‘He’s 95 For a Reason’: Raul Castro Emerging as a Tough Figure for Cuba

Americans of Cuban descent are emerging as the best hope for an island that has vexed our presidents since 1960, and is now on the verge of collapsing. As attention was on President Trump’s summit with Chairman Xi Jinping last week, the Central Intelligence Agency’s director, John Ratcliffe, flew to Havana for meetings with top figures in the regime. An indictment of the 95-year-old Raul Castro means the regime’s survival is in doubt.Mr. Trump might be looking for a regime insider who can take over and play ball with Washington, as he did with Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez. Cuban Americans, though, are skeptical. “What Trump did with Venezuela works in Venezuela, but it won’t work for Cuba,” a telecom magnate, Jorge Mas Santos, owner of soccer’s Inter Miami, told the Spanish-language El Pais a day after Mr. Ratcliffe visited Havana.Change “could happen overnight,” Mr. Mas, the powerful chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation, a Trump supporter, says. “I estimate that it will be before the end of summer. Perhaps even sooner. We will see changes within weeks.” Cuban Americans, he adds, will play a major role in reviving the island’s economy — providing that a new political structure can be installed. The Cuban army has recently acquired 300 military drones that could hit targets from Guantanamo Bay to Mar a-Lago, Axios reported last week. America is sanctioning conglomerates like a regime cash cow, Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., or Gaesa, signaling that Washington will no longer allow business as usual. Living conditions on the island are deteriorating. The national electric grid has collapsed. Food, scarcely available to begin with, is rotting in refrigerators. Medical services are mostly unavailable. The banking system, such as it is, is off line and inaccessible. While the regime blames America, Washington does allow certain commodities, including fuel and medicine, to reach the island, the founder of the Cuba Archive, Maria Werlau, tells the Sun. Yet as America is “trying to filter that to the private sector,” she adds, even that is “sadly mostly owned by regime people.” Despite hardships, she says, many Cubans are calling on America to further “squeeze” the regime. The Delcy Rodriguez ScenarioWhile at Havana Thursday, Mr. Radcliffe snubbed the regime’s figurehead president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Instead, the CIA director sat in front of cameras with the elderly dictator’s grandson, Raúl Rodríguez Castro, and the minister of the interior, Lázaro Álvarez Casas.While some watchers say that Mr. Radcliffe’s trip was designed to send a final warning to the regime, others speculate that it was an attempt to find insiders who might be prepared to work with America. Members of the Trump team, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, son of Cuban immigrants, seem to know the regime too well to put much stock in such an approach.“The President and Secretary Rubio have stated that they are going to give the regime a chance,” Mr. Mas says. “But it is clear that they do not believe it possesses the capacity for the change that is necessary.”Cuba’s ruthless, unbending regime will cling to power at all costs, a lawyer representing Cuban-Americans with property claims against the regime, Jason Poblete, tells the Sun. “Raul is 95 for a reason: He’s a tough SOB,” Mr. Poblete says. Raul Castro’s LegacyThe more ruthless of the Castro brothers, Cuba’s current strongman maintains the reins despite his age. He concentrates power, money, and control in the hands of members of his clan, sources say. For decades, Raul Castro had no compunctions about executing top communist party insiders whom he considered expedient or suspected of betrayal.“The Raul Castro dynasty controls power” in Cuba, Ms. Werlau says. His sons and grandsons are now squeezing descendents of Fidel Castro out of the inner circle. That is why the Trump administration concentrates on Raul Castro, sanctioning some of the economic instruments of his power.Canada’s Sherritt group recently withdrew its 50 percent stake in Cuba’s nickel and cobalt mining firm, Moa Nickel. The move followed new American sanctions on Moa Nickel, which has long served as a cash cow for the Castros. Similarly, new sanctions on Gaesa, which controls between 40 percent and 70 percent of the Cuban economy, can hurt the Havana elite. Cuban Americans to the Rescue?Moa Nickel is one of the regime’s properties that were nationalized after the Communists took power in 1959. The regime “expropriated property and didn’t pay compensation,” Mr. Poblete, who represents Cuban Americans that lost properties, says. “They paid everybody else,” but “the Americans were never paid.” The confiscated properties, he estimates, are now worth an upward of $10 billion. “Americans, including Americans of Cuban heritage, would welcome the opportunity to go to Cuba and help Cubans rebuild,” Mr. Poblete says.“I’m a firm believer in the future of the island and in the idea that this future extends far beyond merely building hotels and beach tourism,” Mr. Mas says. “We must begin by rebuilding the infrastructure — the ports and airports — as well as restoring civil authority in the cities and municipalities. We must also get the healthcare system up and running again.” Yet “until there is political change, that is impossible,” Mr. Poblete says. Correction: 95 is the age of Raul Castro. An earlier edition misstated the number.

‘He’s 95 For a Reason’: Raul Castro Emerging as a Tough Figure for Cuba

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