Castro brothers' power struggle may doom Obama's overtures

Posted on Thursday, 04.23.09
OPPENHEIMER REPORT
Castro brothers' power struggle may doom Obama's overtures
BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com

Fidel Castro's latest comments about last weekend's 34-country Summit of
the Americas seem to support a growing theory among U.S. and Latin
American leaders -- that there is a split between Cuban leader Raúl
Castro and his nominally retired brother Fidel.

Speculation of a non-declared power struggle at the top of the Cuban
regime may have helped to bolster President Barack Obama's hopes at the
summit in Trinidad about ''a new beginning'' in U.S.-Cuba ties.

At his news conference at the end of the summit on Sunday, Obama praised
Raúl's remarks in Venezuela last week, in which the Cuban leader had
stated that Cuba is willing to talk with the United States about
''everything,'' including human rights and political prisoners.

Obama said Raúl's remarks were ''a sign of progress.'' Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton welcomed his ''overture.'' And U.S. Deputy
National Security Advisor Denis McDonough told me that Raúl's admission
that Cuba may have made mistakes in the past ``strikes me as a degree of
candor that we haven't seen heretofore.''

But this week, Fidel Castro poured buckets of cold water on U.S. and
Latin American leaders' speculation that we may be at the threshold of a
new chapter in U.S.-Cuban relations. The former Cuban leader, who
retired in 2006 but maintains loyalists in key positions of power,
appeared to contradict his younger brother in written ''reflections''
published by Cuba's official press this week.

On Tuesday, Fidel wrote that Obama had ''misinterpreted'' Raúl's remarks
about Cuba's willingness to discuss human rights issues. According to
Fidel, Raúl meant to say that Cuba would free political prisoners if the
United States frees five Cubans convicted in the U.S. of spying for Cuba.

On Monday, in an editorial entitled ''Crazy Dreams,'' Fidel mocked last
weekend's calls from some summit leaders for a readmission of Cuba into
the Organization of American States, adding that Cuba does not want to
be part of the OAS.

At the summit, Latin American leaders told me they believe that Raúl
wants to open Cuba's economy, following the Vietnamese model. Fidel, on
the other hand, fears that such a path would doom his revolution, they say.

There are concrete signs of Raúl's desire to seek better ties with
Washington, Latin American officials said.

Days before the summit, Raúl's government dispatched senior diplomats to
Brazil and Argentina to urge their presidents not to risk a rift with
the Obama administration at the summit over the Cuba issue. The Cuban
emissaries' message was: ask Obama to lift the U.S. sanctions on Cuba,
but don't attack the U.S. president to the point where it could create a
backlash in the United States and spoil the momentum for a normalization
of ties, they said.

Earlier, Brazil's daily Folha de Sao Paulo's prominent columnist Clovis
Rossi suggested in an article that Raúl is telling foreign dignitaries
that he is his own man. According to the April 12 column, Raúl told
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet during her recent visit to Cuba,
``You have to understand that there are two very different Castros here.''

Are the two Castros fighting among themselves, I asked Norberto Fuentes,
author of The Autobiography of Fidel Castro, who was close to the Castro
brothers before he went into exile in 1994.

''They fight all the time, but at the end of the day they rule
together,'' Fuentes said. ``And right now, Fidel's health has improved,
and he's running the show.''

According to Fuentes, Fidel has sabotaged every U.S. effort to improve
ties with Cuba over the past 50 years and he needs confrontation with
Washington to justify his regime's absolute hold on power.

My opinion: Obama deserves credit for offering a carrot to Raúl Castro,
and waiting to see whether the Cuban leader bites.

But I'm not too optimistic -- unless Fidel's health takes a turn for the
worse -- that there will be a positive response from Cuba. There are two
different Castros on the island, but the one in charge is the one we've
seen lately looking at the camera with wide eyes and wearing the Adidas
tracksuit. And he's not likely to change course this late in the game.

Castro brothers' power struggle may doom Obama's overtures - Columnists
- MiamiHerald.com (1 May 2009)

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/1013173.html