CUBA: Raul Castro approaches his six month as Cuba's defacto leader

It has been six months now since the ailing Fidel Castro stepped down temporarily and handed over reins to his brother Raul and a team of five Communist Party leaders. Even U.S. officials have been forced to admit that Cuba is not about to implode without its supreme "comandante." There has been no rioting nor a repeat of the 1994 exodus when thousands of Cubans took to the sea in precarious craft to seek a better life in the United States as the Cuban economy slumped following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. In his few months in power Raul Castro has being vocal about Cuba's most pressing problems - something that was on display during last December's National Assembly session as Castro's seat lay empty. The next six months will judge whether words will match deeds. The assembly focused on chronic housing shortages, public transport and food supply deficiencies. "I think that one of the things that most affects the people - along with housing and food - as my companion (indicating someone who spoke before him) has said, is transport," Cuban interim leader Raul Castro said. Cubans stand for hours waiting for packed buses, some of them wagons pulled by trucks, and many live in dilapidated houses, often crowded with more than one family. As the head of Cuba's armed forces, Raul has always been seen as more pragmatic than his brother Fidel and has criticized state inefficiencies in the past. "To make our infrastructure congruent, to apply rigourous discipline - which is indispensable, without which nothing will move forward," Raul said at the National Assembly session. At one point during the December National Assembly session Raul angrily demanded to know why farmers had not been paid on time. "How can we have food if the majority of the producers - that is 65 percent of the production - aren't being paid? It has been months now and even though it is hard there is no remedy left than to face these problems and to see if we have finished resolving them," Raul Castro said. Cuba's institutions are sturdier than those of most Third World nations and its population is healthier and more educated due to its welfare state. But analysts still say that Raul Castro will have to move quickly to reduce the economic hardships and shortages most Cubans face, before they turn into political demands. The 75-year-old general has begun to urge accuracy and honesty in government reporting. "I believe that we are already tired of the justifications in this revolution, one just has to analyse how the things are and tell them how they are - to tell the truth," Raul said in the December National Assembly meeting. Fidel's condition meanwhile continues to be a tightly guarded state secret in Cuba. He has not been seen in public since this appearance back in July of last year. The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported this month Castro's recovery was complicated by a series of failed surgeries to remove infect bulges in the large intestine. The article quoted medical sources at the same Madrid hospital where a surgeon who examined Castro in late December works, but officials in Havana have not commented on the report. Nevertheless many feel that the ins and outs of the Fidel's health is no longer the issue, and prefer to focus on how Cuba is coping without Castro at the helm. Cuban watcher Ricardo Pascoe - who used to be Mexico's ambassador to Cuba - says Cuba looks stable. "The forecasts of those talking of catastrophe or tremendous change have been off the mark. I think that (the Cuban government) has a real control over the country and I repeat it is a regime that has been based on an important social legitimacy. It is not just a very old dictatorship that has existed for such a long time that when the Franco of Cuba (referring to the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco) dies the regime ends. No, it is not like that. This is completely different. A political class and economic model has been created that debates with the rest of Latin American its validity," Pascoe said. The Cuban economy is also steaming ahead with record growth of 12.5 percent this year. Yet Cuba watchers believe that Raul Castro, who has long lived in the shadow of his brother, does not have the ambition to run Cuba indefinitely. "Whether we want it or not, already the completion of our duty is coming to a conclusion. One has to pass on to new generations, but of course to continue gradually opening the way for the new generations," he told the National Assembly in December. In December Raul said Fidel Castro would continue to be a strong symbol in Cuba. "Fidel is un-substitutable, unless we all substitute him together, the substitute for Fidel can only be the Cuban Communist Party."

ITN Source | January 26, 2007

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