Raul Castro Opens Up Cuba, Slowly

Cuba is changing. President Raul Castro has revealed plans to dramatically increase private sector employment in the Communist country. Ordinary Cubans will be allowed to set up their own businesses in dozens of different fields, and even hire employees.

Mr Castro says all this is to help "continue perfecting socialism." What he really means is that the measures are to help keep him and his regime in power. Raul has always been more open-minded about this sort of thing than his brother Fidel, who he succeeded as President in 2007 when the older man's health deteriorated. It was Raul who persuaded Fidel to open the country to limited tourism in the early 1990s, when Cuba faced ruin after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the cash supply from Moscow which had seen it through the previous quarter of a century.

Although many restrictions have been placed on tourism in Cuba, even down to keeping a separate currency for foreigners, it's proved impossible to stifle the curiosity and jealousy of some locals. Those who have access to even small amounts of the special tourists' money, such as waiters and tour guides, can become far wealthier than their neighbours. Allowing western cash into Cuba may have saved the country's economy, but it has created real inequalities in its supposedly equal society.

So Raul has chosen to widen his reforms, to keep his people happy, and make the country a bit richer. He can get away with this because of his personal credibility and connection to the Revolution, something many Cubans remain proud of. Raul was there alongside his brother, Che Guevara and the rest throughout it all. With Fidel ailing, he's the only man left with the clout to carry through such reforms.

But this is also about what happens when the Castros are dead, probably not too far off now. It's likely that, without that personal connection to the Revolution, a future Cuban leader would struggle to command the country and its people in the same way the Castros have been able to. Wide-ranging reforms would have been extremely difficult to carry through without the danger of a counter-revolution, and the collapse of the Communist regime.

Raul Castro is probably banking that, if he changes Cuba just enough before he goes, he'll give his successor a better chance of keeping Cuba together, and keeping it Communist. The irony is, these latest reforms mean Cuba is becoming less and less Communist by the day.

Castro Tries To Hold Back Time

Cuba's President Raul Castro has postponed the Congress of his country's Communist Party, which was due to take place later this year. When it eventually happens, it'll be the sixth such meeting since he and his brother Fidel seized power in a revolution back in 1959, but with both now ageing, it'll almost certainly be the last with them in power.

Raul says he needs more time to make sure the meeting takes place in the right way. That's basically code for he still hasn't worked out how to make sure the Communist regime remains in place once he and his brother have gone. Wondering when the Castro brothers will finally leave the political stage has long been a favourite parlour game of the families of Cuban exiles in Florida, forced out by the Communists all those years ago, who would dearly love to return to a non-Communist Cuba. As soon as Fidel and Raul die, the exiles will do anything they can to sweep away the current regime.

The fact that the Castros have remained in power so long has a lot to do with the personal credibility they have in the eyes of many ordinary Cubans. After all, both Fidel and Raul personally fired the first shots of the campaign for a revolution, at the Moncada Barracks all the way back in 1953. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the regime they have led over the last fifty years, that personal credibility has helped them retain the affection of many Cubans, plenty of whom remain proud of the revolution.

But if the exiles and other enemies of the Castros believe that their deaths will end up badly weakening the regime's authority, then they're probably right. Younger Cubans are increasingly aware of the world outside, including the US less than 100 miles away. The huge increase in tourism in Cuba, developed since the collapse of the Soviet Union which had previously propped up the regime, has given ordinary Cubans a close-up look of the lifestyle of wealthy westerners. Raul Castro knows that it's a lifestyle lots of Cubans want for themselves, and he knows that once he's gone, his successors at the top of the Communist party may struggle to maintain the control that he and his brother have enjoyed for so long, by dint of their revolutionary exploits. However Raul Castro eventually deals with this problem at the next Congess meeting, the odds are probably against the Communists managing another fifty years in power.

Raul's Cuba

Raul Castro has attended Cuba's traditional May Day celebrations in central Havana. As usual, lots of people turned up, but in a break with the tradition of his big brother and predecessor Fidel, Raul didn't make a four-hour speech about the glory of the revolution. It's just the latest in a series of subtle changes since Raul took power for good earlier this year.

Recently Raul's announced various measures making things in Cuba a bit more liberal, a bit more western if you like. The controversial ban on Cuban citizens staying in tourist hotels in resorts like Varadero has been lifted. He's also made it legal for ordinary Cubans to have mobile phones. It's now easier for state workers to own their homes and pass them on to their children. Even wage limits are being abolished to, wait for it, allow employers to offer more incentives.

If all this has the scent of capitalism about it, you'd be right. After years of 'defending the revolution' by keeping things strictly communist, Cuba's new leader knows the regime must change if it's going to survive. Change may be slight and gradual, but it's clear Raul has his eye on what his comrades in China have done. Retaining a one-party state while slowly feeding in limited free-market reforms to the economy, just like Beijing, is the path he's set out on. And as long as Cubans are satisfied by their new-found ability to own more and do more, and if that doesn't cause the pride they still feel in their revolution to fade, it'll probably work.

"I Feel Good"

Fidel Castro has announced on the radio show of Venezuela's leader Hugo Chavez that he's on the mend after months of illness. It certainly seems as if it really was him, and given his ability to discuss current events it does appear he's genuinely getting better again. No word yet on whether his statement "I feel good" was accompanied by a James Brown-esque yelp, but then he is knocking on a bit.

This won't get rid of the speculation about what happens when he's not there anymore. The huge population of Cuban exiles living in Florida would dearly love to return to the island (or, more likely after all these years, go there for the first time) as part of a US-backed capitalist state. That isn't going to happen straight away when Castro finally does die - his brother who's currently running the show will remain in charge - but once the big man is gone there's no way things will continue as they are forever.

If a new, strong Cuban leader along the lines of Chavez emerges, then Cuba could remain a strongly socialist thorn in America's side. But more likely relations between Cuba and its massive near-neighbour will gradually thaw, with flights going back and forward and the big US companies moving there. This will be good for a lot of people in Cuba, and not so good for a lot of other people. But then, that's capitalism.