Filial subordination and a future of internal strife

Fidel Castro's health: An interview with Cuban essayist Carlos Alberto Montaner

By Claudia Martínez

Special correspondent for the Argentine newspaper Clarín
claudiam@clarin.com

MIAMI -- Cuban journalist and author Carlos Alberto Montaner, born in Cuba in 1943, divides his time between his home in front of Retiro Park in Madrid and his apartment with a view to the bay on Brickell Avenue, Miami. Fidel Castro's sudden surgical operation and the transfer of power to his brother Raúl found Montaner here in Miami, where he spoke with Clarín.

—Is Fidel dead or not?

—I think he's dying. That operation, at his age, is highly risky. In any case, if he doesn't die at this time, he will go through a long convalescence where any complication could happen. Even so, Fidel has a very special temperament and character, and he won't sit on a chair to look at ongoing events without intervening. And he didn't place Raúl at the helm because he though Raúl was the right person for the job but because Raúl is loyal. For the time being, however, it suits Raúl for his brother to lie in bed. While Fidel is alive, he gives Raúl time to consolidate his control over the power structure.

—What will happen later, if Fidel recovers?

—It will be hard for Fidel to recover sufficiently to return to power. That wouldn't be unusual, of course. It happened to Franco, twice. He handed power over to Prince Juan Carlos and as soon as he was taken off the respirator he relegated Juan Carlos to a subordinate position. Fidel most surely will try something like that if he recovers. If the convalescence is long, Raúl may attempt some reforms in the economic field. In the 1980s, he attempted them within the army. He is a ferocious foe of political freedoms but is in favor of economic freedom.

—What kind of reforms?

—He will begin a process in the Vietnamese or Chinese pattern. An iron-clad political dictatorship with economic openings. Raúl does not carry his brother's ideological burden.

—What's the relationship between Fidel and Raúl like?

—The relationship is one of total subordination. To a paranoid person like Fidel, Raúl offers an absolute guarantee of total submission. Ever since childhood, Fidel never changed. He even mistreated Raúl in public on several opportunities. According to Alcibíades Hidalgo [former Cuban ambassador at the United Nations], Fidel's punishment was to not greet Raúl, who wilted and became very sad. To regain his brother's greeting, Raúl toured the army barracks. The two brothers are very different. Raúl is a man with a liver riddled with alcohol and some of his proclivities are very different from his brother's -- more rural, one might say. He likes cockfights, and amuses himself by getting together with his cronies and telling off-color jokes. Even so, he's a lot better administrator than Fidel.

—They're different physically, too.

—Well, people say they don't share a common father. The word in Cuba is that Raúl was actually the son of colonel Mirabal, chief of the National Guard in Birán, where the Castros were born. Mirabal later became Interior chief in [Fulgencio] Batista's government and died in prison. It was said that Mirabal was not put before a firing squad precisely because he was Raúl Castro's father. I once asked Mirabal in prison, and he neither acknowledged nor denied it. But he told me: "Never again ask me that question. It is very dangerous."

—Is it true that Raúl used [writer Gabriel] García Márquez as an intermediary to Fidel?

—Because Raúl was so afraid of Fidel, yes, he used García Márquez to pass on the messages he didn't dare deliver in person. The fact is that Fidel Castro exercises leadership on the basis of intimidation.

—Can we expect internal strife in Cuba?

—It's inevitable. It always happens when the leadership is questionable -- and Raúl's leadership is.

—Do the people accept it?

—In totalitarian societies, the people learn to obey. It takes a long time for rebelliousness to brew. A syndrome of acquired defenselessness spreads. People realize they can do nothing to change reality and they learn to pretend. After Fidel dies, his funeral will be a huge theater of sorrow, where gestures of pain will be displays of reverence to the caudillo's memory. But I witnessed Franco's death and saw that, even as his corpse cooled, the Franquistas conspired among themselves to see how they could rid themselves of his uncomfortable legacy.

This interview was published Aug. 4, 2006, in the Argentine daily Clarín. Translated by Firmas Press.

October 15, 2006

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