Statement Hints at Castro’s Retirement

[Scurrilous]

Source: New York Times

<snip>

"Fidel Castro indicated Monday in a statement read on state television that he was willing to hand over the reins of Cuba’s government to a younger generation of leaders. But his statement remained silent on whether he was speaking hypothetically or had a transition plan in mind.

"My basic duty is not to cling to office, nor even more so, to obstruct the rise of people much younger, but to pass on experiences and ideas whose modest value arises from the exceptional era in which I lived," said the statement attributed to Mr. Castro, who is 81.

The ailing Mr. Castro, acting in a sort of emeritus role, has produced numerous commentaries in the 16 months since he had abdominal surgery and temporarily handed over power to his younger brother, Raúl, who is 76. But none of the statements until now have addressed the important question of Mr. Castro’s future as Cuba’s president, a position he has held for nearly five decades.

The most recent speculation in Havana had been that Mr. Castro might be trying to make a comeback. His health was said to be improving, and on Dec. 2 he was officially nominated as a candidate for the next National Assembly. The assembly meets in March to choose a 31-member Council of State, which will select the next president."

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/world/americas/18cuba.html?hp

[davidinalameda]

1. I hope his retirement is rotated

from prison to prison to prison

each one he imprisoned his political prisoners in

[ngant17]

7. people who live in glass houses

shouldn't throw stones.

But if you must, wouldn't you want to say the same about the US Presidents and all the political prisoners that exist here?

[davidinalameda]

20. of course

but Castro is a dictator no matter what some people on here say

[Mika]

21. Thanks for clearing that up with such definitive proof.

:crazy:

[davidinalameda]

22. Castro isn't a dictator?

[Vanje]

2. Again?

In other news:
Generalismo Franco is still dead.

[Yupster]

3. Oh brother

He doesn't want to cling to power said the guy who's been in power for 48 years. Give me a break.

Also he doesn't want to obstruct the younger generation's rise to power. That's why he turned over power to his 75 year old brother.

Get this guy a new joke writer.

[Hobarticus]

4. Great...Reagan got the Berlin Wall, Bush gets Castro...

Another post-cold war boner for the next generation to drool over.

[boricua79]

12. Castro has not decided yet

and If I were him, I'd wait for a Dem president to make the move.

[Judi Lynn]

5. While Castro was fighting against a US-supported death squad loving monster,

living in the mountains, living off the land for years, combating a dictator who had his own friends tortured to death, _{George W. Bush} was torturing frogs.

Yeah, I can see why lazy a-holes who can't be bothered to do any research, who live off the hallucinated gossip of nearly brain dead, easily aroused sociopaths of the American right-wing, all feel they are really striking a blow for their country to revile this man. They know so much about him.

God forbid they approach the other parts of their lives with such deep ignorance.

Learn something about the subject, FIRST, then reward the world with your valuable opinion.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Billy Burnett]

10. Speaking of ignorant ...

Reverence for the truth? HA!

From the NYT article, the author fiction writer wrote ...

But none of the statements until now have addressed the important question of Mr. Castro’s future as Cuba’s president, a position he has held for nearly five decades.

Maybe the antiCastro fanatics should step away from their ignorance.


Dorticós Torrado, Osvaldo http://www.bartleby.com/65/do/Dorticos.html

1919–83, president of Cuba (1959–76). A prosperous lawyer, he participated in Fidel Castro’s revolutionary movement and was imprisoned (1958). He escaped and fled to Mexico, returning to Cuba after Castro’s triumph (1959). As minister of laws (1959) he helped to formulate Cuban policies. He was appointed president in 1959. Intelligent and competent, he wielded considerable influence. In 1976 the Cuban government was reorganized, and Castro assumed the title of president; Dorticós was named a member of the council of state.

[Robbien]

13. For a person who hops into every LA thread to promote enslavement for Latin America, Robcon

you sure have a nasty attitude towards people who believe that each and every country has a right to its own sovereignty without its resources being plundered and pillaged by the global elite.

[GirlinContempt]

24. Escuchar escuchar!

[David__77]

6. I hope Fidel Castro has a long life.

I think it's been smart to slowly begin the transition. It will avoid an unnecessary crisis upon his death. I absolutely to not think "regime change" will occur in Cuba for a very long time, if ever. The chances of that are lessened by an orderly transition of power to new leaders.

