Fidel Castro Is Back in Charge

Fidel Castro Is Back in Charge
By Arian Campo-Flores | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Mar 4, 2010

When Raúl Castro became president of Cuba in 2006, he raised hopes, at
home and abroad, that he would usher in a new era of reform. His
brother, El Comandante Fidel, was struck with some sort of intestinal
illness and rendered incapable of governing. So in stepped Raúl with
promises to undertake "structural" change in the country. He distributed
parcels of idle land to farmers. He encouraged young people, many of
whom feel restive about their country's system, to "fearlessly debate"
the country's problems. He decreed that Cubans could finally buy cell
phones and computers, and could stay at tourist hotels that had
previously been off-limits to them. When it came to relations with the
United States, he said last April, "We are prepared to discuss
everything—human rights, freedom of the press, political
prisoners—everything, everything, everything."
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But over the past year, some prominent Cuba analysts say, Fidel has
steadily reasserted his authority and applied the brakes to these
efforts. Despite his convalescence far from public view, Fidel is once
again the arbiter on all critical matters facing the state, says Brian
Latell, a former CIA analyst and now a senior research associate at the
University of Miami. "I think Fidel decided that Raúl was going too far,
that Raúl was playing with fire," he says. As evidence, Latell points to
recent shuffling of the leadership ranks that he considers an affront to
Raúl and to Fidel's backsliding commentary in more than 100
"Reflections" he has published in the Cuban press during the past year.
Any hope of warmer relations with the U.S. has been dashed, says Latell.
"I don't see any progress possible in the foreseeable future."

It seemed at first like Fidel had relinquished control when his
intestinal disease laid him up three and a half years ago. "He was
gravely ill" between the summer of 2006 and the spring of 2007, says
Andy Gomez of the University of Miami. He stopped showing up in public,
stopped running government meetings, and appeared to yield the reins to
Raúl. Yet in the past year, "there's no question that Fidel's condition
has improved," says Gomez. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
reported that Fidel was "exceptionally well" after visiting him in
Havana last month. Since Fidel's condition remains a state secret,
analysts can only read tea leaves. But other indicators suggest he is
back, and he's not pleased.

On the domestic front, Cuba observers say, Fidel has blocked the
fundamental economic reforms necessary to lift the country out of its
worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. "It's
pretty clear that Raúl Castro is much more open to economic
liberalization than Fidel Castro," says Philip Peters, a Cuba specialist
at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. As Latell describes in his
book After Fidel,Raúl pushed for market reforms in the 1990s and was
impressed with the Chinese economic model. Now that he is ostensibly in
power, though, he has been unable to deliver the same changes—more
opportunities for private enterprise, an elimination of the
dual-currency system (which involves regular pesos for routine purchases
and dollar-pegged "convertible pesos" for imported goods)—that he is
thought to want for his country and that many Cubans had hoped for. The
regime's recent crackdown on dissidents, activists, and bloggers also
bears Fidel's fingerprints, says Latell. After Raúl's very public
commitments to reform, it's unlikely he would willingly retreat so much
back to the vision Fidel was known to hold.

Fidel has also ensured that tensions with the U.S. remain high. Only
days after Raúl asserted that "everything" was on the negotiating table,
Fidel wrote in a "Reflection" that his brother had been
"misinterpreted." He then offered this clarification: "When the
President of Cuba said he was ready to discuss any topic with the U.S.
president, he meant he was not afraid of addressing any issue. That
shows his courage and confidence in the principles of the Revolution."
(This was widely interpreted, including in Foggy Bottom, as a
reprimand.) Then in December, the Cuban government arrested an American
contractor, Alan Gross, who was delivering communications equipment to
Jewish groups on the island. He's being held without charges—an act that
seems designed to provoke the United States. "We have seen this MO many
times," says Carlos Saladrigas, co-chairman of the Cuba Study Group,
which advocates greater American engagement with the island. "The U.S.A.
softens, Cuba hardens. It seems to be a repeat of Fidel's playbook."
Fidel unleashed the Mariel boatlift just as Jimmy Carter was trying to
engage Cuba, and he shot down unarmed airplanes belonging to an
anti-Castro group in Miami just as Bill Clinton was trying the same.

Fidel—who relinquished his titles as head of the Council of State and
Council of Ministers, but remains leader of the Communist Party—still
has taken no additional government post since his return fitness. But he
has made leadership changes that some analysts suspect are aimed at
preserving his vision of the revolution. Key among them is the promotion
of Ramiro Valdés, a former Interior minister regarded as a diehard Fidel
loyalist and a brutal enforcer. Despite a history of strained relations
with Raúl, Valdés is now effectively the No. 3 man in the regime after
the Castro brothers. "That was a Fidel appointment," says Gomez. Valdés
"is Fidel's eyes and ears on a daily basis within the inner circle."

The Comandante won't be around forever, of course. However improved his
health, it can't be that great, considering his continued seclusion. But
as long as Fidel is calling the shots, the Cuban economy will remain
unproductive, the youth will remain restive, and relations with the U.S.
will remain at an impasse. "Nothing is going to happen while Fidel is
alive," says Gomez. Which leaves everyone, on and off the island, pretty
much where they were three and a half years ago: waiting for Fidel to die.

Fidel Castro Is Back in Charge of Cuba - Newsweek.com (4 March 2010)
http://www.newsweek.com/id/234446