Raul: Fidel Lite, or Cuba's Linchpin

Raul: Fidel Lite, or Cuba's Linchpin?

Associated Press
February 20, 2008
By ANITA SNOW
HAVANA (AP) -- Bespectacled and businesslike, Raul Castro has long lived
in the shadow of his charismatic older brother, Fidel.

Instead of mesmerizing speeches stretching over hours, Raul rarely
bothers to look up from brief, prepared texts. A full head shorter than
his brother, he doesn't even look like Fidel, sporting a mustache rather
than a dramatic beard and lacking his sibling's Romanesque profile and
athletic physique.

But Cubans seemed excited and hopeful Tuesday that the 76-year-old's
pragmatic style of leadership could bring real improvements to their
everyday lives.

He has yet to deliver on any of the economic reforms he has hinted at
while leading a caretaker government since 2006. But Cubans appreciated
Raul's frank acknowledgment that Cuban salaries are too low for basic
necessities, even in a communist society where food, rent, education and
health care are heavily subsidized. They smiled and nodded when Raul
angrily criticized officials who made excuses for a transportation
system on "the point of collapse."

U.S. policy has long sought to undermine the succession from Fidel to
Raul, despite his role as Cuba's constitutionally designated heir. Cuban
exiles in Miami and Washington bureaucrats have dreamed that Cuba's
communist system would die with Fidel, opening the door to a U.S.-style
democracy and free markets. President Bush even appointed a commission
to plan for the transition.

But dispassionate Cuba watchers say Raul will likely rule the nation for
the foreseeable future.

Raul "is the linchpin in Fidel's succession strategy," former longtime
CIA analyst Brian Latell wrote in his 2002 book, "After Fidel."

As the world's longest-ruling defense minister, Raul can count on the
loyalty of top generals, the control of up to 50,000 active troops and
an arsenal including Soviet-era tanks and fighter planes.

He also is a political hard-liner who belonged to a Communist youth
group even before the revolution. His older brother, now 81, didn't
publicly embrace socialism until 1961.

"Raul is younger than I, more energetic than I. He can count on much
more time," Fidel said when he officially designated Raul as his
successor at a Communist Party congress in 1997.

Raul was deeply involved in Cuba's military involvement in Angola and
Ethiopia during the 1970s. And since Cuba lost financial backing with
the breakup of the Soviet Union, Raul has guided the Cuban military's
emergence as a leading economic force, operating tourist sites, becoming
a major food producer and experimenting with limited market-style reforms.

Although he prefers to work behind the scenes, Raul led thousands of
chanting, flag-waving citizens who demanded the return in 2000 of little
Elian Gonzalez, whose mother drowned while fleeing with him to Florida.

In a rare 2001 interview, Raul encouraged the United States to make
peace with Cuba while Fidel was still alive.

"I am among those who believe that it would be in imperialism's interest
to try, with our irreconcilable differences, to normalize relations as
much as possible during Fidel's life," Raul told state television.

Unlike his brother, Raul has long shared low-key communications with
U.S. military counterparts - information on hurricanes, immigrant
smuggling, drug trafficking and relations with the U.S. naval base at
Guantanamo.

In his first public statement after Fidel fell ill, Raul said Cuba was
open to normalizing diplomatic relations, but only "on an equal plane."
He later extended the olive branch again, saying that "After almost half
a century, we are willing to wait patiently until the moment when common
sense prevails in Washington."

Such overtures have been dismissed outright by the Bush administration.
After Fidel Castro announced his resignation on Tuesday, Washington
officials rejected any chance of ending the U.S. embargo on Cuba,
calling Raul "Fidel Lite."

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/cuba/5439.html