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Fidel Castro today announced his retirement as head of state of Cuba, 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution.

With the exception of monarchs, his resignation will bring to an end the world's longest reign in power.

The 81-year-old, who handed over power to his brother, Raúl, in July 2006 after surgery, said in a letter published on the site of the official state newspaper, Granma: "I communicate to you that I will not aspire to or accept ... the position of president of council of state and commander in chief."

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[ 19 February 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

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"My essential duty is not to cling to office nor to obstruct the rise of people much younger, but to pass on experience and ideas whose modest value arises from the exceptional times in which I lived."

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Castro's brother is expected to be nominated by the national assembly as president. Raúl was second in Cuba's power structure as defence minister until he took over from Fidel in July 2006, when the leader announced he had undergone intestinal surgery.

However, it had always been felt that his role would be temporary and a younger person would take over in the long term. One of the current favourites for the position is Carlos Lage, the 56-year old vice-president.

Lage, a paediatrician by profession, has risen to prominence in recent months after overseeing economic changes in Cuba, including negotiations over oil from Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chávez, is Castro's strongest international supporter.

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I wonder if it would make more sense to allow Lage to assume the Presidency now rather than later.

Meanwhile George Bush had this to say,
http://tinyurl.com/244o6j

QUOTE] "The international community should work with the Cuban people to begin to build institutions that are necessary for democracy," he said.

"Eventually, this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections - and I mean free, and I mean fair - not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as true democracy.

"And we're going to help. The United States will help the people of Cuba realise the blessings of liberty." [/QUOTE]

There is also an interesting link from the Guardian site referring to an earlier article in January on Leonard Weinglass and the 'Cuban Five' trial.

From the Miami Herald:

Cautious optimism in South Florida

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Fidel Castro Ruz: This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas. I shall continue to write under the heading of ‘Reflections by comrade Fidel.’ It will be just another weapon you can count on. Perhaps my voice will be heard.

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It seems unreal to see Bush, the conqueror of other peoples’ raw materials and energy resources, setting out guidelines for the world with no thought of how many hundreds of thousands or millions of people die or how many clandestine prisons and torture centers must be created to attain his objectives. (Fidel Castro Ruz, January 14 2008

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Some people undoubtedly continue to obstinately cling to the view that revolutions, like eclipses, are disobedient aberrations or perhaps a form of punishment inflicted by God due to human wickedness. However, the enduring quality of the Cuban revolution, long after Castro's retirement from active politics, will make fairy tales like this one harder to believe even for the most credulous bird-brained fledglings of imperialism.

In any case, Jorge Perez Doval of the Geophysics and Astronomy Institute in Cuba uses more scientific methods to figure out the conduct of our naughty moon.

And worked the transition when the Soviet Union stopped supporting Cuba, what some people refer to as Cuba's version of "Peak Oil". The Cuban people lost an average of about 35 pounds a piece. Key to their making the transition was starting lots of small neighborhood food gardens.

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I wonder if retirement is a euphemism for "he's dead and we're not going to talk about it" =leftyboy

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At best it would be a short delay for preparations before announcing his death. But to say "we are not going to talk about it", this happens only in the imagination of right wing media and circles, who loath socialism.

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
I truly hope that the Cuban people will not be sucked into the vortex that overcame the democratic movement in Poland and replaced their vision of a socialist democracy with the WTO vision of the Dictarship of the Invisible Hand.

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Which "democratic" movement in Poland was that?

The one led by those noted "democrats" Karol Wojtyła and Lech Wałęsa?

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
I wonder if the Americans will continue to make efforts to assassinate Castro after the latter's retirement from active political life?

