Cuba's Castro: I quit as party chief 5 years ago
By PAUL HAVEN
Associated Press
HAVANA -- Fidel Castro said Tuesday he resigned five years ago from all
his official positions, including head of Cuba's Communist Party, a
pre-eminent job in the island's political pantheon that he was thought
to still hold.
It was the first time the 84-year-old revolutionary icon has said he no
longer heads the Communist Party, which he has led since its creation in
1965. The Communist Party website still lists him as first secretary,
with his brother President Raul Castro listed as second secretary.
The declaration raised questions about just how much power Fidel Castro
has been wielding behind the scenes - with or without a formal post -
and to what extent Raul Castro has had true freedom to make his own
decisions.
Castro wrote in an opinion piece that when he got sick in 2006, "I
resigned without hesitation from my state and political positions,
including first secretary of the party ... and I never tried to exercise
those roles again."
He said that even when his health began to improve, he stayed out of
state and party affairs "even though everyone, affectionately, continued
to refer to me by the same titles."
Castro's comments come just weeks ahead of a crucial Communist Party
Congress, in which it was widely expected that a new party leader would
be picked - presumably his brother. The Congress also is tasked with
endorsing a series of major economic changes Raul Castro has enacted
since taking over the presidency, including opening the island up to
limited private enterprise.
"I think it's significant, because if nothing else it's Fidel Castro
sending a clear message that his brother is in charge of the country,"
said Tomas Bilbao, executive director of the Washington-based nonprofit
Cuba Study Group, which supports increasing economic and academic
exchanges with the island. "He's setting the ground ahead of the party
congress for there to be a smooth transition."
The elder Castro stepped down in 2006 due to a serious illness that
almost killed him. In an official proclamation released on July 31,
2006, Fidel Castro provisionally delegated most of his official duties
to his brother - including the presidency and head of the party.
In February 2008 he announced he was officially stepping down as
president, and Raul Castro was formally picked to succeed him by the
country's parliament a few days later. But no reference was made to
Fidel leaving his party post, and Cuban officials and ordinary people
have referred to him as the party leader ever since.
While the government historically has focused on the day-to-day running
of the country, the party is tasked with guiding the Cuban people on
their path to communism. In practice, no major policy can be passed
without the party first agreeing.
The opinion piece, which was published on the state-run Cubadebate
website overnight and in newspapers Tuesday morning, caught many people
by surprise.
"It's incredible. Nobody can believe it," said Magaly Delgado, a
72-year-old Havana retiree who was clutching a copy of Granma, the
Communist Party daily. "I always thought he was still in charge. ... He
never said he had resigned."
The Cuban government had no immediate comment on the bizarre revelation,
which raises fundamental questions about assumptions that have been made
about how Cuba has been led since Raul Castro took over.
Many were slow to acknowledge at first that Raul Castro held any power
at all and doubted that the quiet and unassuming younger brother could
step out from the shadow of his larger-than-life older sibling. In those
initial days, Raul said he would make decisions in consultation with
Fidel, though he has not repeated that in recent years.
Doubters - including many in the Cuban-American exile community -
pointed to Fidel's leadership of the party as evidence the arrangement
was just for show, despite the fact the elder Castro has since revealed
that his 2006 illness put him on the brink of death.
If Fidel's statement Tuesday is taken at face value, it would suggest
that his brother has been flying solo since he took over in 2006, at
least officially.
Castro's traditional foes in the exile community reacted with bewilderment.
"It shows the absolute lack of transparency because for the last five
years everyone in Cuba, everyone in the world, thought he was the head
of the Communist Party, so it shows how absolutely closed and
totalitarian and personal that dictatorship is," said Mauricio
Claver-Carone, director of the Washington-based U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC.
"At the end of the day, only he knew he wasn't in power."
Despite the drama of the announcement, it is not clear what importance
it has on an island ruled by the force of Fidel Castro's personality for
many decades.
In the opinion piece, Fidel indicates that, with or without formal
titles, he will always be an intellectual force in the revolution, a
refrain he has uttered several times in recent years.
"I remain and will remain as I have promised: a soldier of ideas, as
long as I can think and breathe," he writes.
While nobody was expecting Fidel Castro's announcement to come the way
it did - as a fait accompli thrown into a long opinion piece that
otherwise focuses on criticism of President Barack Obama - speculation
has been rampant that he would soon step down.
If the 79-year-old Raul Castro moves up to the top spot, it will give
the Cuban leaders a chance to pick someone without their famous last
name to hold the No. 2 position, potentially tapping a would-be
successor after 52 years of uninterrupted rule since they ousted
Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
In interviews and public appearances in recent months, Fidel Castro has
intimated that he no longer has much say in party business. When he met
with Cuban students in November, one asked for his thoughts on the
upcoming Congress.
Castro politely brushed the question aside, telling the students he was
not meeting with them in his capacity as party chief.
By way of explanation, he added: "I got sick and I did what I had to do:
delegate my duties. I cannot do something if I am not in a condition to
dedicate all my time to it."
Associated Press writers Laura Wides in Miami, Florida, and Anne-Marie
Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/22/v-fullstory/2127746/cubas-castro-i-quit-as-party-chief.html
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