Where is Cuba's Gorbachev?
Hardships increase, not ease

D espite mounting economic difficulties, the Cuban government is not likely to open up Cuba's economy or to offer meaningful concessions for normalization of relations with the United States.

The Castro brothers believe that increasing hardships will not produce an internal rebellion. Gen. Raúl Castro recently reduced the availability of food that Cubans receive through ration cards. If there was concern for popular unrest, this type of measure would have not been introduced.

Political and economic centralization and control, along with ideological rigidity, are the chosen policies to guarantee a successful succession and to prevent Cuba's transformation into a democratic, market economy.
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Raul Castro warns Cubans that life will not be easier

Fifty years ago, Raúl Castro walked into the Moncada Army barracks with just one bodyguard and the soldiers under dictator Fulgencio Batista easily surrendered. On Thursday, the Cuban leader stood before the nation as president celebrating five decades of spirited defiance against ''sick, venegeful hate'' by the United States.

Speaking before a crowd of more than 1,000 loyalists Castro warned that life on the island would not get easier, but said that the revolution that was victorious 50 years ago remained strong and could not be destroyed by outside forces.

''Today, the revolution is stronger than ever,'' said the 77-year-old who formally took over in February but has been running the country since his older brother Fidel took ill in July 2006. ``Does that mean that dangers have diminished?
I s the Comandante back in the saddle? Yes, most say. Yet, that's also the easiest and simplest answer when Cuban politics is neither. Fidel Castro has never been first among equals. His photograph always appeared larger than anyone else's in the Cuban Communist Party's politburo. In the mid-1990s, Castro halted modest economic openings and later launched a recentralization. Though many in the leadership likely disagreed, acquiescence was their only choice.

How could he be back if hardly anyone sees him? After March's ministerial changes, Raúl Castro finally has his own government. The Comandante is old and physically diminished, which is probably why he won't go public. He'd rather be remembered by the strong, imposing physique that he enjoyed most of his life.

His power is largely symbolic now. For Raúl and the remaining historic figures from the 1950s, the Comandante's legacy is sacrosanct. He cast a larger shadow over Cuba than Mao over China or Stalin over the former Soviet Union. In the

There was a lot of talk about a new chapter in U.S-Cuban relations at the 34-country Summit of the Americas, but top U.S. and Latin American officials point to some hopeful signs that go beyond the rhetoric.

After President Barack Obama's opening speech at the summit stating that ''the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba,'' several top Latin American and U.S. officials told me -- granted, with various degrees of conviction -- that there are a few concrete signs that Cuba may accept Obama's olive branch.

Obama aides are cautiously encouraged by Cuban leader Raúl Castro's statement Friday in Venezuela that Cuba may have made some ''mistakes'' in the past and that ''we are willing to discuss everything,'' including human rights, with he U.S. government.
Cuba delays key summit on economy

Reeling from global and domestic economic crises, the Cuban government announced Friday that it planned to postpone an important Communist Party conference to chart the island's economic future.

The decision -- announced on the third anniversary of Raúl Castro's rise to the presidency -- was further evidence that Cuba's moribund economy is in a free fall and that its leaders have yet to figure out how to stop the slide, experts familiar with the island's economy said Friday.

Cuba's Communist Party has not held its congress since 1997. The sixth party convention was supposed to be held later this year in a quest to chart the country's political and economic future without the presence of Fidel Castro, who fell ill three years ago.
The top Cuban leadership today resembles nothing as much as the doddering gerontocracy that governed the Soviet Union in the first half of the 1980s, that is, until the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev's ascension in March 1985. In quick succession the rheumy Leonid Brezhnev was briefly succeeded by Yuri Andropov, and then Constantine Chernenko, all three by then in their 70s, infirm and incapable of leading their fading empire out of its terminal dysfunction.

Cuba's leadership today may be inherently even more unstable.

