Fidel Castro, the ruthless dictator of Cuba, was recently ill with severe internal bleeding, bringing the media’s spotlight on the island. Castro’s physicians managed to bring the him back to good health but doubts have arisen as to how much longer the dictator will be in power. Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother and successor to the “presidency,” has openly admitted that he desires to see a more open economy in Cuba. Raul has showed much sympathy towards the Chinese economy and their mixture of communist rule with quasi-free markets. That said, questions have surfaced as to the possibility of counter-communist revolution when Fidel “buys the farm.” Cuba has seen some civil unrest recently, mostly due to repressive labor laws and the government’s failure to pay workers. In this article, Liannis Meriño Aguilera writes of graffiti that has appeared at a bus stop in Holguin which has caught the immediate attention of the communist regime. The article states that
someone wrote anti-government slogans on the walls of a bus stop across the street from a military post in Banes, HolguÃn municipality last weekend.
The graffiti read “Down with Fidel” and “We don’t want Raúl,” in chalk. A detachment from the political police, headed by Major Wilson RamÃrez, of the Department of State Security, converged on the site in the early morning and cleaned up the wall after thoroughly photographing it.
Later in the day, the local contingent of the “Rapid Response Brigades,” the government directed mobs who prosecute all those not in agreement with government policies, were gathered at the fire station and told to “be watchful of acts of disobedience like this one.”
There may not be a radical libertarian revolution when Fidel kicks the bucket but one thing is for sure, the coming years will be quite interesting. My family is Cuban and suffered tremendously under Castro. My mother was driven out of the country and my father was placed in a concentration camp for eighteen months cutting sugarcane for the regime. It would be a relief for my family as well as millions of exiled Cubans to see a significant change from a repressive communist regime to a much freer market.
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I do not smoke but I will gladly smoke a good Cuban cigar when that man finally croaks.
Maybe it will give the US an excuse to lift the embargo.
hopefully, cuba remains an america free zone. forever. the people will be better off that way.
Just lift the embargo already! As much as I adore Dominican, Honduran, and Nicaraguan cigars, I would love to see the day I can walk into my local cigar shop and see boxes of gorgeous Cuban Montecristos, Cohibas, and Punches displayed front and center on the shelf awaiting my purchase.
so I take it that Raul’s been playing second fidel?
INcidentally, one thing that’s long puzzled me: How come Cohibas, Monte Christo et al are so exquisite, and yet are produced by a State enterprise? OK I know that explains why they are so expensive, but it doesn’t explain the quality.
If Russian, Ukrainian, etc, experience is anything to go by, Cubans will get their five minutes of freedon when Fidel’s little empire crumbles, and then will happily proceed to electing themselves another bunch of kleptocrats from the ranks of old empire’s functionaries.
What I never understood is that trade with Chinese “Communists” will : “Open them up”, while trade with Cuban “Communists” is still, generally, verboten–on the grounds of “trading with the enemy”.
Anyone care to school me some on that seeming dichotomy?
M. E Hoffer, here is the explanation: people are idiots and will do stupid things that benefit nobody as long as they think they are “sticking it to” [insert some person or group of people that is disliked here].
I don’t think Nixon actually anticipated that China would go as capitalist as it did (of course Mao was in power when he went over there), he just wanted to drive a wedge between the Soviets and the Chinese.
M E Hoffer
I have an explanation. The US is proping up the regime – that is the only logical explanation. Maybe they’re doing it, because as bad as Fidel is – he is predictable. Maybe they’re doing it because they would never be able to reign in a Cuban tax haven. Maybe they’re doing it because it justifies the budget of some department or some program. Maybe they’re doing it because the congress enjoys the Cuban sex slave trade. Maybe they’re doing it because they want to have a country on standby that they can invade. Maybe they’re doing it because of bribes from sugar companies that don’t want to compete. Maybe Castro just has well placed agents inside the system keeping the sanctions propped up, knowing that keeps him in power. Maybe it involves some secret cold-war agreement. I don’t know why they’re doing it, but I have no doubt in my mind that somewhere someone in the govt is very happy with the status quo and is vary happy to keep Cuba in slavery.
ME,
The community of Cuban exiles living in the United States is a very politically active and very powerful voting bloc. They seem to believe that the embargo will someday bring the Castro regime down. As long as they support it ferverently, it is political suicide for any politician who wants their support to seriously advance the idea of ending the embargo. In the end, it is a political calculation.
I’m a bit baffled by the automatic accusation of Cuban exiles being “right wing”. Are they defacto right wing because they oppose Castro, or are there other reasons to believe they are comprehensievely conservative?
Yes, the US government has been propping up the Castro regime for decades. I guess it’s good for them them to have a small nation as an enemy than a nation like China. Florida’s electoral votes are also a big factor in this.
Let’s hope that when Fidel does go, we won’t have the US trying to “Bring Democracy to Cuba” in the style of Wilson or Bush.
I’m a bit baffled by the automatic accusation of Cuban exiles being “right wing”. Are they defacto right wing because they oppose Castro, or are there other reasons to believe they are comprehensievely conservative?
Most left-wing schizophrenics in Latin America seemed to think so – a Cuban that was against Castro must be some right-wing fascist. I tend to believe that anyone against Castro is simply not part of the fan club.
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