Cubans Wonder If Aid Will Still Flow Following Death Of Chavez

Cubans Wonder If Aid Will Still Flow Following Death Of Chavez
by Nick Miroff
March 06, 2013 2:56 PM

Cuba's Fidel Castro was a mentor to Hugo Chavez, and the Venezuelan
leader provided oil and other assistance to Cuba. The two men met in
Havana in June 2011 when Chavez went for cancer treatment. Enlarge image

Cuba's Fidel Castro was a mentor to Hugo Chavez, and the Venezuelan
leader provided oil and other assistance to Cuba. The two men met in
Havana in June 2011 when Chavez went for cancer treatment.
Granma/AP

The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is an especially tough
blow for Cuba, whose feeble state-run economy has been propped up for
more than a decade with Venezuelan oil shipments and other subsidies.

The Castro government has declared three days of mourning, calling
Chavez "a son" of Cuba, but privately Cubans are quietly fretting about
the potential loss of billions in trade and the threat of a new economic
crisis.

When he was first diagnosed with cancer in 2011, Hugo Chavez turned to
Fidel Castro and Cuba's doctors to save him. But his disease came back
again and again, and when news of his death was announced by Cuba's
state broadcasters Tuesday night, all of Havana seemed to go quiet.

Long before Chavez was first elected president in 1998, Castro saw him
as a protégé. Havana sent doctors, teachers and military advisers to
help Chavez consolidate power, and in turn, the Venezuelan president
pulled Cuba out of the economic ditch left by the collapse of the Soviet
Union.

The island came to depend on Venezuela for two-thirds of its oil imports
and nearly half its foreign trade.

Among the tens of thousands of Cubans who went to work among Venezuela's
poor was Alvaro Castellanos, a doctor standing on the sidewalk outside
the Venezuelan Embassy in Havana, where he came to pay his respects.

"We gave them what we had, and in a way they gave us what they had,"
says Castellanos, adding that he spent six years working in Venezuela.
"More than anything it was a family, a union, not just between Cuba and
Venezuela but with all of Latin America."

Castellanos was among a handful of Cubans who arrived to the embassy,
but Chavez's death brought no mass outpouring of emotion in Havana,
unlike the scenes in Caracas.

Relationship Could Hinge On Election

The outcome of the Venezuelan presidential election in the next month
will determine Chavez's successor and the future of relations with Cuba.
A win by Chavez loyalist Nicolas Maduro would likely keep the oil
flowing and the relationship tight.

But a victory by Venezuela's opposition could augur a new austerity
period for Cuba. Eduardo Garcia, a university student in Havana, said he
didn't think the Venezuelan people would vote for that.

"I have faith that this is a process that doesn't depend on a single
person," he said. "I have faith that everything Chavez has done has
taken root in the conscience of Venezuelans, and they will continue to
follow his path."

To many in Venezuela and the U.S., Chavez was an autocrat who left his
county divided and dysfunctional. But to many Cubans accustomed to
harsher Castro rule, he looked a democratic figure, and helped push
their rigid government in a better direction.

After all, Chavez based his rule on democratic elections. Compared to
the Castros, he tolerated more criticism from opponents and the press.
And even among frustrated Cubans who saw his aid as a lifeline to the
Castros, they knew it was Chavez who kept the lights on and the air
conditioners running.

Havana resident Miriam Suarez sees nothing good coming from his death.

"A lot of people who don't know what poverty is like can't understand
Chavez," Suarez said. "Maybe now that he's gone there will be changes.
And it'll be the poor who suffer, not the rich."

Tributes to Chavez and condolences have come from all over Latin America
and the world since his death, but Fidel and Raul Castro have been
noticeably silent.

The Cuban government issued a statement Tuesday night, but neither
Castro has appeared in public nor offered a farewell statement.

For the elder Castro, now 86 and retired, Chavez's death is an
especially personal loss. He has even outlived the man he carefully
prepared to be his political heir.

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/06/173628092/cubans-wonder-if-aid-will-still-flow-following-death-of-chavez