Are Fidel Castro's Days Numbered?

The Cuban leader Fidel Castro is making attempts to drag his country out of the guagmire he has landed it in since rejecting adopting market economic principles when its sponsor, the Soviet Union, fell apart in 1991. Even though his way of doing it -telling the Cuban population to save on energy and work harder- is not immediately likely to effect much change, perhaps his efforts evidence that the Cuban leader is losing hope of an impending end to the US trade embargo on his own terms.

The hours long speeches held in recent days by the Cuban 78-year old leader show that he's by no means through with Leninist-style Marxism governing his rather undreamlike Caribbean island's economy. The changes that the president is making since the beginning of March are a sign however that the Cuban leader is worried that he might be overthrown by the mob if he allows the economic situation to get even more untenable.

Castro's renewed drive to doctor his country's economy is almost certainly too little too late given the dire situation this country is in. Real change effecting a flourishing economy will likely only happen when the country's rid of him, yet the leader is still firmly in command and the population's been battered into submission so much that the ordinary Cuban has given up by now of hoping that there's going to be a way out other than escape.

Like any of us, the leader could of course pass away tomorrow, but at 78 Castro is one of those old hands that is as unlikely to just die as he has been unlikely to let go of his leadership, many say has been so strong due mainly to the stringent US embargo against this country. Political analysts hold it for near impossible that the country will see another dictator after a Castro departure from the stage.

Judging where it all will go will in the near term depends on what you consider to be progress. On the one hand, the Cuban population has suffered so much it by now must have developed some means to get by whatever the circumstances dictate. On the other hand, real change might be taking place albeit very slowly. The renewed focus on the economy that Fidel has been displaying since 8 March might reveal slight evidence that he's willing to water down the Marxist-Leninist wine somewhat.

The changes in economic policies are aimed at increasing exports and improving the conditions of trade with the outside world. Cuba, Castro himself admitted already in the early 1990s, is going through the most difficult period of its history as a republic. And since then, it's gone downhill even more. The widespread hunger and hardship has continued. Most of the people are unable to look further than the next day, one academic report from the University of Texas some ten years ago. It termed the Cubans as suffering from 'societal depression' which disallows people to think a better future is at all possible. Imagine the situation now.

The Cuban leader routinely blames the U.S. embargo for Cuba's perils and reiterated the accusations only last week. Terming it the "criminal blockade" he believes that the US is the sole factor spoiling Cuba's chances of ever becoming a healthy economy. The outside world agrees with him. And what's more, most observers believe that the vicious treatment by the US is to blame for this leader's longstanding rule, which has seen some of the worst human rights abuses ever.

Fidel Castro has held on to his power by fiercely battling the US and playing it off against the Soviets since his 1959 communist coup in which he displaced another dictator, Fulgencio Batista, yet it might now begin to dawn even on this leader that perhaps his days are going to be numbered if he doesn't make really convincing changes to better things. The US' May 2004 decision to tighten its embargo, designed to deliver another 'final' blow to this repulsive leader, might very slowly begin to pay off.

Because Fidel Castro's attempts to bring about change might be the swan song of a man who is running out of ideas. He is trying to improve productivity at home by telling the population to save on all forms of electricity and by making empty promises that a turnaround will happen if measures like these are stuck to. Economists that describe the situation say that Cuba needs to dramatically improve on social security before the domestic economy can reasonably be expected to pick up again only slightly.

There is hardly any chance of structural changes that will benefit the Cuban economy in the near term, but a few positive outside factors exist. They include high prices of nickel, which Cuba exports, and a steady rise in tourism revenues. The outlook for the much battered sugar industry is not very hopeful because of low world market sugar prices, and shrinking volumes due to a shortage of spare parts for machinery, lack of adequate fertilization, breakdowns in the transportation system, and lack of fuel for field operations and mill boilers.

There is growing support inside the US to lift its embargo against Cuba since the country is not posing a military threat and since the embargo is not proving effective in removing the leader but only starving the Cubans. It is argued that lifting the embargo and a few clever moves might effect just the sort of speedy transition to a market economy that if it took off would possibly strengthen the people and give them just that much hope to actually stand up to the dictatorship in place. For a while in 1996, this looked a possibility, but recent governments have in matter of fact only worked out opposite measures. The US has recently tightened its 1992 Cuban Democracy Act which was initially adopted to bring down Castro "within weeks," according to the bill's primary advocate Robert Torricelli. Last year in May, the US government reduced the number of visits the 1 million or so Americans with ties in Cuba could pay their relatives in Cuba. And the White House furthermore also restricted their remittances to Cuba.

The reason for tightening up on remittances and visits to Cuba has been the perception in the US that Cuban leaders whenever they were under the impression that the embargo was imminently lifted would tend to feel encouraged to resist any real change.

The 1996 Helms-Burton act is particularly intended to dampen such illusions because it spells out exactly the kind of change the US wants to see on the ground. The conditions and terms for U.S. assistance to a post-Castro Cuba are outlined, as well as what markers will be employed to determine that a genuine transition to market economic principles is occurring. First of course is the departure from power of Fidel Castro and his brother Ra