[Billy Burnett]

9. Cuba's democracy is under development (as are all democracies).

Cuba has come a long way in 50 years. From a blood soaked brutal US backed death squad dictatorship up to 1959 to a representative parliamentary democracy in 1976. Considering that it took the US 184 years to become democratic (in passing the voting rights act of 1965 that legalized voting for all Americans), Cuba has done pretty well.


http://www.poptel.org.uk/cuba-solidarity/democracy.htm

This system in Cuba is based upon universal adult suffrage for all those aged 16 and over. Nobody is excluded from voting, except convicted criminals or those who have left the country. Voter turnouts have usually been in the region of 95% of those eligible .

There are direct elections to municipal, provincial and national assemblies, the latter represent Cuba's parliament.

Electoral candidates are not chosen by small committees of political parties. No political party, including the Communist Party, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any given candidates. Instead the candidates are nominated by grass roots assemblies and by electoral commissions comprising representatives of all the mass organisations.
The municipal elections are the cornerstone of Cuba's political structure. They comprise delegates who have great authority amongst the local population and who are elected for reasons of known integrity, intelligence, hard work and honesty.

The elections to the provincial and national assemblies (Cuba's regional and national parliaments) follow a different procedure. For deputies to the national assembly the nominating process involves proposals from the municipal councils.

In addition to receiving nominations from different organisations and institutions, the candidacy commissions carry out an exhaustive process of consultation before drawing up a final slate. In the February 1993 elections they consulted more than 1.5 million people and established a pool of between 60 and 70 thousand potential candidates before narrowing it down to 589.

The nominating process and the huge participation in the last election clearly show that the deputies to Cuba's parliament enjoy massive public support.

[Eugene]

11. White House says Castro letter "interesting"

Source: Reuters

White House says Castro letter "interesting"
Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:02pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on
Tuesday a letter from Cuban leader Fidel Castro
suggesting he might give up his formal leadership post
was interesting, but that it was difficult to determine
what it actually meant.

-snip-

"It was an interesting letter," White House spokeswoman
Dana Perino said. "It's hard to make out what he is saying
or what he means, as is not unusual.

"And so we're just continuing to work for democracy on
the island, and we believe that that day will come soon."

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1849184120071218

[Judi Lynn]

14. Dana's remark they are "just continuing to work for democracy on the island" is a slap in the face

to sane people.

They intend to destroy Cuba's world-famous health and education systems, returning them to the privatized state they enjoyed before, when the vast majority of Cubans lived in poverty. Cubans know this very well, and will fight it as hard as they can.

Even the World Bank has publicly stated Cuba has reached a level of proficiency far, FAR beyond anything anyone could have ever hoped to expect from a country struggling with such grotesque handicaps, like the U.S. embargo for over 40 years:

Learn from Cuba, Says World Bank
By Jim Lobe, IPS, 1 May 2001

WASHINGTON, Apr 30 (IPS) - World Bank President James Wolfensohn Monday extolled the Communist government of President Fidel Castro for doing "a great job" in providing for the social welfare of the Cuban people.

His remarks followed Sunday's publication of the Bank's 2001 edition of 'World Development Indicators' (WDI), which showed Cuba as topping virtually all other poor countries in health and education statistics.

It also showed that Havana has actually improved its performance in both areas despite the continuation of the US trade embargo against it and the end of Soviet aid and subsidies for the Caribbean island more than ten years ago.

"Cuba has done a great job on education and health," Wolfensohn told reporters at the conclusion of the annual spring meetings of the Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). "They have done a good job, and it does not embarrass me to admit it."

His remarks reflect a growing appreciation in the Bank for Cuba's social record, despite recognition that Havana's economic policies are virtually the antithesis of the "Washington Consensus", the neo-liberal orthodoxy that has dominated the Bank's policy advice and its controversial structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) for most of the last 20 years.

Some senior Bank officers, however, go so far as to suggest that other developing countries should take a very close look at Cuba's performance.

"It is in some sense almost an anti-model," according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank's Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank's dictum that economic growth is a precondition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not downright wrong. The Bank has insisted for the past decade that improving the lives of the poor was its core mission.
(snip/...)

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/185.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Also, highly regarded are Cuba's phenomenal medical research achievements, and Cuba's new approach to organic agriculture, which has been copied in other countries.

Cuba doesn't need the kind of help that wipes out over 40 years of hard work, achievement, and replaces it with the same fat, greedy, murderous, filthy, pompous pieces of crap the Cubans threw out in 1959, who moved to Miami to plot their nasty revenge on a population which hates them.

[boricua79]

23. you mean fat slobs like Joe Cubas, right?

god, how I hate seeing that man's face

<img src="">

[Judi Lynn]

26. You betcha! Or like the always lovely Miami Mafia queen, Ninoska Perez Castellon,

seen here embracing an "exile" assassin, Guillermo Novo. You may well remember seeing Ninoska Perez Castellon acting as the official spokesperson on national news shows from Miami, speaking for the Cuban "exile" community, during the time Elián Gonzalez was being held captive by his drunken great uncle, and his sociopathic family.



