The Latell Report

Welcome to The Latell Report. The Report, analyzing Cuba's contemporary domestic and foreign policy, is published monthly except August and December and distributed by the electronic information service of the Cuba Transition Project (CTP) at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS).

The Latell Report is a publication of ICCAS and no government funding has been used in its publication. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ICCAS and/or the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The dynastic transfer of power in Havana has proceeded peacefully for almost eight months now, but how much longer is the enforced tranquility likely to endure? What are some of the key variables that might begin to provoke instability in the new regime? And how might challenges to its legitimacy and authority begin to coalesce?

As I have observed in this series before, General Raul Castro has long demonstrated impressive leadership qualities that coexist unpredictably with his numerous deficiencies of character, public performance skills, and crisis management experience. How long Cuba’s veteran defense minister will be able to exercise power in his own right remains, therefore, as much a puzzle today as it has been since he was originally anointed first in the line of succession in January, 1959.

I am not aware of reports of popular disturbances or challenges of any kind to his leadership, although the regime of course has not been taking any chances. Elaborate security measures reportedly were implemented across the island late last July, just before the news of Fidel Castro’s surgery and provisional cession of power was revealed. Dissidents and human rights activists remain under brutal repression, pressure on foreign journalists has intensified, and security and intelligence forces remain more than usually energized and alert. But the prevailing calm is not likely to endure indefinitely.

A variety of shocks could spark destabilizing events at virtually any time and without warning. The announcement of Fidel Castro’s death, regardless of when that comes, could result, for example, in spontaneous demonstrations in a variety of locations, some of which might prove difficult for the regime to control. He has, after all, been the singular force, the galvanizing glue that has held the revolution fast since the 1950s. Whether mourning him or celebrating his demise, Cubans in large numbers may rush at once into the streets and plazas when they hear the news. The disappearances of previous Cuban dictators –including Batista on New Years Day, 1959-- sparked sporadic rioting and looting. Fidel Castro’s departure may be no different.

And what if Venezuelan oil shipments –valued at close to two and a quarter billion dollars last year—were suddenly to cease for whatever reason? The Cuban economy would plunge within a few weeks into deep recession characterized by transportation crises, food shortages, and power blackouts. Large demonstrations against the regime, similar to those that occurred in 1993 and 1994 during Cuba’s previous economic crisis could result.

How would Raul and his generals respond? It is widely supposed that he would abhor and resist the urge to dispatch military forces into a Tiananmen Square kind of massacre of protesting Cuban civilians. But would he refuse to issue such orders even if the survival of the communist regime were at stake? Such a crisis in the streets and within the top leadership might well cause command and control in the uniformed services to begin unraveling.

That is the most critical of all the key variables, now and into the current regime’s indefinite future. No destabilizing crisis has occurred in the military high command since the armed forces ministry was created under Raul Castro’s leadership in October 1959. The institution he built from rag-tag fragments remained cohesive, disciplined, motivated, and proud for decades later, though in recent years intersecting fault lines have probably deepened just below its surface. Whatever the rivalries and tensions may actually be within the top ranks, the possibility that command and control may begin to break down could already be higher than at any time in the past. And those odds would increase in the event of some other unpredictable, but not unlikely, development.

What if Raul Castro were to pre-decease his ailing brother? The eighty year old Fidel has been regaining strength and appeared the other day in a photo for the first time standing outside of his convalescent quarters, in a garden setting. He has gained weight and was heard recently talking to Hugo Chavez in a live broadcast. Meanwhile, Raul has seemed to recede so far this year. In January he remained out of public view for twenty- six days, generating speculation that he too is suffering from some major health problems or that he is tending to acute problems within the leadership.

He will be seventy-six on June 3, and in all likelihood is in fact afflicted by undisclosed infirmities. If he were to die before his brother, the odds would be high, I believe, that the resulting vacuum in the leadership would provoke a succession crisis. So far there is no designated “third man” who civilian and military leaders could readily rally around. There is perhaps only one top veteran of the armed forces –General Ulises Rosales del Toro—who might have sufficient stature to preserve military unity and thus stability on the island if both Castros were absent or incapacitated. Other than del Toro, there may be no other officer, including the respected Chief of Staff Alvaro Lopez Miera or the Western Army chief Leopoldo Cintra Frias, whose orders would be obeyed by other ranking generals.

And alternatively, what if a recuperating Fidel Castro were to insist on returning to the full or nearly complete exercise of his previous powers? However improbable that appears at the moment, given his likely mental and psychological impairments, as well as his obvious physical debilities, an effort to reassert his personal hegemony would be consistent with his behavior dating back at least six decades. How would Raul and most of the elders closely associated with him respond? Would they want him or allow him back at the helm?

All of them have grown accustomed since last July 31 to much larger and more conspicuous leadership roles than Fidel ever permitted them to play. They have developed and begun to articulate new policy agendas, if mostly so far only in the form of vague promises, which are nonetheless distinctly different from the stubborn ideological orthodoxies long identified with Fidel.

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Dr. Brian Latell, distinguished Cuba analyst and recent author of the book, After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro’s Regime and Cuba’s Next Leader, is a Senior Research Associate at ICCAS. He has informed American and foreign presidents, cabinet members, and legislators about Cuba and Fidel Castro in a number of capacities. He served in the early 1990s as National Intelligence Officer for Latin America at the Central Intelligence Agency and taught at Georgetown University for a quarter century. Dr. Latell has written, lectured, and consulted extensively.

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The CTP, funded by a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), can be contacted at P.O. Box 248174, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-3010, Tel: 305-284-CUBA (2822), Fax: 305-284-4875, and by email at ctp.iccas@miami.edu.