Raul Castro securing hold on Cuba
April 29, 2008
By Anita Snow - HAVANA (AP) =97 President Raul Castro is shoring up
Cuba's one-party rule after an unexpectedly smooth leader****p change
from his brother Fidel, announcing a Communist Party congress that
should cement the move to a more institutionalized power structure.
The younger Castro announced yesterday that the party will hold its
first congress in a dozen years on a yet-unspecified date in the
second half of 2009. Fidel Castro officially still heads the party as
first secretary, and the congress is likely to select a new chief,
ending his last formal claim to power.
Party congresses historically have been held every five years or so to
renew leader****p and set major policies.
Castro also announced that officials would commute the death penalty
for an unspecified number of common prisoners and he said it was
reviewing the cases of two Central Americans on death row for hotel
bombings =97 including one that killed an Italian tourist =97 as well as a
U.S.-based exiled convicted of killing a fisherman during a 1994
commando raid.
Excerpts of his speech to party cadres were aired on state
television.
Fidel Castro, 81, has not been seen in public since July 2006, when he
underwent emergency intestinal surgery and relinquished power to Raul,
five years his junior. He formally stepped down as president in
February, but keeps a presence through essays published in state
media.
The bearded revolutionary cast a large shadow over the island during
his almost half-century in power. His once-high-pitched voice was the
soundtrack of daily life as his hours-long speeches emanated from
radios and television sets.
Far less charismatic, Raul shuns the public stage Fidel once relished
and is moving to replace his brother's personalized rule with the
Communist Party's collective leader****p.
"In these times, and those to come, it will be necessary and decisive
to count on political, government, mass, social and youth
institutions," Raul told party leaders. "When difficulties are
greater, more order and discipline will be required. For that, it is
vital to strengthen institutions."
The younger Castro also shored up sup****t for his own leader****p by
naming two military men and a political ally to the party's select
Politiburo. They are Gen. Alvaro Lopez Miera, defense vice minister
and chief of staff, Ramiro Valdes Menendez, a revolutionary commander
and communications minister, and Salvador Valdes Mesa, secretary-
general of the Cuban Workers Union.
The new president spent most of his life as defense minister and he
draws much of his sup****t from the island's armed forces.
Lopez Miera and Valdes Mesa were added to Cuba's supreme governing
body, the Council of State, when Raul Castro assumed the presidency
two months ago. Valdes Menendez was already a member.
Raul Castro also announced a further centralization within the party
by creating a super-exclusive directing committee of himself and six
other men inside the 24-member Politburo. Fidel Castro was not among
them.
The president said that the Council of State was reviewing the cases
of Salvadorans Ernesto Cruz Leon and Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena, who
say Cuban exiles hired them for a 1997 bombing campaign to scare
tourists away from the island.
Also under review is the case of Humberto Eladio Real Suarez of
Florida, who was arrested after an October 1994 raid that killed a
fisherman.
Cuba halted capital punishment from 2000 until 2003, when three armed
men who hijacked a ferry were sent before a firing squad. The
executions brought worldwide condemnation, and Raul Castro said
capital punishment has not been applied since.
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