Posted on 01/16/2004 2:56:02 PM PST by Shermy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States would quickly deploy aid to Cuba after the death of President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) to prevent mass migration into the cities or toward Florida, U.S. officials said on Friday.
Roger Noriega, the State Department's top diplomat for Latin America, who is coordinating a task force on a post-Castro Cuba, said Washington views preparations as an urgent matter.
"Castro will not live forever and there will be democratic change and a democratic government in Cuba," Noriega said on Friday at a University of Miami seminar on aid for Cuba. "The stakes are very high for us."
Concerns about Castro's health resurfaced on Wednesday when Bogota Mayor Luis Garzon said the 77-year-old Cuban leader looked "very ill" and had trouble speaking.
President Bush announced the creation of the post-Castro commission in October, vowing to toughen a four-decade-old U.S. trade embargo. The group is to present recommendations to Bush on May 1.
Castro, who has been in power since 1959, last month called the committee a "group of idiots" and said Cuba's one-party communist state would survive his death.
Noriega said the report will have recommendations on democracy and the rule of law, the creation of core institutions of free enterprise, improving infrastructure, providing health, and improving housing and urban services.
Some 100 officials culled from the National Security Council, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, and the departments of State, Housing, Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security began work on the report on Dec. 5.
Washington wants to quickly deploy aid to the Cuban countryside to avoid a massive migration into urban centers or across the Florida Straits to U.S. soil. U.S. officials are urging Cuban-American charities to register with USAID to make them eligible for federal funding.
One recommendation is that relief work be carried out through local Cuban officials to strengthen a transition government that can take credit for improvements. Another proposal calls for Cuba's public schools to be kept open.
USAID plans $7 million in aid for Cuba this year, on top of the $28 million the United States has spent on non-governmental organizations it says are working to promote human rights, a free flow of information and a peaceful transition in Cuba.
I thought the US Post Office was going to do some wierd Cuban Castro thing.
I'm gonna need reading glasses.
Castro has built up such a cult of personality that it will be impossible to sustain that form of government once he's gone. Especially with an American government pushing to change the place once he dies. (This is also why I'm praying God will remove him while GWB (or another GOP President) is in office.)
It will change overnight once he dies. The place won't be perfect and will take years to rebuild, but it will change drastically for the better once he is gone. It will be similar to Russia where once Gorbachev had been weakened so greatly, there was really no core to the Soviet-style government. Some hardliners tried to rally one, but were overwhelmingly outnumbered by the citizens of the country. Cuba will be the same.
Castro's brother, Raul, is head of the armed forces, and the #2 political power in the country. By all accounts, he's more of a communist than Fidel. He might make a couple of token reforms in order to consolidate power, but it would take a massive uprising to prevent him from continuing in his brother's footsteps.
With little to no access to firearms, and a ruthless regime determined to hang onto power, it wouldn't be a fair fight.
True reform may have to wait until after Raul dies.
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