The Castro brothers' unpredictable tag-team performance this year has created greater uncertainty in the nomenclatura than at any time since the Ochoa de la Guardia purges 20 years ago. The announcement last week of the indefinite postponement of the Sixth Communist Party Congress is surely the result of tensions and deep policy disagreements between the brothers and broadly across the nomenclatura.

What appeared for some time to have been an irrevocable succession, or at least one in which Fidel Castro would play only a passive emeritus role, has turned out to be anything but that. By all recent appearances the renascent Fidel has laid down prohibitions in domestic and foreign policy -- lines in the sand -- that no other leader dare cross. This year, furthermore, he has been thoroughly engaged in the details of key foreign-policy challenges, events in Honduras, the summit meetings of regional leaders in Venezuela and Trinidad and, perhaps most of all, relations with the United States.

He is again monitoring how scores of upper- and middle-ranking leaders behave. For a while -- perhaps when he was critically infirm -- he deferred to Raúl. But the wrath and paranoia that characterized his rule in the past have been evident again in the recent humiliating dismissals of leaders who crossed him. As a result, ranking Cuban officials can't be sure who is in charge from day to day. They don't know whom to obey or trust or how safely to maneuver around the Castro brothers, even as demands on them to improve economic performance are intensifying.

Raúl, the nominal president, has performed inconsistently. That is not surprising given his continuing refusal to countermand his brother on any matter of transcending importance. After first raising popular expectations for change, he has been beating a disorderly retreat that has surely compromised his standing among civilian and military leaders impatient for reform and decisive leadership.

Raúl's speech on July 26, Cuba's most important revolutionary holiday, was an exercise in debility and obfuscation. Perhaps it also reflected a profound fatigue. In his two previous July 26 performances he was robust, presenting himself confidently as the country's newly found chief problem solver. He raised expectations that economic conditions would improve. He spoke at length and used the anniversary, as his brother often did, to deliver sweeping ``state of the revolution'' addresses.

In 2007 he made the landmark promise to bring about ``structural and conceptual change.'' In 2008, he promised to ``continue to care for, prepare and listen to our youth.'' That reiterated in brief the seminal theme of a speech he delivered at the University of Havana some months earlier when he implored Cuban youth to debate the country's problems fearlessly. With an eye on Cuba's generational crisis, he reassured the students that, ``We must continue gradually opening the way for new generations.''

This year he was gruff and demanding in his only reference to the disenchanted youth. ``Are you listening, youth leaders?'' he demanded. If they were, and if they are to take his injunction seriously, they heard that they will be expected to work in the countryside planting trees in places where the soil or conditions are too poor to produce food crops. This change of priorities was already evident following the recent dismissals of the only officials -- Felipe Pérez Roque, in his mid-40s, and Carlos Lage, his mid-50s -- who stood a chance of appealing to Cuba's apathetic youth and who seemed to rank high in the line of succession.

Ranking Cuban officials don't know whom to obey or trust or how safely to maneuver around the Castro brothers.

A photo at the dais where Raúl spoke in Holguin on July 26 portrayed the stasis starkly. It showed the 78-year-old Raúl, seated next to the soon to be 79-year-old Jose Ramón Machado Ventura, first in the line of succession. Next to them was the irrepressible Ramiro Valdés, 77 and apparently now the next most important figure in the leadership. If there is a Cuban Gorbachev biding his time somewhere in the upper reaches of the nomenclatura, he is wisely keeping a low profile.

stay closed, sparking rumors
Cuban grocery stores stay closed sparking rumors

By ANNE-MARIE GARCIA (AP) – 1 day ago

HAVANA — Upscale grocery stores that were scheduled to close two days last week for inventory remained shuttered Monday — sparking rumors of food shortages because of the country's dire economic situation.

More than a dozen stores in Cuba's capital that had been run by the now-defunct firm Cubalse closed Thursday to tally merchandise before they were transferred to the new managing company, TRD Caribe. The change is part of a government effort to streamline bureaucracy.

