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Monday, February 06, 2006

Looking beyond Castro

Posted on Sun, Feb. 05, 2006

CUBA
Looking beyond Castro
At the University of Miami, a mock meeting sought to explore how Cuba
will be affected when Fidel Castro dies.
BY FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com

Funeral music is playing on Cuban state radio and riots are breaking out
in the eastern city of Guantánamo. It is Valentine's Day, 2008, and
Fidel Castro has died.

''We must preserve continuity,'' says Fidel's brother and successor,
Raúl Castro -- actually former CIA analyst Brian Latell in the role of
Raúl at a mock post-death meeting of Cuban leaders held Friday at the
University of Miami.

The military announces its plans to round up dissidents and quell
protests. Vice President Carlos Lage urges reason. The head of the
legislature, Ricardo Alarcón, is fired for insubordination. Bickering
abounds on how much information to reveal to the public.

As Miami's Cuban exile community and the U.S. State Department prepare
for the eventuality that is Fidel's death, UM went a step further. With
larger-than-life photos of Fidel and Raúl hanging on a conference room
wall, UM's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies staged a war
game-like version of the hour after his death.

The outcome: the Communist Party's top officers debate damage control as
tensions escalated between hard-liners and moderates.

From his first moments as Cuba's new president, Raúl starts slipping,
failing to control other officials and ordering funeral music be
broadcast before an announcement of his brother's demise has been made.

Yet there is no immediate and total collapse of the communist system.

While packed audience members shelled out $30 each and even the head of
the U.S. State Department's Cuba office attended, the event did not
escape a measure of criticism from Miami Republican Rep. Lincoln
Díaz-Balart.

In a statement, he called the exercise an ''academic justification for a
lack of pressure for a democratic transition'' and said it would have
been more useful to analyze ``the forms of pressure and the other
factors which lead officials of dictatorships to allow a democratic
opening after the death of the dictator.''

Organizers defended the simulation as an important step toward breaking
the perception that Cuba will be free of communism upon Castro's death.
Participants projected a ''quick and easy succession'' from Fidel to
Raúl but a long and difficult transition from communism to democracy.

''In almost every modality, what we did is very real,'' said Latell,
author of the book After Fidel and now a senior research associate at
the institute. 'Americans, particularly here in South Florida, ought to
be prepared. The day he dies there will be celebrating in the streets in
Miami. And then the day after, they'll realize, `Well, he's dead. Now we
have Raúl.' ''

Raúl Castro has headed the Cuban armed forces for 47 years and is
Fidel's designated successor.

Latell said he is known to advocate better relations between the Cuban
and U.S. militaries. But he's also rumored to be an alcoholic without
his brother's persona.

Latell said he deliberately portrayed him as a stumbling younger brother
who has difficulty filling his more dynamic brother's shoes.

He expects Raúl would lose his temper and fail to control the party in
the way Fidel Castro has.

The model meeting also showed that Cubans -- both in Miami and Cuba --
must not wait until Castro's death to start pushing for democratic
changes from within, said the institute's director, Jaime Suchlicki, who
played the part of Cuban Army Gen. Alvaro López Miera.

''None of us want what we discussed here,'' Suchlicki said. ``It's the
most likely scenario, but it's not what we wish for.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13795080.htm

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