BBC Saturday, 23 June, 2001, 16:51 GMT 17:51 UK
Castro collapses during
speech
Castro has not been looking well recently
Cuban President Fidel Castro appeared to
collapse on stage on Saturday during a
televised speech to thousands of supporters.
Correspondents say Mr
Castro - now
74-years-old - seemed
to lose strength and
become listless after
two hours of speaking
in bright sunshine.
State television cameras quickly changed their
focus away from the president to the crowd,
as bodyguards helped Mr Castro away.
He returned several minutes later, assuring the
audience that he was fine.
Mr Castro has a reputation for hard work.
But the BBC Havana correspondent says that
during several recent speeches Mr Castro has
looked weak, shuffling his papers, losing his
thread and mumbling.
No sleep
"Let me rest, sleep a few hours," the Cuban
leader - who is famous for his marathon
speeches - told the crowd.
"Last night, I did not sleep at all. I am fine. We
will see you tonight," he said, in a promise to
finish the speech.
As Mr Castro collapsed, Foreign Minister Felipe
Perez Roque took the microphone, trying to
reassure the audience in the town of Cotorro
on the outskirts of the capital Havana.
"Calmness and courage... Companero Fidel
obviously has had in the middle of the heat... a
momentary fall."
-- Anonymous, June 23, 2001
Published Monday, September 1, 1997, in the Miami Herald
NEWS ANALYSIS
By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer
If Fidel Castro had indeed died last week as rumored, who would have
succeeded the man who has
single-handedly governed Cuba for more than half of his 71 years?
Brother Raul Castro? Old-guard hard-liners or young reformers? How
about the military officers known as
``Poles'' for their admiration of the Polish army's coup in 1980?
Cuban officials are loath to comment publicly on a succession, aware
that Castro's health is a state secret and
that speculating on a substitute could mean their swift banishment to
the provinces.
Yet recent U.S. and European visitors to the island report that Cubans
are increasingly talking about Castro's
possible replacement in private and even expressing opinions on who
they might favor.
``Even people in the provinces are talking more openly about who might
follow Fidel, and most shocking of
all, they are taking sides,'' said one U.S. visitor with senior
contacts in the Cuban government.
One U.S. official ruefully acknowledged that Washington was caught
``woefully unprepared'' when the rumor
of Castro's death swept Miami and Havana on Wednesday. ``We know
nothing about what might happen,''
he said.
But experienced Cuba watchers say an educated forecast must put the
military and security forces, sometimes
known on the island as ``The Uniformed Party,'' at the heart of any
post-Castro government.
Castro's younger brother
Defense Minister Raul Castro is sometimes considered the odds-on
favorite to succeed his brother Fidel,
although at 66 he is only five years younger and is said to suffer
from prostate, colon and kidney ailments.
``Raul is not a solution. He's not much younger than Fidel and may not
even outlive him,'' said Marifeli
Perez-Stable, a Cuban-American professor at the State University of
New York who has studied the island's
military.
But Raul has forged one of the most professional military machines in
the world, experienced in orderly
changes of command and chock-full of astute officers who would try
mightily to preserve their institution and
livelihood in any post-Castro system.
``The Communist Party may split or disappear and Cuba may have several
political parties after Castro, but it
will certainly have only one army, this one,'' said Perez-Stable.
The `Poles'
Sprinkled among the top officer ranks are the ``Poles,'' who studied
and admire the ideas of Gen. Wojciech
Jaruzelski, said Lissette Bustamante, a Cuban journalist with access
to top officers until she defected in 1992.
Jaruzelski's coup in 1980 averted a Soviet invasion of Poland to crush
the Solidarity movement -- a key point
for Cuban officers worried about a U.S. military intervention in
Castro's wake -- and brought stability to the
country until 1990, when Jaruzelski gave way to an elected civilian,
Lech Walesa.
``The Poles believe the military should avert any sort of popular
explosion that could lead to an American
intervention, stabilize the situation and then hand over the mess to
the politicians,'' Bustamante said.
Speculation about Castro's succession has risen in some quarters with
the approach of a Communist Party
Congress Oct. 8-10, to elect a new Central Committee whose composition
might give some hints on Cuba's
future.
But the Central Committee elected at the last Congress in 1991 had
little say on Cuba's swing toward
economic reforms in 1993 and the retrenchment since then, both
personally orchestrated by Castro.
Cuban exiles thought things would change on the island after communism
began to collapse in Eastern Europe
in 1989, depriving Castro of economic and military support.
``There was euphoria when the Berlin Wall fell, and people were saying
`Next Year in Havana.' But now they
realize there will be no real changes until Castro is gone,'' said
Stewart Lippe, a former analyst for the U.S.
government's Radio Marti broadcasts to Cuba.
Cuba experts instead are watching a recent series of intriguing
personnel moves and apparent alliances, and
the growth of discreet factions within the hierarchy, that may
foretell some of Havana's future.
Two apparent comebacks
Two old-guard revolutionaries who fought alongside Fidel Castro in the
Sierra Maestra but seemed to fall out
of favor in the late 1980s and early 1990s appear to have made
comebacks.
Manuel Pineiro, a top intelligence official who slipped out of the
public eye after he was dismissed in 1992,
reputedly on orders from Raul Castro, has been seen at several
functions since April. He is considered a
fidelista, loyal to the president rather than any ideology.
And Juan Almeida, author and songwriter pushed into the shadows after
a rumored clash with Fidel over the
1989 execution of Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa on treason and drug charges, is
now in uniform and a member of
Raul's high command.
Also increasingly seen as being aligned with Raul is Eusebio Leal, a
historian and moderate who heads the
highly profitable corporation in charge of renovations and most
businesses in Old Havana.
Powerful figures
Cuba watchers say two other powerful figures could ultimately play
lead roles in a post-Castro period: Vice
President and economic czar Carlos Lage, 46, and National Assembly
President Ricardo Alarcon, 60.
Lage, trained as a physician, has worked near-miracles in pushing
company and factory administrators to
increase productivity and keep the economy from collapsing without
surrendering socialism.
Surrounding Lage is a coterie of relatively younger Cubans, most
trained in the sciences, many with some
foreign courses under their belts and a history of activism in the
Union of Communist Youths.
And Alarcon, a former foreign minister with a reputation as a master
negotiator, has tried to give the assembly
at least the semblance of democratic debate on legislation even though
its members are elected unopposed.
A post-Castro alliance?
Cuba watchers say a post-Castro period is likely to see an alliance of
sorts between top figures in the military,
the economy and the legislature -- the kind of ``collective
leadership'' that followed the deaths of Joseph Stalin
in the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong in China.
It would be an alliance dedicated to survival, to avoiding a sudden
collapse or bloody violence and shoring up
Cuba's stability until a peaceful transfer to the next government can
be guaranteed.
But no one should expect to see any rifts being aired in public until
Castro leaves power, cautioned one
Cuban-American businessman who travels often to the island and has
good contacts among several factions.
``You have the Raulistas, Guevaristas, Poles, reformers, Jurassics,
the orthodox and the God-knows who,''
the businessman said. ``But as long as Fidel is alive, they are all
fidelistas.''
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald
-- Anonymous, June 23, 2001