Biographical "notes" on Novo:

Guillermo Novo was born in Cuba. An opponent of Fidel Castro, Novo moved to the United States where he associated with figures such as Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada. While living in America Novo did a variety of jobs including doorman and used car salesman.

According to Marita Lorenz, Novo became involved with Operation 40, a CIA assassination squad. One member, Frank Sturgis claimed: "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents... We were concentrating strictly in Cuba at that particular time."

Lorenz pointed out that a few days before the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a group including Novo, Orlando Bosch, Frank Sturgis, Ignacio Novo and Pedro Diaz Lanz, travelled to Dallas. She also claimed that he was at a motel in Dallas when Kennedy's murder was planned.

In 1964 Novo bought a bazooka, a portable rocket launcher, for $35 in an Eighth Avenue shop and rebuilt it.” He planned to use it to kill Che Guevera, who was scheduled to address the UN General Assembly. He fired the shell from the East River waterfront in Long Island, facing the UN building across the river. According to the New York Times the shell “landed in the East River about 200 yards short of the 38-story United Nations Secretariat building, sending up a 15-foot geyser of water.”

FBI Agents Robert Scherrer and Carter Cornick claimed that Novo played a key role in the murder of Roland Masferrer in Miami on 31st October, 1975. Later he worked for General Augusto Pinochet of Chile. The following year Novo was suspected of being involved with Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Herman Ricardo and Freddy Lugo in the Cubana Airlines plane that exploded killing all 73 people aboard. This included all 24 young athletes on Cuba's gold-medal fencing team.

When Posada was arrested he was found with a map of Washington showing the daily route of to work of Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean Foreign Minister, who had been assassinated on 21st September, 1976. Novo and Alvin Ross were arrested and found guilty of conspiring to murder Letelier. In 1981 he obtained a retrial and was acquitted on a technicality. The jury had also acquitted Ignacio Novo, Guillermo’s younger brother, of aiding and abetting the conspiracy.

Saul Landau reported at the time: "As the courtroom emptied, the two Novo brothers, Ross, their families and supporters used the hallway to continue their buoyant celebration. Then Guillermo saw me staring at them - in dismay, since I could not understand how the jury could have come to such a verdict in light of the overwhelming evidence presented. Looking at me murderously, he hissed and then, as if continuing his conversation with Ignacio, said in Spanish “Now we can finish off the rest of these communist pigs.”

Novo continued to take part in terrorist attacks on Cuba. In 2000 Novo and three colleagues, Luis Posada, Gaspar Jiménez and Pedro Remón, were arrested and imprisoned after trying to assassinate Fidel Castro at the University of Panama.

In August, 2004, President Mireyas Moscoso of Panama, pardoned Novo, Posada, Jiménez and Remón for their role in attempting to assassinate Castro.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKnovoG.htm

[GirlinContempt]

25. Beautifully said

[roody]

28. I wonder if they have considered "working for

democracy" in the U.S.A?

[Bacchus39]

15. too bad, just a couple of more years and the revolution would undoubtedly be complete

n/t

[Mika]

16. When is a revolution complete?

As noted upthread, it took the USA about 180 years after the American revolution to legalize (enshrine in the constitution) the right to vote for all citizens. Cuba legalized (enshrined in their constitution) the right to vote for all citizens about 17 years after the Cuban revolution.

In a global context.. not too shabby.



-

[Judi Lynn]

17. It's still not complete here, Mika, as long as our right-wing continues to fix elections, and steal

votes!

Apparently as long as we've got these ignorant, slimy bastards around, they'll be trying to steal the elections they aren't capable of winning outright, since they only generally have sleazy, greedy, rigid, pompous, self-righteous, childish, hate-filled, racist fools to run as candidates.

As long as they steal elections, and plot to steal the next ones, as long as they hire phone banks to block the Democratic efforts to contact their shut-ins for transportation to the voting centers, the revolution is not complete here. The right-wing idiots are stealing the government, as always, like the true perverted, deceitful criminals they are.

As long as they keep trying to knock out huge sectors of the registered voters who are likely to vote Democratic, our Revolution hasn't been completed! They are stealing their votes. They are stealing the government.

[Mika]

18. Don't rely on US MSM media. Here is the actual statement by Mr Castro, in context.

Message from Fidel Castro to The Round Table Program
Havana, December 17, 2007.

