Word: rauling
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...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...
...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...
...Other veteran Cuba analysts, not surprisingly, insist that this is too charitable a characterization of a man so long associated with an oppressive military and security apparatus, responsible for imprisoning and in many instances torturing thousands of dissidents. And a number of factors could keep Raul on the hard line even after Fidel dies. For one thing, the largesse of Fidel's left-wing and oil-rich ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has helped significantly to keep Cuba's economy afloat, lessening the urgency of economic reforms that many had expected under Fidel in recent years. (Cuba may also...
...however, the Cuban government insists that Raul's hold of the reins is temporary, perhaps just a few weeks or months until Fidel is back on his feet. In all his 47 years in power, Fidel, who turns 80 on August 13, has never ceded power like this to anyone. And when asked why, if Fidel really is still alive, he would so uncharacteristically let aides make such an important announcement rather than do it himself, reliable official sources in Havana insist that convalescence from his intestinal surgery requires that he do absolutely nothing but lie still in the following...