Word: castros
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...Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone penciled in his calendar what promised to be an important six-day trip to Cuba. That promise has suddenly multiplied, with the Catholic Church's No. 2 official set to arrive in Havana on Wednesday night, just a day after Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced the end to his 49 years in power. It is perfect timing for the Vatican, which is aiming to play a central role in the island nation's transition into what many hope will be a post-communist future...
...closest you'll get to a YouTube moment in communist Cuba - and perhaps a harbinger of the post-Fidel Castro era. Earlier this month a video surfaced on the island showing a Havana university student, Eliecer Avila, peppering National Assembly leader Ricardo Alarcon with the kind of public questions that usually get Cubans tossed in jail. Why does a worker have to toil two or three days just to be able to buy a toothbrush? Avila, a computer science major, asked the visibly flummoxed Alarcon, who was visiting Avila's school outside Havana. Why can't Cubans freely travel abroad...
...which indicates that the youthful outburst may not have been the spontaneous Havana Spring it was widely billed as, but rather a part of something quietly sanctioned by Cuba's interim President, Raul Castro. Since being tapped by his older brother, Fidel Castro, as the country's provisional leader in the summer of 2006 after Fidel underwent major intestinal surgery, Raul, 76, has pushed a more pragmatic, even reform-minded agenda that has encouraged limited public debate - and, just as important, worked to undermine hard-line fidelistas like Alarcon. The Avila episode was yet another sign of how firmly Raul...
...that, however, won't do much to appease the Bush Administration. While on his trip to Africa today, President Bush reiterated his stance that as long as either Castro brother is running Cuba, the U.S. won't consider opening trade or diplomatic relations with the island. While Bush acknowledged that Fidel's resignation could be a step toward a "democratic transition" in Cuba, he insisted that Washington will have to see "free and fair elections" in Cuba before the U.S. softens its stance, "not those staged elections the Castro brothers try to pass off as free and fair." Havana seemed...
Raul's ascension, however, is sure to amplify the U.S. debate over whether to begin engaging Cuba more deeply in order to be better positioned to help a democratic transition once the Castros are gone. (A new U.S. Administration could mean a change in American policy toward the island.) Meanwhile, Fidel's resignation is both a boon and a bitter pill to Cuban exiles in Miami, who are relieved to see him out of power but unhappy that he, and not they, got to choose the timing of his exit, and that his regime will linger on in large part...