What did Fidel Castro do next?
By Stephen Wilkinson Centre for Caribbean and Latin American Research
Ever since the summer of 2006, when Fidel Castro was taken ill and
transferred power to his brother, there has been speculation about the
amount of power he wields behind the scenes.
Some say that his brother, the diminutive Raul, defers to him. Others
say that Raul is in charge, but is hampered in his desire to transform
the country by a fear of offending his elder brother.
The truth is we simply do not know. All we can say for sure is that the
Castro brothers are still in charge.
The true nature of the bond between the two men is still a mystery. They
keep their private lives to themselves, and their relationship is
tightly kept under wraps.
Fidel Castro: Key Dates
1926: Born Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz to a wealthy, landowning family
1953: Takes up arms against the regime of President Fulgencio Batista
1959: Castro's forces overthrow Batista
1961: US invasion at Bay of Pigs fails
1962: Castro agrees to station Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba,
prompting massive diplomatic crisis
2006: Castro undergoes emergency surgery and hands over power to his brother
The brothers have been inseparable since they went to boarding school
together and they remain so now, at least in public.
What has changed is that now the younger, less loquacious and somewhat
more camera-shy Raul is running the country, and has slowly replaced his
brother's allies in government with his own.
He is also pursuing an economic policy that one would not have
associated with Fidel.
This month's Communist Party Congress, the first in 14 years, is set to
approve a raft of proposals that will transform the way the economy
runs. It is also set to vote to change the official definition of
socialism from the pursuit of egalitarianism - equal outcomes - to one
of equality of opportunity.
Some commentators say the changes highlight the differences between the
two brothers.
However, such speculation ignores the fact that Fidel, too, has been
pragmatic in the past when necessity has driven the agenda - in the
early 1990s, after the withdrawal of support from a collapsing Soviet
Union, Fidel introduced a raft of measures to liberalise the economy,
including legalising the US dollar.
There is no reason to assume that he is not in favour of the current
changes.
Cryptic columnist
From the earliest days, the Castros have tried to build a consensus
before embarking on major changes.
Under Fidel, that consensus was often arrived at by unconventional
methods - he would call a meeting in Revolution Square, two million
people would show up and he would ask for a show of hands.
Fidel Castro, left, and his brother Raul, in Cuba, on 1 July, 2004 Raul
Castro, right, was armed forces minister during his brother's presidency
With Raul in charge, policy decisions are made in meetings. He is a
manager, not a leader.
So what does the former leader do now? He spends his time writing,
mainly on foreign affairs, and publishing a regular column that appears
in the Communist Party daily newspaper Granma.
His "reflections", as they are called, are of variable quality and
sometimes quite cryptic, giving the impression that he is not altogether
in charge of his faculties all of the time.
Yet the reflections do make for an interesting read.
It appears that Fidel is prone to conspiracy theories and avidly reads
more esoteric web offerings on such matters as the BP oil disaster and
the nuclear problems in Japan.
He also has a knack of getting it right - recently, he was among the
first to predict that Nato would intervene in Libya, long before it
became apparent that France and Britain could get a resolution through
the UN.
Rank and file delegate
On the whole, Fidel keeps out of domestic affairs, and when he has
publicly intervened it has been in support of his brother - such as when
he published an outspoken criticism of his former favourites Felipe
Perez Roque and Carlos Lage, who were removed from office in 2009 after
having been seduced by "the honey of power", Fidel said in an online
article.
The men are also rumoured to have been caught making off-colour jokes
about Raul.
Fidel's timely quip to a US journalist last year that the Cuban model
"does not even work for us anymore" (later denied) had the effect of
legitimising his brother's economic plans.
The Party Congress was announced in the week following the hullabaloo
which surrounded that remark.
More recently, Fidel caused another stir with an apparently off-the-cuff
admission when he said he had ceased to be general secretary of the
Communist Party five years ago - something that had not been announced
earlier.
Had he forgotten? The matter is one of constitutional importance - if he
wasn't general secretary, then who was?
Of course, his brother has been running things as he is the "second
general secretary", and presumably the Congress will shortly ratify his
promotion to general secretary. (Fidel, incidentally, will be present as
a rank-and-file delegate.)
That Fidel can do this without so much as raising an eyebrow is
indicative of his enduring role at least as a figurehead.
As the architect of a socialist revolution that has survived for 50
years just 144km (90 miles) from the United States, Fidel Castro
attracts plenty of respect, if not admiration.
Many Cubans on the island are proud, whether or not they agree with all
his politics.
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