Word: castros
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...same time, Raúl Castro had to notice that his Brazilian host, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva - who is the head of Brazil's Workers Party and supposedly the Castros' leftist soulmate - is perhaps Latin America's most acclaimed capitalist leader. Capitalism's excesses get deservedly excoriated for causing today's global catastrophe. But even Venezuela, which helps prop up Cuba's economy with cut-rate oil, has made it clear in recent elections that it's not the socialist hotbed that its left-wing President Hugo Chávez dreams of. Yes, the hypocritical drill...
...fittingly, don't expect much of a charged observance on either side of the Straits of Florida this week. It looks unlikely that the ailing, 82-year-old Fidel Castro, who ceded Cuba's presidency to his younger brother Raúl this year, will be fit enough to attend the celebration in Santiago de Cuba. In Miami, exile hard-liners are wrestling with a new Florida International University poll showing that a majority of Cuban-Americans there think the embargo should end. The question now is whether Washington and Havana can smell the cafe cubano, leave their cold...
Fortunately, the signs are looking better as U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's Jan. 20 Inauguration nears. Obama, who has said he's willing to talk with Raúl Castro, is poised to end the Bush Administration's restrictions on Cuban-American travel and remittances to Cuba. That could (and should) be the first step toward dismantling the ill-conceived, 46-year-old embargo (which Obama surely knows is also the aim of many pro-business Republicans in Washington). Either way, such gestures make it harder for the Castros to rail against gringo imperialism. For his part...
...problem, of course, is the scores of jailed dissidents in Cuba and the island's lack of free speech. Raúl Castro said this month he would consider releasing some of those prisoners as a prelude to talks with Obama. He wants U.S. reciprocation, however - like freedom for the Cuban Five. They are Cuban agents who were convicted in Miami in 2001 of espionage but, Havana insists, were in the U.S. only to monitor exile groups that had allegedly aided in bombings of Cuban tourist hotels. A swap release of the five isn't likely. (A U.S. appellate panel...
...point is that both sides have got to learn to give a little. Last year, when TIME put Raúl Castro on its list of the world's 100 most influential people - because he had taken over for Fidel Castro as interim President and looked to be moving Cuba in a more pragmatic direction - the magazine got scorn from U.S. officials. This year, when TIME put Cuban dissident Yoani Sanchez on the list - for the impact she's had on political blogging around the world - Cuban officials complained in turn. They're entitled to their opinion, but both camps...