Word: raãºl
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...Raúl Castro a reformer or a reactionary? Now that Fidel, 81, has officially resigned as President, leaving Raúl, 76, to most likely be named his successor, that question has gained greater significance than ever--in Havana, Miami and Washington. The elder Castro's exit barely registered in those cities; a half-century after he arrived on the world stage with a bang, Fidel left with a whimper. There was no overwhelming sense of sorrow in Cuba nor exultation across the Straits of Florida. There was only a collective shrug. "It's O.K.," said Yanelis, a young Cuban woman in Marianao...
...With Raúl in charge, there's reason for some cautious hope. Compared with the flamboyantly inflexible Fidel, the beardless and bespectacled Raúl is an earthier, more pragmatic figure, who has nudged his country's ossified economy toward capitalism and encouraged some discussion about liberalizing its repressive politics. That's quite a turnaround for Raúl, who has been Cuba's military chief since Fidel took power in 1959 and was known as his brother's political enforcer, a ruthless ideological hard-liner. But after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's economic benefactor, it was Raúl who persuaded Fidel...
...have the power to fix that dysfunction. Fidel's full-blown retirement "really does free Raúl to do a lot more than he could in the provisional role," says Brian Latell, a Cuba expert at the University of Miami and author of After Fidel. "Now I think we'll see significant changes, not just in style but in policy." Bernardo Benes, a Miami banker and prominent Cuban exile who played soccer with Raúl at the University of Havana and was an emissary to Cuba for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, agrees: "I do expect him to free himself from...
Lacking the vast charisma that enabled his brother to hold on to power for nearly a half-century, Raúl can go one of two ways to establish his legitimacy: he can return to his hard-line roots and use his security forces to crack down on dissent, or he can earn the affection of his beleaguered people by further loosening the economic and political screws--a path that may be easier to take if Washington drops the embargo. "If we don't," says Jake Colvin, director of the Washington-based USA*Engage, an arm of the National Foreign Trade Council...
That's one argument for easing the embargo. Here's another: failing to do so might risk buoying the very Fidelista hard-liners whose power Raúl has worked to undermine in the past year and a half. Not so long ago, it seemed the next generation of Cuban leaders would be an ideological cohort fiercely loyal to Fidel, known as los Taliban and led by Foreign Minister Felipe Peréz Roque, 42. But since Raúl took over as interim President, the likes of Peréz have seen their power checked while pragmatists like Vice President Carlos Lage, 56, who share...