Castro’s era ends with only a hint of change in Cuba

Castro’s era ends with only a hint of change in Cuba

Nearly a half-century ago, a young revolutionary marched triumphantly out of the Sierra Maestra mountains into Havana, taking the first steps to assuming decades of one-man rule in Cuba.

This week, 81-year-old Fidel Castro — who handed over power voluntarily and temporarily to his younger brother, Raul, in July 2006 — announced that he would not seek and would not accept a new appointment as president when the Cuban National Assembly meets Sunday.

And so ends the rule of a ruthless tyrant, not with a bang but a whimper.

About the only things in Havana that lasted longer than Castro were some of the 1950s American-made cars that ingenious Cubans have been able to keep running for 200,000 or 300,000 miles.

Generations of other dictators have come and gone — none outlasted Castro. Totalitarian and Communist governments have evolved into market economies, loosening their grips on their people — almost everywhere but in Cuba.

Castro cut a dashing figure back in the ’50s, and there is no question that the dictator he replaced, Fulgencio Batista, was corrupt and ruthless.

But it did not take Castro long to adopt Bastista’s willingness to imprison or kill those who he came to view as threats to his power. Among those he had executed were some of his most devoted followers from his guerrilla days.

And at his side, just as ruthless, was his brother, Raul, younger by six years.

A little history

Within two years of Castro taking power, President Eisenhower announced that the United States was breaking diplomatic ties with Cuba. U.S. plans to remove Castro from office were being made far earlier than that.

One of those plans, which came to be known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, was inherited by President Kennedy and executed with disastrous results three months after he took office in 1961.

A year later, after Castro declared that he was adopting Communism as Cuba’s socioeconomic system, Kennedy instituted a trade embargo that survives today.

The lifting of that embargo makes economic, political and humanitarian sense on almost every level. Except one. And its name is Castro.

It matters little whether the first name is Fidel or Raul. The history of both is riven with virulent anti-Americanism and a fidelity to Communism that defies sense or explanation.

There are those who argue that the sanctions have helped Castro prop up his regime by giving him an all-purpose scapegoat for the numerous failings of his rule. But unless Raul Castro is willing to make the rhetoric and practical concessions that his brother would never make, little is likely to change.

The Bush administration was quick to announce that there would be no change in U.S. policy based on Raul Castro’s ascension to power. A State Department spokesman described Raul as “Fidel lite.”

Perhaps the next U.S. president and the Cuban president who succeeds 76-year-old Raul will be able to change 50 years of ugly history between the United States and Cuba.

We can only hope.