Fidel Castro's appearances have experts guessing
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Was Fidel Castro reminding everyone that he still has power? Was he
silently endorsing his brother's promise to free 52 political prisoners?
Or was it simply a narcissist's grab for the limelight?
Whatever the reason, Castro's flurry of five highly public appearances
in nine days, after months in the shadows, generated renewed speculation
on his lingering influence over Cuban affairs.
Cuban TV showed him on a videotaped interview Monday, but his visits to
the Foreign Ministry on Friday, the Havana Aquarium on Thursday and two
think tanks within a week were his first appearances before relatively
large audiences since undergoing emergency surgery in 2006.
Analysts readily admit they're speculating when it comes to commenting
on the intentions of a wily revolutionary who held power for 47 years
before turning power over to his brother Raúl Castro.
Most remarked on his apparent good health and linked the appearances to
Raúl's agreement to free the prisoners amid unprecedented talks with the
Catholic church -- though Fidel never mentioned the issue and spoke only
about his predictions of nuclear war in Iran and North Korea.
``It is an indirect endorsement'' of Raúl's decision, declared dissident
Guillermo Fariñas, who staged a 135-day hunger strike to push for the
release of 26 jailed dissidents in ill health.
Peter De Shazo, head of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies in Washington, noted that Castro's appearances
could have been meant for a domestic audience.
``Perhaps there's some kind of internal dynamic in the regime that has
prompted Fidel to substantially increase his public profile, to
underscore that he's still around and . . . capable of being involved in
decision making,'' De Shazo said.
``Within the Cuba hardliners there could be some who questioned the
release of the prisoners,'' said Andy Gomez, senior fellow at the
University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies
(ICCAS). ``Fidel's appearances shows them that . . . if anyone is
thinking challenging the decision, they will have to deal with him.''
Or maybe Castro was trying to signal that he still has power, at a time
when Cuba faces a withering economic crisis and complaints of growing
official corruption, said Cuba expert Mauricio Font.
``These are pretty serious challenges, and when it comes time to control
the situation he sees himself as the `Big Man' who can do it,'' said
Font, head of the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies at City
University of New York.
For ICCAS director Jaime Suchlicki, Castro's public appearances
reinforced his belief that while Raúl is running Cuba's day-to-day
affairs, Fidel retains a powerful voice, especially on foreign affairs.
``He is contradicting those who believed there could be changes [under
Raúl] or improved relations with the United States,'' Suchlicki said.
``It's a reassertion of authority, but nothing has changed.''
The one clear takeaway from the appearances, all analysts agreed, was
that Castro, who will be 84 next month, was alert and healthy enough to
have visited the Center for the Study of the World Economy on Tuesday
and scientific studies center a week before.
``It's hard to read much into all this other than his improved health.
He's out and about now,'' said Phil Peters, a Cuba expert at the
Lexington Institute think tank in suburban Washington.
Most Cubans interviewed by foreign journalists in Havana also commented
on Castro's apparent good health. ``Despite his age he looks pretty good
to me,'' the AFP news agency quoted Alexander Garrido, 40,. a government
employee, as saying.
Exiled author Carlos Alberto Montaner said his ``hyper-narcissism'' had
driven Castro to return to the public stage to push his predictions of
nuclear war in the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula.
``He is incapable of realizing that he is a semi-delirious old man,''
Montaner told the EFE news agency, ``and the only one who takes him
seriously is him.''
Havana blogger Yoani Sanchez was also dismissive, telling Ecuador's El
Comercio newspaper that seeing Castro on TV was ``like seeing an old and
yellowed photograph fall out of a box of keepsakes.''
Since Castro underwent emergency intestinal surgery, most Cubans have
seen him only in videos and photos taken in controlled setting such as
meetings with visiting heads of state. Virtually all his public
comments, most of them written columns known as ``reflections,'' have
focused on world affairs and made no mention at all of Cuban issues.
Almost lost in the speculation about Castro's return to the limelight
was the key message he pushed in his TV apperances and visit to the
world economy think tank -- his prediction that nuclear war would erupt
by July 11 over Iran's nuclear development program.
He had made a mistake, Castro wrote in a column published that day,
because Cuba's Foreign Ministry left two key paragraphs out of some
documents on the issue it sent him. A compañero at the ministry fell
asleep while copying the many documents, he added.
Castro acknowledged in a written message to the world economy studies
center that ``I know some compañeros worry seriously that I risked my
credibility in affirming something so important.''
Yet he stuck to his guns and urged the center to spend four hours a day
over the next 10 days studying what the countries of the Western
Hemisphere should do ``when the nuclear firestorm is over.''
``It would be an effort, of course, to launch a new civilization,
starting from the colossal scientific knowledge that our species now
has, so that the unthinkable does not happen again,'' Castro wrote.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/18/v-fullstory/1735257/fidel-castros-appearances-have.html
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