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[ 19 February 2008: Message edited by: adam stratton ]

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Well, I think it’s a momentous occasion, because rulers like Fidel Castro somewhat traditionally leave office in a coffin or during a military coup, and here he has basically, I think, capped his legacy of revolutionary leadership by leaving under his own terms, by helping to usher in a very smooth transition, almost seamless transition, to his brother and to younger disciples of both Castros, who will, I think, emerge on Sunday and in the days thereafter to lead Cuba. So Castro has lived to not only see the institutionalization of his revolution, but the passage of power peacefully to another generation. ... He also issues a warning to his enemies, that if he dies, his ideas might become more powerful than when he was alive. And, of course, he’s not dying now; he’s simply officially changing titles, from commander-in-chief to commentator-in-chief, where he’s going to be that kind of columnist for the Cuban Communist Party newspaper and continue to, as he puts it, you know, be a soldier in the battle of ideas.

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I wonder if it would make more sense to allow Lage to assume the Presidency now rather than later.

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:

Unionist it was the Shock Doctrine that really explained the who's who of the Polish and Russian attempts at throwing off their totalitarian left governments in favour of a European socialist model like in Scandinavia. Instead they got a quick right turn to a religious revival of the Invisible Hand.

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So far it can only be said that they are doing better than most. Since the frame of comparison is to regimes with little to zero popular support, that isn't saying much.

1. Fidel Castro Ruz has decided to step down as President. Despite hundreds of attempts by the USA to murder him in cold blood, Castro has managed to retire at over 80 years of age, pass on some duties to the next in command (in this case his brother Raúl), and move on to playing a role as "commentator-in-chief" (a very amusing title, actually). Castro:1 ... USA:0.

2. Despite the nefarious activities of the USA, and their expressed plans to prevent it from happening, Fidel Castro has managed to pass over a number of duties to his brother Raúl. Castro:2 ... USA:0.

3. Fidel Castro has managed to deflect attention away from himself for this weekend's meeting of the Cuban National Assembly, by making his announcement when he did, to focus on the future leadership in Cuba rather than on it's past leadership. Check. Castro: 3 etc.

If I was guided by the remarks of KenS then I would say that there's no point in remarking on any of these aspects of the transition because ... the transition isn't over yet.

Not that spitting in the face of international law is anything new for the USA. When US proxies mined Nicaraguan ports and killed crew and passengers on vessels in those ports, the US simply thumbed its haughty nose at the world when the Court ruling when against it. The US is a rogue state in the most precise definition of the term. Why would they give a shit about international law?

Chomsky has written about this arrogance in the most delightful and informative way. I highly recommend his remarks, over the years, on this subject. They're easy to find.

I was commenting on someone who went further and said there had been a smooth transition. And that is premature.

[ 20 February 2008: Message edited by: KenS ]

(OK. I'm kidding about that.)

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Originally posted by Boom Boom:
I don't get why the UN didn't try to stop the US embargo of Cuba while Castro was in power. Wasn't the embargo a blatantly illegal act?

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Yes, the genocidal blockade was voted down by UN General Assembly nations by wide margins over several years. Democracy is the right's most hated institution. The U.S. has used trade as a weapon throughout the cold war and hypocritically claiming that Soviet block nations were unwilling to trade with the west. Vicious U.S. trade sanctions have been used illegally to block and-or tie up humanitarian aid with red tape destined for countries like North Korea, VietNam, Cuba etc leading up to and after dissolution of the USSR, the largest source of trade for those countries prior to the 1990's. Strangely enough, Cuba is the only country in the world with political representation in U.S. government.

Here's something I wasn't aware of. Godfrey-Milliken. It was never made an Act of Canada, but good for the Liberals anyway.

eta: If Canada ever developed a national energy plan and demanded fair per barrel oil royalties on level with other oil-exporting countries and slapped green taxes on our massive energy and fossil fuel exports to the USSA in compliance with our obligations to the rest of the world wrt reducing CO2 emissions, we can bet the imperialists would squeel like stuck pigs about it.

[ 20 February 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:

Unionist it was the Shock Doctrine that really explained the who's who of the Polish and Russian attempts at throwing off their totalitarian left governments in favour of a European socialist model like in Scandinavia. Instead they got a quick right turn to a religious revival of the Invisible Hand.

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Well, I'd be sorry to see them go for "mitigated capitalism" (i.e., the Scandinavian model) but that's obviously a minority view on babble. In fact, it might have been smarter not to mention that

[ 20 February 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]