All eyes on Raul

All eyes on Raul
Wednesday, March 26th 2008

Cuba watchers, we in the Caribbean included. will be watching to see
what changes take place in Cuba now that Raoul Castro is stepping out of
the shadow of his famous brother, Fidel. The realists in the world, of
which there are some in the Caribbean, will not expect Cuba to become a
free enterprise, democratic state in the short term or even in the long.
But already, it seems, Raoul is beginning to tinker with his brother's
legacy.

Over the last few days, the Raul administration has freed-up the sale of
once-banned consumer items such as computers and DVD players - although
it is questionable how many Cubans will have the ready cash to buy them
- and there are plans to let farmers buy their own supplies such as
boots and fertiliser rather than have them dependent on state purchases.

Moreover, in what must be considered to be a major move, farmers have
been told that decisions about land use, resource allocation and the
like will not be handed down from Havana but will be determined at the
local regional level. More importantly, perhaps, the now Raul-led regime
has taken on board the lesson that private rather than State farming
produces some 70 per cent of Cuba's agricultural produce even though
those farms occupy only a small fraction of the land.

But it may well be that it is naked pragmatism and not ideological
conviction that is pressing Raul in this direction since Cuba, in the
world food context with which Trinidadians and Tobagonians are becoming
only too familiar, needs to dramatically raise its internal food
production to meet the needs, to say nothing of the wants, of its
population. But economic pressures could lead to political revisions
although Raul could be taking pattern from the Chinese model which has
seen a rise in open market policies even as that government has
maintained its total control of China's political direction.

Still, for all this, Cuba is a Caribbean country situated in the West
which means that there is no telling what relaxations in one area,
particularly if they become accelerated, will lead to in others. It is
something which America's battling presidential candidates may want to
consider with a view to abandoning the embargo that has blocked Cuba for
decades even as it has failed to cause the collapse of the socialist
system that both of the Castro brothers have embraced. Who knows how
much an opening on the American side will help to blow in that breath of
fresh air on the Cuban side?

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=161298526