Word: fidels
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Publicly, Bush Administration officials say that wouldn't be enough to lift Washington's 44-year-old economic embargo against Cuba. They insist that Raul, even if he does open Cuba's threadbare economy, is every bit the unacceptable tyrant Fidel is - someone who promises more of the autocratic status quo than any kind of democratic transition. But privately, some admit they prefer the prospect of a Raul interregnum to the kind of post-Fidel chaos that could result in tens of thousands of Cubans rafting into South Florida - just the sort of diplomatic and logistical crisis that has long...
...military celebration last month, Raul, who became a communist as a youth, well before Fidel, insisted that "only the Communist Party" can rule Cuba and "anything else is pure speculation." But at the same time, Raul may carry more perestroika in his political DNA than Fidel does. When the Soviet Union's lavish economic aid to Cuba disappeared in the early 1990s and many Cubans faced possible starvation, Raul convinced a reluctant Fidel to reopen the island's private agricultural markets as an incentive to increase food production. "Beans are more important than rifles," he insisted. Latell agrees...
...Indeed, Raul is also called "the practical Castro," and when and if he does succeed Fidel permanently, many Cuba watchers speculate that he'll actually bring a less confrontational, more reform-minded rule to the communist island. "I think he will try to adopt more of a China economic model, probably continuing much of the harsh political regime but allowing more private enterprise and loosening foreign investment rules," says Latell, a senior researcher at the University of Miami's Cuba Institute and author of the recently published book After Fidel. "And I think he's also going to want better...
...Helms-Burton law essentially prohibits the U.S. from dealing with Raul if he succeeds Fidel. But some State Department officias confide that if Raul does take reform steps and reaches out to the U.S., it would be the height of folly for Washington to remain on the sidelines, no matter how many votes that might preserve in the politically potent Cuban exile community in South Florida...
...truth, Raul really has little choice but to be practical. He is known to be more down-to-earth and sociable than Fidel - unlike Fidel, he loves to drink, dance and tell ribald jokes - and he has been Fidel's most trusted No. 2 since they were guerrillas fighting in Cuba's eastern Sierra Maestra in the 1950s. But Raul enjoys little if any of the mystical popularity that Fidel still retains, at least among older Cubans, and which has helped keep him in power since his 1959 revolution. That's a big reason why the government in recent months...