Posted on 08/16/2007 1:11:08 PM PDT by slickeroo
Castro's End Draws Near
Humberto Fontova
Thursday, Aug. 16, 2007
Fidel Castro's 81st birthday passed on Aug. 13 without an appearance by the dictator, not even a snapshot or salutation from him in the official press, and with little fanfare from the regime.
A small fireworks show on Havana's waterfront, El Malecon, was the highlight. "The Comandante will never appear again in public," said a Cuban student to Yolanda Martinez, Cuban correspondent for Mexico's newspaper, Reforma. "He has been an imposing figure, but his role at Cuba's head is over."
The regime's succession plans seem to be operating smoothly. This student's attitude is undoubtedly the one encouraged by the regime, calm, complacent, even jaded.
Fidel Castro's successors want no shocks, no expectations of genuine change, nothing to provoke any popular unrest — much less ignite an explosion.
In an interview last week Fidel Castro's own niece, Mariela, was dutifully doing her part in breaking the news gently, "the concern that we all had about losing our leader is now closer to us," she told Spanish news Agency EFE. "Fidel Castro retains great influence in Cuba through his moral authority, but the country is moving on with or without Fidel."
At the regime's Revolution Day celebrations on July 26 (again with Fidel a no-show) Raul Castro was his usual lackluster self, hinting at structural changes to improve Cubans "inadequate" salaries and inefficient food distribution. "Now we might get a little more bread and a little less circus," most Cubans probably concluded.
"Most Cubans have serenely accepted that Castro's fragile health will not take a rebound and that he will never return to an active life," this again from the Yolanda Martinez article in Mexico's Reforma, which goes into more intriguing detail. "Sources close to his family assure us his health is extremely fragile at the moment.
"In the past few weeks he (Castro) has been operated on more than once to stop what appeared likely to progress to fatal septicemia. These same sources say the leader has lost much weight, that he does not want to walk or receive visitors."
"Cuban correspondents" for news agencies don't just stumble upon their assignments. Most prepare carefully and nervously for their unofficial auditions. "Castro is one hell of a guy!" roared Ted Turner to a whooping, hollering Harvard audience in 1997. "You people would like him! Most people in Cuba like him!" Within weeks CNN was granted its coveted Havana Bureau, the first ever granted by Castro to a foreign network.
Reuters Havana bureau chief Anthony Boadle assures us that, "there are no credible reports of disappearances, extrajudicial killings and torture in Cuba since the early 1960s."
The AP's Vanessa Arrington reported that: " Safe streets, a rich and accessible cultural life, a leisurely lifestyle to enjoy with family and friends....For all its flaws, life in Castro's Cuba has its comforts, and unknown alternatives are not automatically more attractive."
Practicing what their professors preached at journalism school can be costly to Havana correspondents. This past March, for instance, Gary Marx of The Chicago Tribune, Stephen Gibbs of the BBC, and César González-Calero, of the Mexican newspaper El Universal, were all expelled from Cuba. The regime cited these reporters' "lack of objectivity," for the hasty explusions.
From all accounts Yolanda Martinez remains in Cuba. Her reporting has always been characterized by an obsequiousness to the regime much more pronounced than even those mentioned above.
She reportedly has sources high in the regime, probably within the Castro family. This is what makes her recent report on Castro's health interesting. Many speculate that, as in the case with Mariela's recent announcement, the regime is feeding out this information in order to further soften the imminent — though probably not imminently announced — blow.
Cuba, a country with more telephones and televisions in 1958 than half of Europe, has fewer Internet connections than Uganda. On Aug. 14 a Samizdat smuggled out of Cuba reported that these very, very few Cubans (mostly trusted journalists who work for the regime's official publications) would have their internet access further curtailed.
All of their internet searches and correspondence is now re-routed through one government-monitored Web portal.
Also of interest: On his recent tour of Latin America, Hugo Chavez, after insulting The U.S. as "Count Dracula!" and "a "genocidal killer!" along with Honduran Cardinal, Oscar Andres Rodriguez, as "an imperialist parrot and clown!" mentioned that Fidel Castro had advised against such insults.
It is not characteristic of Hugo Chavez to publicly disobey his father figure and mentor. Was Chavez boasting that he no longer heeded the advice of an irrelevant man? Was he mocking a near cadaver and exulting in his role as the new standard-bearer of Latin American revolution?
Also interesting: Che Guevara's 44 year old daughter, Celia, who has lived her entire life in Cuba, recently requested and was granted Argentine citizenship. Celia obviously took after her Cuban mother. Her father — heaven knows — was never known for his shrewdness.
Humberto Fontova is the author of "Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him."
You ever try to get the cork back into a Champagne bottle? I wanna see the body!
Ain’t nothing but a chicken wing.
To die as he lived. A walking puss-bucket.
He’ll have to go to Hollywood cause hell won’t have him!
At that bums death, time to dust off the Monroe Doctrine with a in our backyard invasion.
Boy that article took an abrupt turn in the middle.
Ditto that! I'm not making a special trip to the liquor store for rum unless it's *really* time to celebrate Free Cuba!
I want it certified.
Is that a dildo in Castro’s hand?
“You ever try to get the cork back into a Champagne bottle?”
An excellent example of entropy.
This is going to be like Arafat’s death isn’t it.
He’s dead.
No he’s not.
He’s dead.
No he’s not.
Not to mention a good excuse to drink it all.
Are you saying that "Castro's end is rear"?
Shall we start a POOL like ARAFAT’s ?..................I’m picking 9/11/07...........
Which Democrats will attend the funeral.
Jessie Jackson (certain)
Nancy Pelosi (fellow communist probable)
Hillary Clinton? (no because she needs to pretend to be man)
Jimmy Carter (yes because he needs to pretend to be a woman)
Harry Reid (perhaps because he has that whole funeral home chic going on)
Ted Kennedy (where’s the worlds best prostitutes castro mentioned?)
Bill Clinton (where the worlds best prostitutes actually went)
James Baker (have you ever considerd letting Saudi Arabia build a mosque in havana?)
Which is why they've been hiding the fact that he's been as dead as Darwin since last summer.
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