Word: cuba
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RICARDO ALARCON, Cuba's National Assembly president, comparing the delayed public appearance of Raśl Castro, the ailing Fidel's younger brother and at least temporary successor, with the U.S. Vice President's tendency to slip away to undisclosed locations...
...charge of the Cuban presidency for the first time last week as Fidel recovered from abdominal surgery, has always been there. His brother's designated successor, he was beside Fidel from the moment the two, with Raśl's acquaintance Che Guevara, launched the revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Cuba's Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Having joined the Socialist Youth as a university student, Raśl was red before Fidel, who fought Batista in the name of nationalism and only later made his way to communism. Early on, the younger brother gained a reputation for ruthlessness, overseeing the execution of scores...
...donor. They could be similar, say U.S. officials, to reparations made in post-communist Eastern Europe, which in some cases let original home or building owners regain title to their property as long as they agreed to let the current occupants stay under a rent control agreement; and given Cuba's economic ruin, those who do regain industrial or commercial properties may be required to pump new investment into them...
...Their only legal recourse is the 1996 Helms-Burton Act: it makes foreign firms liable, at the President's discretion, to U.S. lawsuits or forfeiture of U.S. visas if they do business in Cuba on property confiscated from Cuban-Americans or U.S. companies. But so far not even President Bush has been willing to let a Helms-Burton suit go forward, largely for fear of alienating allies like Spain that have big investments in Cuba. "The Administration just won't pull the trigger," says Nicolas Gutierrez, 42, a Cuban-American attorney in Miami who represents the De la Camaras...
...Some Cuba analysts wonder if Raul, who has signaled he wants better relations with the U.S., may be open to restitution if it could get the U.S. to lift the embargo. Gutierrez doubts it. "We'll probably have to go through four, five, six, seven incarnations of this regime before we see change," he says. If so, it could keep those exile speedboats floating in their Miami marinas for many more years, as unlikely to move as the Cubans currently living in properties confiscated almost half a century...