Fidel and the change

Hugo Chavez has been working for the continuism in Venezuela. Meanwhile, in Cube the main news are about change. In the biggest Cuban cabinet renovation of the last 50 years, a dozen of ministers have been set off and many Departments have been fusioned. Many of the dismissed where with Fidel for years, even decades. The official reason given for this change has been a promise Raul Castro did in his inauguration speech about decreasing the number of Ministers and Departments, together with the expenses derivated from those.

The two main figures that have gone down are Carlos Lage, ex Minister of Economy and Vicepresident, and Felipe Perez Roque, head of the Cuban Foreign policy. However, it has been much more significative and has gone more unseen the destitution of Otto Rivero, the man in charge of Cuban official propaganda. It is not strange that the opposition in Miami has made a warm welcome to all these changes.

About the other two, Roque and Lage, the first one leaves just in an -apparently- beginning of a new era in the Cuban-American relationship. Lage, on the other hand, falls from the government in a very delicate time for global economy, and especially hard for Cubans. However, it was long ago since Lage had lost all his power and influence in the Cuban government. Something really annoying for someone who even was suspected to be the sucessor of Fidel.

These news, nowadays, confirm two things. First, that Raul Castro has initiated to make his own Government, no inheritating the one that left Fidel. It’s been talking a lot these days about the substitution of “Fidel’s men” by “Raul’s men” and the military background of the people now in charge. And second, they confirm that Fidel is out of politics and is not messing with the change, leaving it on the hands of his brother.

It is, however, shocking to see how Fidel agrees with Raul’s changes. He does by saying that the ones who have left had been collaborated with the “external enemy” [USA]. There are just a few insults bigger than that in Cuba.

And even though that, Lage and Roque have admitted their mistakes and have left the Communist Party.

Change, jus a few repairs to continue or punishment for treason against the Revolution? Game is on.



Extra: New techniques of urban camouflage.





Photo: Carlos Lage and Felipe Pérez Roque (AP Photo)