When they didn't reopen Saturday as scheduled, customers started to get concerned. Cuba has seen its revenue from nickel and other exports plummet, leaving it short on cash to pay bills overseas.

"We have been forced to re-negotiate debts, payments and other commitments with foreign companies," President Raul Castro said in a speech Saturday night.

The shuttered stores cater to foreigners and accept only convertible pesos, a currency worth 24 times the regular peso, which most Cubans are paid in. However, some islanders get convertible pesos through remittances from relatives in the United States, or from jobs in tourism or with foreign firms, and frequent the upscale stores seeking toilet paper, ground beef, cooking oil and other products unavailable in local groceries.

Customers knocked on the door of one closed store Monday to demand an explanation.

"It's a lack of respect for the consumer," said Alina Marquez, a 66-year-old retiree who came because, "I ran out of laundry detergent and was also looking for a little chicken to eat."

TRD Caribe commercial director Maria Eloisa Cabrera said Monday that the inventory took longer than expected, and added that she doesn't yet know when the stores will reopen.

"We are taking organizational steps, and there were incompatibility issues with our computer systems," Cabrera said.

She said when stores open again, "they are going to keep selling everything Cubalse had. Nothing is going to change."

But the closings have raised fears of less merchandise and higher prices.

In recent weeks, grocery vendors complained they had not received shipments of everything from laundry detergent to dog food since the government dissolved Cubalse in June and canceled its contracts with international exporters.

Some stores that weren't controlled by Cubalse, such as Palco Supermarket on the capital's outskirts, are open but have been mobbed by crowds of customers who snapped up much of the available inventory.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

tell me where Gorby is today and I will tell you where Cuba's Gorby is!

Interesting articles, the system has to come down sooner or later. It's been way too long.

Forgive me for putting DR selfishly into this..............

but let's just say the system in Cuba collapses and capitalism is flowing. Who the hell would still want to go to DR? Cuba would be back to being the Vegas of the Caribbean. With all it's old architecture, the old colonial Spanish charm. Let's just say DR is in big trouble.

Maybe DR will cave in or accept it as a challenge and improve it's tourism industry. No one knows for sure. It's just something to think about............

No one knows. There are many people that claim DR won't lose as much as people think. Cuba is already open to Europeans and Canadians, and many of the tourists from the US are actually Dominican-Americans. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

do not let th DR chamber of commerce here you talking this stuff they will string you up but yes they will have to learn to compete against some very smart Cubans once they get rid of the commies and their dumb@ss supporters like glim and chill aka tweedle dee and tweedle dummer

"Where is Cuba's Gorbachev?"

Probably in Miami.

ciby one thing is absolutely sure and that is the next leaders of Cuba are currently living in Cuba not Miami they will not be communist though

Don't be so pessimistic. After all, if Cuba indeed gets capitalistic, guess where the majority of our neighbours to the west will set their sights upon? May I remind you that the Windward Passage separating Cuba from Hispaniola is smaller than the Mona Passage separating it from Puerto Rico? So much so that on a clear day, you can actually see the cuban coast from the Mole St. Nicholas? Of the love that the oligarchic cuban exiles (specially the ones from Miami) have for haitian and jamaican slave labour? About the fact that a good chunk of the population on the Santiago and Guantanamo area was, before the revolution, of haitian and jamaican origin? Heck, I think that even our puerto rican neighbours might take a break from us, if things go as smoothly as some people (like Dobbs) believe will turn out. Just think about it. I know, it sounds callous and selfish of my part to be salivating for the opportunities that cuban capitalism will bring on without analyzing its possible downsides (specially when one is talking about the mess that it would create on its own social issues, if their elites plan to take the slavery path that our own elites have taken), but one would be an incurable madman not to see that it can be a welcome respite for the most thorny and annoying of our social issues.

good for you Lautaro looking for the silver lining when Cuba returns to capitalism and the DR is relegated to the basement of the Spanish Antilles pecking order the complexes of the 3 stooges will really take a beating then