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Bush: Fidel Castro Brother,
Apparent Successor is 'Dictator-Lite'
The Bush administration on Tuesday ruled out any immediate change in
policy toward Cuba despite Fidel Castro's resignation as president,
deriding his brother and heir apparent, Raul, as "dictator-lite."
Administration officials led by President Bush expressed hope that
Castro's decision to step down would usher in a period of democratic
transition on the communist-run island, but stressed they doubted that
would happen under Raul Castro and said it was unlikely the nearly
50-year-old U.S. economic embargo on Cuba would be lifted.
"I can't imagine that happening any time soon," Deputy Secretary of
State John Negroponte said when asked if Washington would lift the
embargo, which has been the centerpiece of American policy toward Cuba
since it was first imposed in 1960 and strengthened in 1962.
The ailing Castro, 81, who has called the trade embargo "criminal" and
claims its impact has run into the tens of billions of dollars,
announced earlier Tuesday he would not accept another term in office
when parliament meets to elect a new president this weekend. Despite
constant U.S. criticism and sanctions, Castro outlasted nine U.S.
presidents.
In Rwanda, Bush said he hoped the end of Castro's presidency will launch
a transition to democracy for the Cuban people.
"They're the ones who suffered under Fidel Castro," he told a news
conference. "They're the ones who were put in prison because of their
beliefs. They're the ones who have been denied their right to live in a
free society. So I view this as a period of transition and it should be
the beginning of the democratic transition in Cuba."
The State Department offered similar sentiments, but stressed it was not
optimistic for any kind of quick change under Raul Castro, to whom Fidel
ceded power temporarily in July 2006.
"The changing of the guard is not significant of and by itself," deputy
spokesman Tom Casey told reporters, repeatedly referring to Raul Castro
as "dictator-lite" or "Fidel lite."
"It will be significant if in fact it leads to greater openness and
freedom for the Cuban people and ultimately to a democratic transition,"
he said. But, he cautioned that "the general analysis is that Raul
Castro is 'Fidel lite'."
"He is simply a continuation of the Castro regime, of the dictatorship,"
Casey said, adding: "There are some very clear indications out there
that what this transition would potentially become, or at least what
Fidel and his minions would like it to become, is a transfer of
authority and power from one dictator to dictator-lite, from Fidel to
Raul."
Casey said the United States stood ready, however, to assist the Cuban
people in a true transition to democracy.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami-area Republican who was born in
Havana, said Castro's resignation was irrelevant because his regime had
already "done great harm to the suffering Cuban people."
"It matters nothing at all whether Fidel, Raul or any other thug is
named head of anything in Cuba," she said. "What the people want is
freedom to vote in multiparty elections that are internationally
supervised and freedom to express their dissent from the oppressive
regime. The Communist machinery is enslaving them so it doesn't matter
who the thug of the moment will be."
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who is of Cuban descent, said Castro's
resignation "is not the cause for celebration that some would believe."
"This does not represent the replacement of totalitarianism with
democracy. Instead, it is the replacement of one dictator with another,"
he said in a statement.
The Coast Guard, meanwhile, has not added any additional patrols in
light of Castro's resignation, said Coast Guard spokesman Chris O'Neil.
O'Neil, speaking from Florida, said there have been no indications or
warnings of a mass migration. "The threat has not changed," O'Neil said.
Bush said he anticipates debate about Cuba's future, and that some
people will say "Let's promote stability."
"In the meantime, political prisoners will rot in prison and the human
condition will remain pathetic in many cases," he said.
Bush noted that he had met with the families of some of prisoners, and
that their release should be the first step of any transition to
democracy.
"It just breaks your heart to realize that people have been thrown in
prisons because they dare speak out," he said.
While Bush expressed hope for democratic change, Castro's decision
appeared to position his brother, Raul, 76, to succeed him as president.
"The international community should work with the Cuban people to begin
to build institutions that are necessary for democracy," Bush said.
"Eventually, this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections —
and I mean free, and I mean fair — not these kind of staged elections
that the Castro brothers try to foist off as true democracy," Bush said.
"The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of
liberty," Bush said.
Profile of Fidel Castro,
Longtime Cuban President
Fox News. Tuesday, February 19, 2008. Fidel Castro defied America for
nearly half a century, resisting U.S. attempts to topple him while
wielding almost absolute control over the communist state he built just
90 miles (145 kilometers) south of Florida. He resigned as president
Tuesday, two years after falling ill and temporarily ceding power.
Through 10 U.S. administrations beginning with that of Dwight
Eisenhower, Castro survived assassination attempts, an invasion by a
CIA-trained exile army at the Bay of Pigs, and a standoff with
Washington over Soviet missiles that pushed the world to the brink of
nuclear war.
"Socialism or death" was Castro's rallying cry long after his beard
turned gray, the Soviet Union broke up and communism toppled across
eastern Europe.
