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Cuba's Next Generation of Leadership

NY.Transfer.News

8/22/2006 9:47:00 PM

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Cuba's Next Generation of Leadership

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

[Marc Frank consults the usual list of experts (outside Cuba) for some
predictions on future Cuban leaders, coming away with precious little
information, which tells you how much the expatriates, spooks and
business people know: not very damned much. -NY Transfer]

Financial Times - Aug 21, 2006
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/6b992462-313e-11db-b953-0000779...


Cuban `bright stars' hope to shine after Castro

By Marc Frank

Cuba may have pulled off the temporary transfer of power from an ailing
Fidel Castro to his ageing brother Raúl, but the question remains: what
happens when the famous brothers and the few remaining "historicos" around
them no longer influence events on the Caribbean island?

Experts tend to agree that, with defence minister Raúl Castro in charge, an
already influential military will play an even more decisive role in
selecting future leaders, though the Castro brothers insist the Communist
party, with a minority of military in its leadership, will make the final
decisions as called for by the constitution.
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Cubans tend to agree, as they do not differentiate so much between the
military, party and government, as between generations; perhaps because the
Castro brothers have always worn military uniforms, provincial party
leaders appear in military garb when hurricanes strike and many citizens
are trained to fire weapons.

"It is only logical that [the younger generations] will think differently
from [Fidel and Raúl] and there will certainly be changes," one Havana
party member said, asking her name not be used.

Among those considered to be top contenders for leadership posts are:
Ricardo Alarcón, 69, parliament's president and Mr Castro's point-man for
US relations; Carlos Lage, 54, who as head of the executive committee of
the council of ministers is a virtual prime minister, and Felipe Pérez
Roque, 41, foreign minister and a talented orator.

"Too often we think of the troika [Alarcón, Lage, Pérez Roque] as Plan A,"
says Canadian historian and Cuba expert John Kirk.

"In fact there is also a clearly constituted Plan B made up of bright stars
in the party, the government and military who have been groomed to
participate actively in the succession." He adds that the majority of
members of a 12-member Communist party secretariat created on July 4 were
in their 40s and 50s, and Mr Alarcón, Mr Lage and Mr Pérez Roque were not
on it.

Influence is also exercised by generals; the 25 members of the political
bureau, who would choose a new temporary party leader if Raúl was to become
incapacitated; the 30-member council of state, which would choose a new
temporary president under the same circumstances; and the party and
government leadership at the provincial level.

"New generations are already in control of much of the existing power
structure and its institutions," says Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban
intelligence officer who defected in the early 1990s.

In a recent paper Mr Amuchastegui pointed out that the military and
security forces were dominated by men between 40 and 60 years of age. "At
the provincial level the average age of party first secretaries is between
46 and 53," he wrote, adding many political bureau members were in the same
age range.

The calm that has followed Castro's handing of power to his brother, after
undergoing major surgery for intestinal bleeding on July 31, has convinced
many observers that Cubans do not want violent or tumultuous change.

"Many people think that because so many Cubans want change, that they want
a revolution that turns everything upside down. In Cuba obviously that's
not the case," says Cuba expert Phil Peters, vice-president of the
Lexington Institute policy group in Virginia.

"This is their government, they don't want it overthrown.

"And it has always seemed to me that Cubans who want change, even deep
change, want their current government to be the departure point," he said.

Yet many Cubans were surprised and even proud there was no unrest in the
country, and the government not only mobilised the military to defend the
country's borders but also internal security forces to put down potential
domestic trouble.

"I do think it's a toss-up when both Castros are gone and a number of
fissures could emerge to break the regime and force change from below,"
Frank Mora, a national security and Cuba expert at the National War College
in Washington, said.

Brian Latell, an ex-CIA analyst who watched Cuba for decades and is the
author of After Fidel, a recent book on the Castros, agreed.

"The Castro brothers have never anointed, or permitted, the emergence of a
`third man'.

"It has been one of the secrets of their success at holding on to power
virtually unopposed on the island all these years," Mr Latell said.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

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