Raul Castro, Leader with a Freer Hand

[bluevoter4life]

Source: Washington Post

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 19 -- Raúl Castro has long operated in the backstage of Cuban politics. But his public record, which has emerged over his 19 months as interim president, suggests he might pursue reforms to allow more political and economic latitude on the island.

Rough-edged and uneasy in the spotlight, Castro, 76, appears to have been laying the groundwork for a larger reconfiguration of Cuba's economy since he took over from his ailing older brother, Fidel, in July 2006.

He has publicly mocked Cuban farmers for failing to cultivate rich farmland, held public forums for citizens to criticize the government and set in motion reforms to streamline the country's famously inefficient bureaucracies, especially those involved in distributing food to Cubans who face constant shortages.

If picked by Cuba's newly elected National Assembly in a presidential vote scheduled for Sunday, Raúl is almost certain to preside over a government based more on a collective style of leadership, and less on personality. A career military man, Raúl is known more for his organizational skills than his charisma.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021902962.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR

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Wonder what this means for the embargo. Will it be lifted? How soon? Why is this embargo in place in the first place? We trade(d) with China, Soviet Union, most of Southeast Asia, all communist nations. Your thoughts?

[leftofcool]

1. Cuban Cigars...........

I feel them coming.

Left of Cool

[Canadian_moderate]

2. More expensive (and crowded) Cuban vacations

for Canadians if Americans are finally allowed to freely travel to Cuba.

Actually, I haven't been to Cuba since I met my American wife. She's paranoid about travling there and being forced to pay some fine.

[flordehinojos]

3. the minute fidel and raul castro walked into santiago de cuba in 1959,

raul castro wanted to execute (another word for kill, assassinate, give "paredon") to quite a few of the batista military still in the city. it was fidel castro who stopped raul from going ahead with the massacre of quite a few of the batista military.

raul castro, come to think of it, might be a more restrictive, dictatorial leader than his brother fidel when finally given free rein.

i know. i was there.

[bemildred]

4. OpEds in WaPo are not where I would look for the straight goods on Cuban politics.

Nobody knows what Castro's retirement "means" at this point, but there are a lot or parties doing what they can to "make suggestions" about it. That is how I see this piece. But we do seem to have a less cartoonish view of Cuban politics here.

With regard to the embargo, it's not hard to understand, disobedient provinces of empires must be punished, as an example to the others. When we give up the embargo, we will be admitting that Cuba belongs to Cubans and there is nothing we can do about that. The Washington foreign policy wonks still hate that idea, so they will fight to keep the embargo.