The Day After Fidel Castro

The Day After Fidel Castro / Ivan Garcia
Posted on August 16, 2013

Never has the life or death of one man awakened such dissimilar
expectations. Fidel Castro, who turns 87 on August 13, has been given up
for dead so many times that when death does come for him, many will
believe it's a joke.

Castro, aware of the countless times he has cheated death, has woven a
legend around himself. After the 1953 assault on a military barracks in
Santiago de Cuba, several newspapers of the time published the news of
his demise.

The military escapade of trying to take a military fortress with a troop
of inexperienced amateur soldiers armed with dove-hunting rifles ended,
of course, in a complete rout.

Most of the young assailants were killed in battle or executed by the
repressive forces of the Fulgencio Batista regime. In those days, the
life of Fidel Castro wasn't worth much.

But the 26-year-old lawyer, born 500 miles east of Havana on a farm in
the Birán region of Holguin, managed to avoid being executed by a bullet
to the head thanks to Lieutenant Sarria, a Republican Army officer who
saved his life.

Then in prison, according to the official history, they tried to poison him.

When on December 2, 1956 he landed with an army of 82 men on the beach
at Las Coloradas, a rugged area infested by swamps, Batista's Air Force,
which was aware of the landing site in advance, made target practice of
the bewildered guerrillas.

Everyone gave Fidel Castro up for dead. They were so sure of his death
that the troops shut down their actions against the guerrilla. Once
again the "subversive one" had escaped death.

You already know the story. He regrouped with the survivors of his band,
and with the help of peasant farmers, the inefficiency of the army, and
collections of money and weapons from political parties opposed to
Batista, he managed to seize power in January 1959.

Two years earlier, in the Sierra Maestra, he escaped by a complete
miracle. His right-hand man, who slept 15 feet from his hammock, was an
Army plant. But the guy lacked the guts to kill him, as had been
planned. The "traitor" was caught by the guerrillas and executed.

Once in power, he was left unscathed by various attempts conceived by
former comrades-in-arms, a German lover, the CIA, and anti-Castro
exiles. He exaggerates this. He says the U.S. special services tried to
kill him more than 600 times.

Castro and the official media aggrandize everything, from production
statistics to attacks on his life. What is documented is that at least
twelve times the CIA and opposition groups planned to kill him.

On a visit to Chile in 1973, an anti-Castro commando was about to
execute him. A gun fastened to a television camera was pointed at his
head. But without a safe path of escape, the organizers decided to abort
the attempt.

On Monday, July 31, 2006, when Carlos Valenciaga, his personal
secretary, announced that due to serious health problems Fidel had
delegated power to his brother Raul, the government began to prepare his
funeral ceremony, and on a massive mountain in the Sierra Maestra they
urgently built a monumental tomb.

From that date, the international press has had his obituaries at the
ready. A foreign reporter told me that his agency had sent him to Havana
for the sole purpose of reporting the day of death of the leader of the
revolution.

Until then, he was asked to maintain a low profile while waiting for the
big news. He has now lost count of the number of times Castro has been
"killed" in Florida.

Seven years after Fidel Castro's retirement for health reasons, Cubans
barely speak of the former president. No one on the street takes
seriously what he says or writes. He's like a grandfather with dementia
who in his lucid moments likes to tell tales of his epic exploits.

After arriving in "death's waiting room," as he confided to a journalist
from the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, he has dedicated himself to:
prophesying the end of the world after a nuclear war; alerting the world
to an alleged conspiracy by the Bilderberg Club; and investigating the
moringa, a plant that, in his opinion, "could save the starving Third
World."

To this day, on television roundtables and news reports, any crazy
pronouncement by the Commander-in-Chief is read in a serious tone.
Today, more than ever, you can see in the state media his cult of
personality.

In celebration of his birthday, songfests, sports marathons, and book
releases are anticipated. But due to the daily grind of hardship without
letup, a broad segment of the public does not have pleasant feelings
toward its former top leader.

They blame him for the delays, the shortages, and the precarious
standard of living in the country today. They see him as a distant ship
sailing toward the horizon. Few ask anymore what it will be like the day
after his death.

And the direction taken by the General suggests that the legacy of his
brother will endure after his physical disappearance. Predictions about
the future of Cuba are bleak.

For many on the island, at a time when the developed world remains
embroiled in a financial and political crisis with no end in sight, the
desired democratic change seems unlikely.

All they can see in the picture is more Castroism. Without Fidel Castro.

Iván García

Photo: Fidel Castro during the presentation of the book Warrior of Time,
by Cuban journalist Katiuska Blanco, in February 2012. Taken from El
Nuevo Diario de Nicaragua.

Translated by Tomás A.

13 August 2013

Source: "The Day After Fidel Castro / Ivan Garcia | Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-day-after-fidel-castro-ivan-garcia/