Ailing Castro gives up the Cuban presidency

HAVANA (AFP) — Ailing revolutionary icon Fidel Castro permanently gave up the Cuban presidency on Tuesday, ending five decades of ironclad rule of the island marked by his one-man defiance of the United States.

Eighteen months after he was stricken with illness, the 81-year-old Castro said in a message published by the official media that he would not accept the presidency again.

"I neither will aspire to nor will I accept -- I repeat -- I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief," Castro wrote almost 19 months after a severe illness caused him to hand power temporarily to his brother Raul.

Raul Castro said a month ago that the National Assembly would elect Cuba's next president on February 24, amid speculation that his brother -- for the first time in five decades -- might not be its choice.

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Cuba's National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon had said that while his recovery is ongoing, it was up to Fidel Castro to decide whether he will stay on as president, if reelected in February.

Some speculate Raul Castro might become president on a permanent basis or that another top regime official might move up the ladder, technically ending Fidel Castro's official dominance of the regime. Few, however, doubt Fidel would remain influential in the latter case.

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The Cuban president, who overthrew Fulgencio Batista and took power in 1959, had said he would never retire from politics, and though illness forced him into seclusion in the final months of his presidency.

Famed for his rumpled olive fatigues, straggly beard and the cigars he reluctantly gave up for his health, Castro kept a tight clamp on dissent at home while defining himself abroad with his defiance of Washington.

A great survivor and a firebrand, if windy orator, Castro dodged all his enemies could throw at him in nearly half a century in power, including assassination plots, a US-backed invasion bid, and a punishing US trade embargo.

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ms
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Shame...another 2 years and he would've spanned 7 decades.

MS - are you up for the job?

I don't think they can afford me, frankly.

mosheshmeal
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Are they celebrating with fireworks in Miami?

Jimmy Carter is available. He speaks Spanish, has the same values as Castro, has a similar last name, and has experience as a ruler of a nation in economic turmoil. I think he'd be perfect for the job.

what?

please, please tell me it's meant as irony.

Yeah! How dare you insult Castro like that!

Castro trivia: when he was a teenager he wrote to President Roosevelt asking him for $10. They think it might have been a school project (writing a letter for English class).

Castro trivia: Representatives of the Pittsburgh Pirates during a visit to Havana scouted Castro as a pitching prospect and cabled home: “The kid Castro has some command of breaking pitches (stop) Has nothing on the fast ball (stop) Double AA talent at best (stop).”

5 decades

1. 50's
2. 60's
3. 70's
4. 80's
5. 90's
6. 0's
7. 10's

i read that he became the president on january 1, 1959 - that's hardly a decade of '50s. and '10s didn't even start. it's close to 5 decades. he is 81 now, how old would 2 years short of 7 decades make him when he became a president - 13?

I wrote spanning 7 decades. Spanning just means he was in power in each of those decades. It doesn't mean 70 years it could be just 52.

sorry, my bad

Castro was effective and has the respect of the military.

True, true.

So was Hitler.

I'm not comparing them.

mosheshmeal
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Will this spell the end of cheap trips for Canadians and Europeans to Cuba (i.e. once Americans start traveling there en masse)? Cuba was probaby the best really cheap vacation I've ever had.

U.S. Won't Lift Cuba Embargo 'Anytime Soon'

mosheshmeal
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Yeah, that makes sense since his brother is still in charge, but still, I figure the end of the embargo is not too far off.

Castro sets a golden standard for a successful benevolent ruler in a quasi-autocratic state. He outlived seven generations of a regime that was hell bent on getting him out of the office and preferable dead that was some 90 miles away. He persisted through the double betrayal of Russians and an embargo imposed by a hostile superpower that controlled virtually all marine routes of access. He turned Cuba from being a third world gangster haven with a bleak future similar to Dominica, Haiti or Panama and a some of the sharpest wealth inequalities in the region into a country where everyone has a job, a roof and a first class education (97% literacy rate, highest in the entire Western Hemisphere excluding Canada; some of the lowest infant mortality in the world and a number of other crucial statistics); country which is a world leader in biotechnology and other medicinal frontiers and where there is no class of parasites reaping billions by shuffling paper back and forth, evicting desolate families and institutionalized usurists.

And surprisingly enough, despite what you may have heard on Fox, Cuba has a much better "human rights" record then most of its neighbors. For one, it's rate of prisoners per capita is by a magnitude lower then the one in the great U. S. of A.

Fidel's peaceful retirement is a symbol of quite triumph of many, but not all, ideas pioneered by Jews of a hundred years ago.

True, but why have so many people fled the country? Did they find him to be benevolent and find Cuba's benefits to be better than those offered by the U.S.?


During the Mariel Boatlift, Castro emptied his prisons of violent criminals and sent them all to Miami.

I think you partially answer the question here :



Besides, don't forget that the US has a marvelous propaganda machine called Hollywood, glamoring the lifestyle of the rich and the famous and who doesn't want an opportunity to drive a Ferrari ? That opportunity isn't there in Havana. Many people prefer to hang their failures on whatever regime is in charge - Castro, Bush or Clinton - and will go to great lengths to justify themselves. Castro said that anyone who wants to leave, can - and US was willing to accept; if it was any other country, results would have been similar. There never is a shortage of people wanting better lives.

File photo dated 08 January 1959 of Fidel Castro © as he celebrates the victory of Cuban Revolutionary Movement over Fulgencio Batista's regime. Cuban President, Fidel Castro, announced on 19 February 2008 he renounced his presidency and military leadership of Cuba. European Commission has reiterated on Tuesday its offer of 'striking up a constructive political dialogue which is aimed at the Cuba's democratization

mosheshmeal
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