The United States has begun a liberalization of its Cuba policy. The omnibus spending bill that President Obama signed this week not only loosens restrictions on travel to Cuba, it opens the door for more exports from the U.S. despite the 47-year-old trade embargo.
At the same time, Cuban President Raul Castro has just launched the biggest Cabinet shake-up there in decades, signaling not only that he is firmly in control a year after officially taking over from his brother, Fidel Castro, but that no one should expect radical political and economic change from his communist government.
Why Raul moved just at this moment is anyone's guess; even longtime Cuba watchers are merely reading tea leaves when it comes to politics on the other side of the Florida Straits. But there is a view gaining ground in Washington that it shouldn't matter because it is in our interest to change the policy.
In Cuba, Raul removed the two most internationally prominent ministers and half a dozen other holdovers from his brother's government, replacing them with his own loyalists from the army and the Communist Party.
Felipe Perez Roque, who had served as foreign minister for a decade, and Cabinet chief Carlos Lage were dismissed in what Raul said was a streamlining of the government. But the main reason for the dismissals may have been explained best by the retired and ailing Fidel. "The honey of power, for which they had made no sacrifice, awoke in them ambitions that led to an undignified role," he wrote in a column published on the Internet.
Open ambition has always been a career-killer in Cuba. The "undignified role," according to Cuba analysts, was becoming too visible and seemingly accommodating to the U.S., hinting at the possibility of improved relations under Obama. "The external enemy was filled with illusions for them," Fidel wrote. He seemed to be suggesting that U.S. officials had pinned their hopes for Cuban economic liberalization on the familiar pair, particularly Lage.
Once Fidel had spoken, his former proteges had no choice but to fall on their party swords and admit to having "committed errors," for which they accepted full responsibility, just as the previous foreign minister, Roberto Robaina, did in the 1990s. He is now a painter.
