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Castro says Cuba in need of change
Source: Agencies |
September 10, 2010, Friday
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CUBA'S communist economic model has come in for criticism from an unlikely source: Fidel Castro.
The revolutionary leader told a visiting American journalist and a United States-Cuba policy expert that the island's state-dominated system is in need of change, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has taken pains to steer clear of local issues since illness forced him to step down as president four years ago.
The fact that things are not working efficiently on the cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news.
Fidel's brother Raul, the country's president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba's 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked Castro if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," Goldberg wrote.
Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations who accompanied Goldberg on the trip, confirmed the Cuban leader's comment, which he made at a private lunch last week.
She said she took the remark to be in line with Raul Castro's call for gradual but widespread reform.
"It sounded consistent with the general consensus in the country now, up to and including his brother's position," Sweig said.
She said she found the 84-year-old Castro "relaxed, witty, conversational and quite accessible." "He has a new lease on life, and he is taking advantage of it," Sweig said.
Castro stepped down temporarily in July 2006 due to a serious illness that nearly killed him.
He resigned permanently two years later, but remains head of the Communist Party. After staying almost entirely out of the spotlight for four years, he re-emerged in July and now speaks frequently about international affairs. He has been warning for weeks of the threat of a nuclear war over Iran.
But the ex-president has said very little about Cuba and its politics, perhaps to limit the perception he is stepping on his brother's toes.
Goldberg, who traveled to Cuba at Castro's invitation last week to discuss a recent Atlantic article he wrote about Iran's nuclear program, also reported that Castro questioned his own actions during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, including his recommendation to Soviet leaders that they use nuclear weapons against the US.
The state controls well over 90 percent of the economy, paying workers salaries of about US$20 a month in return for free health care and education, and nearly free transport and housing.
The revolutionary leader told a visiting American journalist and a United States-Cuba policy expert that the island's state-dominated system is in need of change, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has taken pains to steer clear of local issues since illness forced him to step down as president four years ago.
The fact that things are not working efficiently on the cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news.
Fidel's brother Raul, the country's president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba's 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked Castro if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," Goldberg wrote.
Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations who accompanied Goldberg on the trip, confirmed the Cuban leader's comment, which he made at a private lunch last week.
She said she took the remark to be in line with Raul Castro's call for gradual but widespread reform.
"It sounded consistent with the general consensus in the country now, up to and including his brother's position," Sweig said.
She said she found the 84-year-old Castro "relaxed, witty, conversational and quite accessible." "He has a new lease on life, and he is taking advantage of it," Sweig said.
Castro stepped down temporarily in July 2006 due to a serious illness that nearly killed him.
He resigned permanently two years later, but remains head of the Communist Party. After staying almost entirely out of the spotlight for four years, he re-emerged in July and now speaks frequently about international affairs. He has been warning for weeks of the threat of a nuclear war over Iran.
But the ex-president has said very little about Cuba and its politics, perhaps to limit the perception he is stepping on his brother's toes.
Goldberg, who traveled to Cuba at Castro's invitation last week to discuss a recent Atlantic article he wrote about Iran's nuclear program, also reported that Castro questioned his own actions during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, including his recommendation to Soviet leaders that they use nuclear weapons against the US.
The state controls well over 90 percent of the economy, paying workers salaries of about US$20 a month in return for free health care and education, and nearly free transport and housing.
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