Fwd: 12/02/06: Foreign Affairs: Fidel’s Final Victory
[Further proof that the CFR is part of the international Communist
conspiracy…]
Fidel’s Final Victory By Julia E. Sweig
Julia E. Sweig is Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and
Director of Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign
Relations. She is the author of Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel
Castro and the Urban Underground and Friendly fire: Losing Friends
and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century.
Summary: The smooth transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his
successors is exposing the willful ignorance and wishful thinking of
U.S. policy toward Cuba. The post-Fidel transition is already well
under way, and change in Cuba will come only gradually from here on
out. With or without Fidel, renewed U.S. efforts to topple the
revolutionary regime in Havana can do no good — and have the
potential to do considerable harm.
CUBA AFTER CASTRO?
Ever since Fidel Castro gained power in 1959, Washington and the
Cuban exile community have been eagerly awaiting the moment when he
would lose it — at which point, the thinking went, they would have
carte blanche to remake Cuba in their own image. Without Fidel’s iron
fist to keep Cubans in their place, the island would erupt into a
collective demand for rapid change. The long-oppressed population
would overthrow Fidel’s revolutionary cronies and clamor for capital,
expertise, and leadership from the north to transform Cuba into a
market democracy with strong ties to the United States.
But that moment has come and gone — and none of what Washington and
the exiles anticipated has come to pass. Even as Cuba-watchers
speculate about how much longer the ailing Fidel will survive, the
post-Fidel transition is already well under way. Power has been
successfully transferred to a new set of leaders, whose priority is
to preserve the system while permitting only very gradual reform.
Cubans have not revolted, and their national identity remains tied to
the defense of the homeland against U.S. attacks on its sovereignty.
As the post-Fidel regime responds to pent-up demands for more
democratic participation and economic opportunity, Cuba will
undoubtedly change — but the pace and nature of that change will be
mostly imperceptible to the naked American eye.
Fidel’s almost five decades in power came to a close last summer not
with the expected bang, or even really a whimper, but in slow motion,
with Fidel himself orchestrating the transition. The transfer of
authority from Fidel to his younger brother, Raśl, and half a dozen
loyalists — who have been running the country under Fidel’s watch
for decades — has been notably smooth and stable. Not one violent
episode in Cuban streets. No massive exodus of refugees. And despite
an initial wave of euphoria in Miami, not one boat leaving a florida
port for the 90-mile trip. Within Cuba, whether Fidel himself
survives for weeks, months, or years is now in many ways beside the
point.
[…]