His defiance of the world's only remaining superpower excited many
around the world, especially in Latin America, where Venezuela's
President Hugo Chavez took up the torch of Castro's crusade against U.S.
power.
Over the decades, Castro became such a constant presence in Cuban life,
and ruled for so long and with such vigor, that many on the island
assumed he would outlive them.
So this nation of 11 million was stunned on July 31, 2006, when Castro
announced he had undergone intestinal surgery and was temporarily
stepping aside. He appointed his brother Defense Minister Raul Castro,
five years younger, to lead Cuba and its ruling Communist Party during
his recovery.
Almost 19 months later, he announced Tuesday that he was stepping aside
for good, and would not accept a nomination to serve another five-year
term as president of the governing Council of State when the new
parliament meets Sunday.
Castro's exact ailment and condition remain state secrets. Since falling
ill, he has stayed out of public view, appearing only occasionally in
photographs and videos released by the government to knock down rumors
he was dead or dying.
In March 2007, Castro began penning a series of sporadic essays called
"Reflections of the Commander in Chief," weighing in on a range of
international issues. Castro said in his resignation letter that he
would continue to write the essays under the new title, "Reflections of
Comrade Fidel."
Castro came to power in the Cuban revolution on Jan. 1, 1959, when his
revolution drove then-President Fulgencio Batista to flee. Monarchs
excepted, he was the world's longest ruling head of state.
The United States was the first country to recognize Castro, but his
radical economic reforms and rapid trials of Batista supporters — which
often ended before firing squads — quickly unsettled U.S. leaders.
Washington eventually slapped a trade embargo on the island and severed
diplomatic ties. Castro seized American property and businesses and
turned to the Soviet Union for military and economic assistance.
On April 16, 1961, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist. The
following day, he humiliated the United States by capturing more than
1,100 exile soldiers in the Bay of Pigs invasion.
The world neared nuclear conflict on Oct. 22, 1962, when U.S. President
John F. Kennedy announced there were Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.
After a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev removed
them.
Meanwhile, Cuban revolutionaries opened 10,000 new schools, erased
illiteracy, and built a universal health care system. Castro backed
revolutionary movements in Latin America and Africa.
But former liberties were whittled away as labor unions lost the right
to strike, independent newspapers were shut down and religious
institutions were harassed.
Over nearly five decades, hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled Castro's
rule, many of them settling just across the Florida Straits in Miami.
When social pressures increased, Castro used migration as a safety
valve. In 1980, he let 125,000 people flee to Florida by boat through
Mariel port, west of Havana. When economic crisis sparked rioting in
Havana in 1994, Castro opened Cuba's borders again, and an estimated
30,000 people took to the sea in rafts.
With Cuba's economy in a tailspin after the loss of Soviet aid, Castro
was forced to open up to foreign capitalists and allow limited private
enterprise.
But when the economy began recovering in the late 1990s, Castro
reasserted control and stifled private business.
Castro continually resisted U.S. demands for multiparty elections and an
open economy despite American laws tightening the embargo in 1992 and
1996.
He characterized a U.S. plan for American aid in a post-Castro era as a
thinly disguised attempt at regime change and insisted his socialist
system would survive long after his death.
Fidel Castro Ruz was born in eastern Cuba, where his Spanish immigrant
father ran a prosperous plantation. His official birthday is Aug. 13,
1926, although some say he was born a year later.
Most details of Castro's family life were private.
The only child he publicly recognized was his first son, Fidel Jr., who
he had with his first wife, Mirta Diaz Balart. Fidel Jr. went on to
become a nuclear engineer and remained in Cuba.
Castro also had a daughter out of wedlock, Alina Fernandez Revuelta, who
fled to the United States in 1993 and bitterly criticized her father in
a book and in media interviews. CNN hired her as an analyst to comment
on Cuban affairs after Castro fell ill in July 2006.
Former Castro confidantes in exile say Castro formed a family with a
woman named Dalia Soto del Valle and that they had five sons together:
Angel, Antonio, Alex, Alejandro and Alexis. It was unknown if the couple
were legally married.
Castro was also said to have several other children from other
relationships.
Talk of Castro's mortality was long taboo on the island, but that
changed on June 23, 2001, when he fainted during a speech in the sun.
Although Castro quickly returned to the stage, many Cubans understood
for the first time that their leader would one day die.
Castro shattered a kneecap and broke an arm when he fell after a speech
on Oct. 20, 2004, but typically laughed off rumors about his health,
including a 2005 report that he had Parkinson's disease.
But the sustained intestinal bleeding that forced Castro to undergo
surgery in late July 2006 was clearly life-threatening, something
reflected in Castro's own sober description of his condition at the
time.
"To affirm that the recovery period will take a short time and that
there is no risk would be absolutely incorrect," he told Cubans on his
80th birthday, Aug. 13, 2006. "I ask you all to be optimistic, while at
the same time ready to face any adverse news."
Source: FoxNews.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008.
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