History will never absolve Castro *

Fidel Castro has decided to die as former president. He can no longer bear his infirmities. After half a century of being gloriously dressed in olive drab, disguised as a heroic guerrilla, it is very difficult to rule a country in a jogging suit, sitting on a rocking chair in a hospital.

The balance of these 50 years is horrendous. There is no human way that history will absolve him. The obstacles are two million exiles, thousands of political prisoners — of whom almost 300 are still behind bars— thousands of executions, an absolute absence of freedoms, broken families and the worst material failures in the history of Latin American dictatorships. Almost all those long tyrannies —Stroessner in Paraguay, Somoza in Nicaragua, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic— were corrupt and cruelly tormented societies, but they left behind countries that were richer and better equipped than those they began with.

In Cuba, things have been different. As a consequence of the clumsy governance of Fidel Castro, a pathologically capricious man, along with the harebrained communist system imposed on the country responsible for the island's astounding unproductivity, the five basic elements that measure the quality of life of any society have worsened terribly -- food, housing, clothing, transportation and communications. Beyond ideology, daily life in Cuba is an insufferable nightmare of discomfort and shortages.

Has anything good happened in that period? Yes. The country has 800,000 professionals, among them 65,000 good physicians, for a population of 11 million. But that fact, far from exempting Fidel Castro from blame, incriminates him severely. Only a thoroughly incompetent ruler can keep in poverty a society that possesses such human capital. In all corners of the world, professionals are part of the social middle levels and live with some degree of legitimate comfort. In Cuba, they vegetate without any hope, amid utter poverty.

I think Gen. Raúl Castro concurs with this diagnosis and wishes to substantially improve the lives of Cubans. Raúl does not have (as Fidel has) an ideological vision of the social problems; his viewpoint is practical. Before the age of 20, after a short trip to Eastern Europe intended as revolutionary tourism, he became a communist out of his naive admiration for the Soviet Union —not because he read the sect's books. He has little theoretical density, something that paradoxically makes him more human. Raúl is closer to the manager than to the apostle, to the administrator than to the commissar. Since 1959, he has headed the Armed Forces, an institution that, within the general chaos afflicting the country, functions reasonably well.

In effect, Raúl Castro will begin a cautious economic reform. What will the changes be?

• First, more space for the self-employed workers, and the emergence of small, family-run private enterprises that can provide the services the state cannot furnish.

• Second, the authorization for people to freely sell or buy houses and cars.

• Third, permission for Cubans (athletes included) to leave the country and return.

No political reform is expected in the direction of democracy, but we may look forward to the gradual release of the prisoners of conscience and greater tolerance for the domestic dissidents, along with a more open environment within the Communist Party, so the comrades may better examine the myriad problems that afflict the country without being persecuted. It is also probable that Raúl will cancel the ''acts of repudiation'' -- violent pogroms against the opposition democrats -- and renounce the climate of permanent international confrontation maintained by his brother since his first day in power. Raúl's principal and secret objectives are to make peace with the United States and achieve a self-sufficient economy, without renouncing the single party.

Why? At 76, Raúl knows that he hasn't much time to revitalize the economy and strengthen institutionality, crushed by Fidel's weight, so the country may have a legitimate manner to transfer authority after he leaves the stage. The last poisoned apple given to him by Fidel was the prosthetic leadership of Hugo Chávez, along with a suggestion for the union of the two countries. But the defeat suffered by the Venezuelan in last December's referendum exposed the precariousness and discredit of the Bolivarian revolution, a political mishmash even weaker than the Cuban dictatorship. Raúl is not unaware that placing Cuba's fate in the hands of Chávez, as Fidel wished, would be not just stupid but also a suicidal irresponsibility.

What will Fidel Castro do from now until he dies or is totally incapacitated? For sure, he will back the so-called Talibans —the Stalinist sector— and will serve as sniper, sabotaging the reforms with his newspaper commentaries, convinced that mankind awaits with bated breath his expressions of supreme wisdom in order to understand reality. That's how narcissists are, even with one foot in the grave.

* For The Miami Herald / February 21, 2008
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