E' morta Vilma Espin, moglie di Raul Castro

[are(a)zione]

Dall'Economist

Cuba
The revolution is not yet over

Jun 21st 2007 | MEXICO CITY
From The Economist print edition
Raúl Castro's wife dies; the EU opens talks; Fidel continues to pontificate


Rex FeaturesVilma, fascinated by Fidel, when the revolution was still young
“EVERYONE was waiting, some with sadness and others with oligarchic glee, for the crumbling of the Cuban Revolution.” So says Fidel Castro this week in the latest of a series of articles published in Granma, the official Communist Party newspaper. The president was referring to the so-called “special period” in the early 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But he could just as easily have been referring to the past year.
It has been nearly 11 months since he fell ill with what was at first presumed to be cancer, and ceded day-to-day power to his younger brother, Raúl. Obituaries of the man who has led Cuba for nearly half a century were hastily dusted down and commentators began speculating about “Cuba after Fidel”. Too soon. After a series of operations for abdominal problems, the president, now 80, has recently been showing that there is life in the old man yet. Little has changed since he stepped down: “no increase in opposition activity, and no real innovation in economic policy,” says Philip Peters of the Lexington Institute, an American think-tank.

But even the Castro family is not immortal, as demonstrated this week by the death of Vilma Espín, Raúl's wife and Cuba's unofficial First Lady (Fidel's various partners have tended to stay out of the public eye). She was 77, one year older than her husband. Ms Espín helped organise an urban uprising against Fulgencio Batista, Cuba's military dictator, who was overthrown by Fidel Castro in 1959. Despite her upper-class background—she did a year of graduate study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States—she took to the communist rebels wholeheartedly, later joining Fidel's revolution in the mountains, where she also first met Raúl.
Ms Espín was the most politically prominent woman in Cuba. She was a member of the Politburo from 1980 until 1991 and frequently escorted Fidel to official events. But her death will not affect the generational struggle that seems to be under way behind the acting president. Carlos Lage, the vice-president, and Felipe Pérez Roque, the foreign minister, remain the two most prominent younger politicians; Ricardo Alarcón, leader of the National Assembly, and Ramiro Valdés, a former interior minister and now minister of communications, are the two most prominent elder statesmen after Raúl.
In fact there seems little chance of either of the two Castro brothers disappearing from the political scene in the near future. Although Fidel has not appeared at a public event since stepping down, he has been seen on television talking to visiting dignitaries, and appears to be recovering from whatever it was that ailed him (officially a state secret, though believed to be diverticulitis, an intestinal disorder).
But if little seems to be changing inside Cuba, its long-strained relations with the West may be easing. This week the European Union invited a Cuban delegation to Brussels for a “political dialogue”—the first official contact in four years. Human rights will certainly be on the agenda. What else they might discuss or who might attend remains vague.
In the United States meanwhile a March poll by Florida International University of Cuban Americans in the state found that 65% favour dialogue with Cuba. That is up from 55% in 2004 and the biggest proportion supporting dialogue since polling began in 1991. As America's presidential election nears, this might at last begin to encourage American politicians to stand up to the powerful Cuba lobby that has resisted any negotiation with Castro's government for so long.

[Leader Maximo (POL)]

una enorme perdita per Cuba e la Rivoluzione

[are(a)zione]

Notare poi questo passaggio (e non dimentichiamoci la fonte dell'articolo)

"In the United States meanwhile a March poll by Florida International University of Cuban Americans in the state found that 65% favour dialogue with Cuba."


Ci sarebbe da discuterne sull'attendibilità ed onestà politica di questo campione.

Sembrano arpie gironzolare come avvoltoi, pronti a sferrare l'ultimo colpo.

[MaRcO88]

è un grande dispiacere.

[EL ROJO]

Cubani a Miami = Mafia

[Leader Maximo (POL)]

Notare poi questo passaggio (e non dimentichiamoci la fonte dell'articolo)

"In the United States meanwhile a March poll by Florida International University of Cuban Americans in the state found that 65% favour dialogue with Cuba."


Ci sarebbe da discuterne sull'attendibilità ed onestà politica di questo campione.

Sembrano arpie gironzolare come avvoltoi, pronti a sferrare l'ultimo colpo.

che il loro obiettivo sia riappropiarsi delle loro vecchie proprietà a scapito di milioni di cubani non ne fanno mistero neppure loro visto che a Miami c'è pure un avvocato che vive curando questi loschi affari