Posts from — June 2007

From The Economist print edition:

Raúl Castro’s wife dies; the EU opens talks; Fidel continues to pontificate

“EVERYONE was waiting, some with sadness and others with oligarchic glee, for the crumbling of the Cuban Revolution.” So says Fidel Castro this week in the latest of a series of articles published in Granma, the official Communist Party newspaper. The president was referring to the so-called “special period” in the early 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But he could just as easily have been referring to the past year.

It has been nearly 11 months since he fell ill with what was at first presumed to be cancer, and ceded day-to-day power to his younger brother, Raúl. Obituaries of the man who has led Cuba for nearly half a century were hastily dusted down and commentators began speculating about “Cuba after Fidel”. Too soon. After a series of operations for abdominal problems, the president, now 80, has recently been showing that there is life in the old man yet. Little has changed since he stepped down: “no increase in opposition activity, and no real innovation in economic policy,” says Philip Peters of the Lexington Institute, an American think-tank.

But even the Castro family is not immortal, as demonstrated this week by the death of Vilma Espín, Raúl’s wife and Cuba’s unofficial First Lady (Fidel’s various partners have tended to stay out of the public eye). She was 77, one year older than her husband. Ms Espín helped organise an urban uprising against Fulgencio Batista, Cuba’s military dictator, who was overthrown by Fidel Castro in 1959. Despite her upper-class background—she did a year of graduate study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States—she took to the communist rebels wholeheartedly, later joining Fidel’s revolution in the mountains, where she also first met Raúl.

Ms Espín was the most politically prominent woman in Cuba. She was a member of the Politburo from 1980 until 1991 and frequently escorted Fidel to official events. But her death will not affect the generational struggle that seems to be under way behind the acting president. Carlos Lage, the vice-president, and Felipe Pérez Roque, the foreign minister, remain the two most prominent younger politicians; Ricardo Alarcón, leader of the National Assembly, and Ramiro Valdés, a former interior minister and now minister of communications, are the two most prominent elder statesmen after Raúl.

In fact there seems little chance of either of the two Castro brothers disappearing from the political scene in the near future. Although Fidel has not appeared at a public event since stepping down, he has been seen on television talking to visiting dignitaries, and appears to be recovering from whatever it was that ailed him (officially a state secret, though believed to be diverticulitis, an intestinal disorder).

But if little seems to be changing inside Cuba, its long-strained relations with the West may be easing. This week the European Union invited a Cuban delegation to Brussels for a “political dialogue”—the first official contact in four years. Human rights will certainly be on the agenda. What else they might discuss or who might attend remains vague.

In the United States meanwhile a March poll by Florida International University of Cuban Americans in the state found that 65% favour dialogue with Cuba. That is up from 55% in 2004 and the biggest proportion supporting dialogue since polling began in 1991. As America’s presidential election nears, this might at last begin to encourage American politicians to stand up to the powerful Cuba lobby that has resisted any negotiation with Castro’s government for so long.

[The influx of Cuban emigres from the early 90s (during the Clinton administration), who left Cuba for economic rather than political reasons, have to a great extent increased their numbers in opinion over the political position taken by established exiles. --ed.]

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From CIA’s Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments

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Via Prensa Latina:

Army General Francisco Pereira Furtado, chief of Angola Armed Forces General Staff, will start a visit to Cuba leading a top level delegation.

The Ministry of Armed Forces (MINFAR) reported the visitors will remain on the island until Jun 30 and will accomplish a large program of activities.

The program includes meetings and visits to military units and government education institutions as well places of economic, historical and cultural interest.

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Granma publishes Fidel Castro’s reflection manifesto discussing:

Cuba will continue to develop and improve the combative capacities of her people, including our modest but active and efficient defensive weapons industry which multiplies our capacity to face the invaders no matter where they may be, and the weapons they possess.

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IRNA via STRATFOR:

Iran and Cuba signed 29 memoranda of understanding on economic and commercial cooperation during the 12th Iran-Cuba Joint Economic Commission in Havana, Cuba, which ended June 16, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported. Iranian Minister of Industries and Mines Alireza Tahmasbi and Cuban Cabinet Minister Ricardo Cabrisas chaired the meeting. Tahmasbi met with Cuban acting leader Raul Castro during the meeting, and the two said Iranian-Cuban relations are at an “excellent level,” IRNA reported.

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AFP via Yahoo News

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega visited on Saturday Fidel Castro, the latest in a parade of friends underscoring that the communist Cuban leader is well on the mend.

Ortega, 61, is the fourth ally to visit Castro, 80, in two weeks, following Castro’s fellow leftists Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales.

An esteemed ally to visit of late was Nong Duc Manh, who leads Vietnam’s Communist Party, from June 1-3.

Chavez and Morales also met with Raul Castro, 76, a brother of Fidel and Cuba’s interim leader since Fidel Castro underwent intestinal surgery last July. Fidel Castro handed over power temporarily after more than four decades at Cuba’s helm to Raul Castro on July 31.

Since then, Fidel Castro has remained mostly out of sight, recovering from what he has said were several operations, and has yet to say whether he will officially resume his duties as Cuba’s president.

Nicaragua, which is aiming to stamp out illiteracy in five years, is planning to adopt a successful Cuban literacy program, called “Yes, I can,” which has been used widely in Venezuela as well.

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