- I question your judgment if you think this is mouth-frothing. It's fake neutrality, subsidized by taxpayer dollars when it is really run by proto-socialists is what I find repulsive.
Peruse all the headlines on the accession of Raul and the BBC had the nicest of the neutral headlines, statingn that "Cuba" selects successor, Raul to be "pragmatic," etc. etc. There is no mention whatsoever of Raul's influence over the military, his decades of rule over the army, or the fact that, as I noted, that his rise to power now makes Cuba one of a very few monarchical communist states (along with North Korea). The BBC is a left-wing unapologetic rag, and there's no other way of looking at it. Justify it if you like, just don't expect me to believe it.
Aceface
February 28, 2008
11:45 pm
I too have to agree with Curzon on BBC being biased.
They put a reporter on a Greenpeace boat to cover Japanese scientific whaling in Antarctica.(and the guy's name is Jonah Fisher....No Joke here)
Sure,BBC can question about how much "scientific" Japanese whaling really is as much as they like.But BBC still have to have their reporter off the boat,if they choose to pretend it as an objective coverage.
Jim
March 1, 2008
5:56 pm
Exclamation marks?

"Blatant and repulsive" is enough for me.

Perhaps you should write to someone about these proto-socialists spending someone else's tax dollars (pounds).

"The BBC is a left-wing unapologetic rag, and there’s no other way of looking at it."
- It's the most professional and objective of mainstream English-language media sources. I don't expect you to believe it, Curzon, because you are prejudiced. There's a lot wrong with the BBC, but it is not pro-Castro.