Raul Castro makes 1st public comments

[Say_What]

<clips>

HAVANA - In his first public comments since becoming Cuba's acting president, Raul Castro said his brother Fidel is recovering and that thousands of troops were mobilized soon after his illness was announced, according to an interview published Friday.

...Raul Castro noted that international media had commented on his absence from public view in the days after he took provisional power, adding that "those comments don't bother me in the slightest."

He said he did care about what the Cuban people are thinking, however, and pointed out that he appeared on state television on Sunday, his brother's 80th birthday, to greet visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the airport. He also appeared in photographs of a birthday gathering with his brother and Chavez.

"As a point of fact, I am not used to making frequent appearances in public, except at times when it is required," Raul Castro said in the interview. "Many tasks related to defense should not be made public and have to be handled with maximum care, and that has been one of my fundamental responsibilities" as Defense Minister.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060818/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cuba_raul_castro_7


uban army chief Raul Castro attends a rally in Havana, Cuba in this Jan. 24, 2000 photo in Havana, Cuba. In his first public comments since becoming Cuba's acting president, Raul Castro said his brother Fidel is recovering and that thousands of troops were mobilized soon after his illness was announced, according to an interview published Friday Aug. 18, 2006 in the Communist Party's Granma newspaper. (AP Photo/Jorge Rey,)

[Robbien]

1. `We could not rule out the risk of somebody going crazy, or even crazier,

within the U.S. government,''

Word.

Sounds like a very good first speech.

[Mika]

2. Here's the entirety of what he said (from the source - Granma)

No enemy can defeat us
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/agosto/vier18/35raul.html


Too long and intertwined an interview to snip any out of context.

[Say_What]

3. Raul's family....

I read that his wife is an MIT graduate and daughter of a Bacardi executive. Here's a bio:

Vilma Espin Guillois

Vilma Espin Guillois is an industrial chemistry engineer who is married to Raul Castro, head of the Cuban Armed Forces and brother to Cuban President Fidel Castro. She has been President of the Federation of Cuban Women since its foundation in 1960. The organization is an ECOSOC-recognized NGO with membership of more than three and a half million women.

A member of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba, Vilma Espin headed the Cuban Delegation to the First Latin American Congress on Women and Children in Chile in September 1959. The mother of four and grandmother of seven is a member of the Central Committee and the Political Bureau of the communist Party of Cuba. She headed the Cuban delegation to the Conferences on Women held in Mexico, Copenhagen, Nairobi and Beijing.

http://www.summit-americas.org/Women/biographies.htm



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His daughter, Mariela Castro, who a sexologist, is pushing to legalize the change of identity for transsexuals and provide sex-change operations by the state. She has helped foster greater tolerance for transvestites and gays in Cuba.

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Havana.– Mariela Castro is leading a Cuban revolution less well known than her Uncle Fidel's: one in favor of sexual tolerance within the island's macho society.

Castro, 43, is leading the charge from her government-funded National Center for Sex Education, based in an old Havana mansion.

As director of the group, she promoted a soap opera that scandalized many Cubans in March by sympathetically depicting bisexuality. The controversial show depicted, among other story lines, the life of a construction worker who leaves his wife and children for the man next door.

Now President Castro's niece is pushing for passage of a law that would give transsexuals free sex change operations and hormonal therapy in addition to granting them new identification documents with their changed gender.

A bill was presented to parliament last year and was well received, she said. It is expected to come up for a vote in December.

If approved, it would make Cuba the most liberal nation in Latin America on gender issues.

http://www.dominicantoday.com/app/article.aspx?id=15272


Mariela Castro is leading the charge from her government-funded National Centre for Sex Education, based in an old Havana mansion. Reuters

[Judi Lynn]

7. Funny about Mariela Castro's work in Cuba, Say_What: she has been

throwing herself into the effort to transform Cuban attitudes to be inclusive, away from the rigid "macho" attitudes which permeate ALL of Latin America, connected to their religious foundation in the Catholic Church.

Here's an article on the new Cuban soap opera dealing with gays in Cuba, by Gary Marx of the Chicago Tribune:
http://havanajournal.com/culture/entry/gay-in-cuba-the-dark-side-of-the-moon/

[Say_What]

8. Interesting remarks...

by Ricardo Alarcon and a Brit at University in Havana makes interesting comments about his experience in Cuba.