Dear Randy:

I listened to the entire Round Table programme on Thursday the 13th, without missing one single second of it. The news about the Bali Conference, commented on by Rogelio Polanco, editor-in-chief of “Juventud Rebelde” newspaper, confirms the importance of the international agreements and the necessity of taking them very seriously.

On that small Indonesian island, a meeting was held that gathered many Heads of Government of the so-called Third World, who struggle for their development and demanded fair treatment, financial resources and technology transfers from the representatives of industrialized nations who were also present there.

The UN Secretary General, faced with the tenacious obstruction opposed by the United States before the 190 representatives who were meeting there, and after twelve days of negotiations, stated on Friday the 14th, Cuban time, when it was already Saturday in Bali, that the human species could disappear as a result of climate change. And then he went off to East Timor.

That declaration transformed the conference into a shouting match. On the tenth day of pointless persuasive efforts, the American representative Paula Drobransky said, after a deep sigh: "We join the consensus." It is obvious that the United States made moves to get around its isolated position, although this in no way changed the empire’s dismal intentions.

The grand show began: Canada and Japan adhered immediately to the US stand, opposing the rest of the countries that were demanding a serious commitment to curtail the emissions of gases that are causing the climate change. Everything had been foreseen ahead of time by the NATO allies and the powerful empire which, in one fell swoop of deceit, agreed to negotiate during 2008 in Hawaii, a U.S. territory, a new draft agreement to be submitted toand approved by the Copenhagen Conference in Denmark in 2009, that is intended to be a substitute to the Kyoto Protocol which is due to expire by 2012.

The theatrical solution reserved for Europe the role of saviour of the world. Brown, Merkel and other leaders of the European countries took the floor claiming for international gratitude. What an excellent Christmas and New Year’s present! None of the eulogists made any reference to the tens of millions of poor people who go on dying of diseases and hunger each year as a result of the complex realities of the present, just as if we were living in the best of all worlds.

The Group of 77, made up by 132 countries that are struggling to develop, had achieved consensus to demand from the industrialized countries a 20 to 40 per cent reduction of the gases that cause climatic change by the year 2020, a rate below the level attained in 1990; and a 60 to 70 per cent reduction by the year 2050, something which is technically possible. Furthermore, they were demanding the allocation of enough funds for the transfer of technology to the Third World.

We should not forget that those gases cause heat waves, desertification, the melting of glaciers and the increase of the sea level, as a result of which entire countries or large parts of them could be left under the water. The industrialized nations share with the United States the idea of turning foodstuffs into fuel for luxury cars and other wasteful practices of consumption societies.

All of this that I am stating was demonstrated on that very Saturday, December 15th, at 10:06 Washington time, when it was announced that the President of the United States had asked the Senate –and the Senate approved it- a 696 billion dollars military budget for the 2008 fiscal year, 189 billion of which was ear-marked for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A feeling of sound pride came over me as I remembered the dignified and serene way in which I responded to the hurtful proposals made to me in 1998 by the then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. I entertain no illusions.

I strongly believe that the answers to the current problems facing the Cuban society, which has, as an average, a twelfth grade education, almost a million university graduates, and a real possibility for all its citizens to become educated without their being in any way discriminated against, require more variables for each concrete problem than those contained in a chess game. We cannot ignore one single detail; this is not an easy path to take, if the intelligence of a human being in a revolutionary society is to prevail over instinct.

My elemental duty is not to cling to positions, much less to stand in the way of younger persons, but rather to contribute my own experience and ideas whose modest value comes from the exceptional era that I had the privilege of living in.

Like Niemeyer, I believe that one has to be consistent right up to the end.

(Signed) Fidel Castro Ruz

(Handwritten)
Please include this letter in the Round Table programme that is announced today to be about Bali.

F. C.

-

[Judi Lynn]

19. Thank you for posting this statement. He brought up something so useful, and eloquent, it should be

highlighted:

strongly believe that the answers to the current problems facing the Cuban society, which has, as an average, a twelfth grade education, almost a million university graduates, and a real possibility for all its citizens to become educated without their being in any way discriminated against, require more variables for each concrete problem than those contained in a chess game. We cannot ignore one single detail; this is not an easy path to take, if the intelligence of a human being in a revolutionary society is to prevail over instinct.
(snip)

That's completely OPPOSITE the way our own reactionary right-wing thinks, Mika, yet it needs to be studied and well remembered.

Intelligence over instinct. Amazing! Something you don't here in "these here parts!" Certainly not from Republicans, and some mutant others.

[redrevolt]

27. It will be a sad day when he passes

what will we do without the leadership and guidance of cuba? He's the closest world leader to the US who is willing to stand up to the bush administration. We can only who ever takes over is as willing to fight the power in Washington and be a voice of the people!