USA: As Fidel Castro passes provisional power to his brother Raul, the succession issue comes under the spotlight

As news broke on Monday (July 31) that Cuban President Fidel Castro was handing power provisionally to his younger brother Raul, there was little surprise among Cuba-watchers over his choice. In recent months, with Fidel fast approaching his 80th birthday, public discussion of his mortality and how to fill the political vacuum he will leave have ceased to be taboo in Cuba. The issue of who might succeed Fidel in the event of his incapacitation or death has come to the fore. Castro's dramatic fall after a speech two years ago, covered live on television, brought home to friend and foe the proximity of change on the island nation of 11 million. Cuba's leadership has recently begun to prepare by bolstering the Communist Party with promotions and the revival of an executive secretariat, headed by Castro but including younger members. Castro's designated successor, his younger brother and Cuba 's long-serving defense minister Raul Castro, has taken on a more visible role in public. While the U.S. and Castro's opponents concentrated in the exile community in Miami hope that any change in Cuba's power structure will spell the rapid collapse of Communist rule in Cuba, they may be disappointed. Fidel has long vowed that the revolution will survive him - but has warned that the revolution could be destroyed from within. "This country couldl self-destruct, this Revolution could destroy itself. They (the U.S.) cannot destroy it, we can, we could destoy it and it would be our fault," he said in a speech. After surviving the demise of Soviet Communism, Castro has pulled Cuba out of dire economic straits with financial relief from Venezuela's left-wing president Hugo Chavez and China. Raul Castro, only five years younger, lacks his brother's charismatic oratory, but is firmly in command of Cuba's 50,000-strong armed forces, which in turn control the police. And Fidel has increasingly made it clear that Raul is the only one capable of following in his footsteps. "After me, it is him (Raul) who has more experience" The unassuming Raul indicated in June that a collective leadership would likely govern a post-Castro Cuba, echoing comments he made in previous years that the party - not the personality - would remain supreme. "Of course I would have the authority, and other colleagues also, but we want the Party to have it (the authority)," said Raul in 2001. Last year, another key figure in the succession plan, Felipe Roque, warned the nation to preserve the revolution. "We are alone and we are here and we should know how to preserve the Revolution in the future when that whole that no one can fill. We will have to fill it all together as a people because it is not possible for events like that to occur again in history," said Roque. Most analysts agree Raul Castro is bound to play a crucial role, at least initially, in ensuring stability in the event of Fidel's incapacitation or even death - a period which could be followed by a slow and difficult transition. "First, we have to understand that what is going on in Cuban right now is a process of succession. Castro, for the past few years has been nurturing his brother, who is the second in command, to take over, has given more power to the military and now is empowering the party structures to control Cuba and to take over once he dies. So, he perceives and sees the Revolution as continuing beyond his death, even beyond the death of Raul Castro. So what we have really is a quick succession, an easy succession, and then a very slow and difficult transition," said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies in an interview in July. Two out of every three Cubans were born after Castro's 1959 revolution and know no other political system. Leading dissident Oswaldo Paya believes most Cubans, tired of economic hardship and arbitrary restrictions on private enterprise, will not put up with a Communist succession. Growing harassment of dissidents has created a climate of intolerance that could lead to violent turmoil, he warned. "They are talking about a succession in a court environment, where the rock of the people falls apart and no one asks why are there not elections, why is there not a dialogue between Cubans. It is like a sentence, as if this way of life, this way without rights, without democracy, without participation of citizens in political life were normal, natural for Cuba and Cubans," said Paya, an advocate of peaceful democratic reforms in a recent interview. But for Castro, the message throughout his rule has been one and the same: "Nothing will stop us, country or death. We will be victorious."

ITN Source | August 1, 2006

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