...“There was never any space in the public discourse (about homosexuality). It’s as if gays didn’t exist,” explained Alarcon, 26, a biochemist.

“This is an important step in terms of getting the message about homosexuality to the people,” he said. “We’ve seen it in movies, but everyone watches the soap opera. It helps people understand what it means to be gay.”

Alarcon and his friends hope the series will lead to a broader acceptance. But the circumstances surrounding the telenovela, or soap opera, show how much ground needs to be covered.

Reader Comments:

On Fri June 16, 2006, David Gardiner wrote:

Well after spending some months at Havana university as a student and whilst not being homosexual certainly seeing openly homosexual men and women on the streets of Havana. I think Havana (I did not spend enough time in other parts of Cuba to make any judgement) is as tolerant of homosexuals as London and more tolereant of homosexuals than many other European or American cities I have visited.

[Say_What]

4. Collective leadership possible in Cuba

<clips>

...Raul Castro recently hinted at a shared future style of governance, noting that his brother was a singular type of leader and saying the party - not any individual - would be Castro's true successor.

...The party newspaper Granma underscored that point Thursday, saying "the special confidence the people grant the founding leader of a revolution cannot be transmitted as if were an inheritance to those who will occupy the top positions in the country in the future."

...Next to his brother, Castro gave the heaviest responsibilities to Lage, charging him with overseeing his ongoing "energy revolution" - a massive renovation of the island's antiquated electrical grid.

A generation younger than Castro at 54, Lage is credited with helping save Cuba's faltering economy after the Soviet Union broke up, designing modest economic reforms that allowed foreign investment in state enterprises and legalized the use of the U.S. dollar. Those reforms have been rolled back as the economy improves.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/15190901.htm

More information at this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2438233#2438302


Raul Castro Ruz, Defense Minister. On July 31, 2006, Raúl Castro assumed the duties of President of the Council of State in a temporary transfer of power due to Fidel Castro's illness. According to the Cuban Constitution Article 94, the First Vice President of the Council of State assumes presidential duties upon the illness or death of the president.

[Taverner]

5. Raul is Cuba's Deng Xiaoping

The pragmatic one, he was the one who convinced Fidel to open Cuba to tourism when their economy was flagging.

[Say_What]

9. American Prospect article about Raul and China...

Raul has also been influencial in Cuba's organic farming industry.

<clips>

...During this warming of relations, Chinese officials have targeted Raul and his peers in the Cuban defense establishment. In 1989, Raul made his first-ever overseas trip to China, and in 1997 China hosted Raul on another grand, high-profile visit. Fidel’s brother has traveled to China on numerous other occasions, and has received informal lessons in China’s model of growth by touring areas like Chongqing, a booming megacity in central China stoked by massive state subsidies.

In 1997, Raul reportedly spent long periods at the side of China’s then-premier Zhu Rongji, considered one of the most committed economic reformers in Chinese history. According to Cuba expert William Ratliff, Raul then invited one of Zhu’s top advisors back to Cuba, where he gave lectures to hundreds of top Cuban officials and executives. The only Cuban official hostile to Zhu’s advisor, Ratliff notes, was Fidel himself.

China’s wooing of Cuba is only part of a broader strategy in Latin America -- a region increasingly alienated from a Bush administration that has largely ignored its own hemisphere. Seeking better ties with Latin America, which contains valuable resources China needs (Cuba provides much of China’s nickel), Chinese leaders have begun to present their country as a model for the region – a model, that is, of state-directed economic development sans political liberalization. Such a model doesn’t only resonate in Cuba. After all, the neoliberal economic model touted to the region by international financial institutions failed to deliver broad economic growth in the region during the 1990s, leaving many Latin Americans searching for other answers.

China has backed up its charm offensive in America’s backyard. China’s aid to Latin America, almost nonexistent ten years ago, now tops $700 million per year, according to an analysis by the National Defense University. Beijing adds to its aid by forgiving or rolling over Latin American debts and helping build infrastructure in the region, which suffers from aging, crumbling roads, rails, and ports.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11836

[David__77]

6. Fidel should not return to all his posts.

He should constitute a "central advisory committee" for old figures like himself. He can influence things from there. He should certainly surrounder either party or state leadership. It would greatly smooth the transition - it would be like China.