Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Raul Castro says party not military to follow Fidel

Friday, June 16, 2006

by: Marc Frank

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters): Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro denied the military would take over after his brother President Fidel Castro died or left office, insisting in a speech published on Thursday that the Cuban Communist Party would lead the nation.

With Fidel Castro turning 80 in August and his designated successor Raul just five years younger, there has been increasing speculation about who will follow the two brothers, with some warning the military will take control.

"Only the Communist Party as the vanguard and secure guarantor of Cuban unity for all time, can be the dignified heir of the confidence Cubans have deposited in their leader," said Raul Castro, who came to power with his brother 47 years ago.

"That is what we are working for and that is what will be. Anything else is pure speculation," he said. Raul Castro gave the speech on Tuesday at a defense university in Havana.

The defense minister, unlike his older brother who is legendary for his extended speeches, is a man of few words, so his lengthy speech marking a military anniversary, and its publication and broadcast by official media on Thursday, was noteworthy, diplomats said.

Raul Castro also warned that the recent creation of the U.S. Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba and naming of a transition coordinator last year showed the revolution's nemesis planned to pounce on Cuba once the Castro brothers were gone.

"Unlike Fidel, Raul or any future government cannot govern without a political structure or organization," said Frank Mora, an expert on the Cuban military at the National War College in Washington.

"The popular-mobilization style of Fidel emphasizes his charismatic authority while Cuba's future government cannot govern the same way, thus the need to build and even try to legitimize political organizations like the party," said Mora, adding that he believed the military would be even more important to any government that succeeds Castro than it is today.

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