Castro steps down after half a century
Pastor Dale Morgan
Castro steps down after half a century*
Reuters
HAVANA - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro stepped down on Tuesday 49
years after taking power in an armed revolution, closing the book on a
Cold War career that made him an icon to leftists and a tyrant to his foes.
Castro, 81, who has not appeared in public since undergoing stomach
surgery almost 19 months ago, said he would not seek a new term as
president or as leader of Cuba's armed forces when the National Assembly
meets on Sunday.
His retirement raised expectations for change on the communist island --
and calls for democracy by Castro's arch-enemy, the United States -- but
Cuba experts said limited economic reforms were more likely than swift
political transformation.
"I will not aspire to or accept -- I repeat not aspire to or accept --
the positions of president of the Council of State and
commander-in-chief," Castro said in a statement published in the
Communist Party's Granma newspaper.
U.S. President George W. Bush, who has tightened the decades-old
economic embargo against Castro's government, said his retirement should
begin a democratic transition.
"Eventually this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections.
And I mean free and I mean fair," Bush said in Rwanda during a tour of
Africa.
Cuba's National Assembly, a rubber-stamp legislature, is expected to
nominate Castro's brother and designated successor Raul Castro, 76, as
president. The defence minister has been running the country since
emergency surgery forced his older brother to delegate power on July 31,
2006.
Raul Castro has promoted more open debate about the state-run economy's
failings but is unlikely to make bold political changes to the one-party
state. Fidel Castro will remain influential as first secretary of the
ruling Communist Party.
"This is a crucial moment. Cuba wants change, the people want change,"
said Oswaldo Paya, Cuba's best-known dissident.
Frank Mora, a political scientist at the National War College in
Washington, said Castro's successors will likely be forced to head down
paths he would not approve. "He will not go into some sunset nor will he
become that crazy uncle in the attic, but they are pushing him up those
stairs," Mora said.
IN CUBA, SOME SADNESS, NO SURPRISE
Residents on the quiet streets of Havana reacted without surprise, some
with sadness, to Castro's retirement, first announced on Granma's Web
site in the middle of the night.
Castro has looked frail in his few videotaped appearances in the months
since the first news that he was too weak to rule.
"The Revolution will continue. Fidel resigned in time. It is a wise
decision. He let Cubans get used to his absence," said Lazaro, a
building administrator sweeping a lobby in slippers.
In Miami, the heartland of exiled opposition to the Castro brothers,
reaction was subdued, in contrast to celebrations after the 2006
announcement of his illness.
"It's very good that Fidel resigns. But if Fidel dies, it's better,"
said Juan Acosta, who left Cuba in 1980, as he stopped to buy a
newspaper in Miami's Little Havana neighbourhood.
"This is a succession from one tyrant to another. We shouldn't kid
ourselves, while Fidel is alive, he's running the show," Cuban-born U.S.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, said in an interview with Reuters.
The Democrats vying to represent their party in the November U.S.
election, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, suggested they might
lift the trade embargo if Cuba pursued democratic reforms. Republican
front-runner John McCain said the United States must keep up the pressure.
European governments said Castro's retirement could open the door to
democratic change.
CHARISMATIC GUERRILLA
The charismatic Castro led the bearded and cigar-chomping guerrillas who
overthrew U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. He then turned
Cuba into a communist state on Washington's doorstep and became the
world's longest-serving head of state, barring monarchs.
"Fidel will always be at the vanguard, people like Fidel never retire,"
said Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez, a personal friend of
Castro whose country has replaced the Soviet Union as Cuba's main
benefactor.
Castro survived a CIA-backed invasion by Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs
in 1961, as well as assassination attempts, the U.S. embargo, and an
economic crisis in the 1990s after the collapse of Soviet bloc communism.
He also played a role in taking the world to the brink of nuclear war in
1962 when he let Moscow put ballistic missiles in Cuba, leading to a
13-day stand-off between U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet
Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
Famous for long speeches delivered in green military fatigues, Castro is
admired in the developing world for standing up to the United States but
considered by opponents a dictator who suppressed freedom and wrecked
Cuba's economy.
His retirement reminded investors of future windfalls on the biggest
island in the Caribbean after the embargo ends, from more tourism to
potentially ballooning nickel and cigar exports.
Stock in Canada's Sherritt International, the largest foreign investor
in Cuba with nickel mining and oil and gas operations, rose as much as 6
percent to C$15.57 on Tuesday.
Cuba's leadership has showed no sign of collapse.
"Fortunately, our Revolution can still count on cadres from the old
guard and others who were very young in the early stages of the
process," Castro said in Tuesday's statement. He will continue to write
his newspaper columns.
"This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier
in the battle of ideas ... It will be just another weapon you can count
on. Perhaps my voice will be heard."
(Additional reporting by Rosa Tania Valdes in Havana, Deborah Charles in
Rwanda, Andy Sullivan, Sue Pleming and Adriana Garcia in Washington,
Daniel Trotta in New York; Frank Jack Daniel in Caracas and Michael
Christie, Jim Loney and Tom Brown in Miami; Editing by Alan Elsner)