Fidel Castro Resigns as Cuba’s President
Says He Will Not Seek a New Term

MEXICO CITY — Fidel Castro stepped down Tuesday morning as the president of Cuba after a long illness, ending one of the longest tenures as one of the most all-powerful communist heads of state in the world, according to Granma, the official publication of the Cuban Communist Party.

In late July 2006, Mr. Castro, who is 81, handed over power temporarily to his brother, Raúl Castro, 76, and a few younger cabinet ministers, after an acute infection in his colon forced him to undergo emergency surgery. Despite numerous surgeries, he has never fully recovered but has remained active in running government affairs from behind the scenes.

Now, just days before the national assembly is to meet to select a new head of state, Mr. Castro resigned permanently in a letter to the nation and signaled his willingness to let a younger generation assume power. He said his failing health made it impossible to return as president.

“I will not aspire to neither will I accept — I repeat I will not aspire to neither will I accept — the position of President of the Council of State and Commander in chief,” he wrote.

He added: “It would betray my conscience to occupy a responsibility that requires mobility and the total commitment that I am not in the physical condition to offer.”

President Bush, traveling in Rwanda on a tour of African nations, greeted the news by saying that the resignation should be the beginning a democratic transition in Cuba that would lead to free elections. “The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of liberty,” he said.

Mr. Bush called for Cuba to release political prisoners and to begin building “institutions necessary for democracy that eventually will lead to free and fair elections.”

But the announcement puts Raúl Castro in position to be anointed as the Cuban head of state when the National Assembly meets on Sunday, cementing the power structure that has run the country since Mr. Castro fell ill.

However, Mr. Castro’s unexpected announcement left it unclear what role other high-level government ministers — among them the vice president, Carlos Lage Davila, and the foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque — would play in the new government.

Mr. Castro also made it clear he is not fading into the sunset but pledged to continue to be a force in Cuban politics through his writings, just as he has over the last year and a half. “I am not saying goodbye to you,” he wrote. “I only wish to fight as a soldier of ideas.”

That statement raised the possibility little would change after Sunday’s vote, that Cuba will continue to be ruled in essence by two presidents, with Raúl Castro on stage while Fidel Castro lurks in the wings. At times over the last year and a half, the current government has seemed paralyzed when the two men disagree. For his part, Mr. Castro has sent several signals in recent months that it was time for a younger generation to take the helm. He said in December, for example, “My primary duty is not to weld myself to offices, much less obstruct the path of younger people.”

In Tuesday’s letter, he expressed confidence that the country would be in goods hands with a government composed of elements of “the old guard” and “others who were very young when the first stage of the revolution began.”

Mr. Castro asserted he declined to step down earlier to avoid dealing a blow to the Cuba government before “the people” were ready for a traumatic change “in the middle of the battle” with the United States over control of the country’s future. “To prepare the people for my absence, psychologically and politically, was my first obligation after so many years of struggle,” he said.

The charismatic Cuban leader seized power in January 1959 after waging a guerrilla war against the then-dictator Fulgencio Batista, promising to restore the Cuban constitution and hold elections.

But he soon turned his back on those democratic ideals, embraced a totalitarian brand of communism and allied the island with the Soviet Union. He brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in the fall of 1962, when he allowed Russia to build missile launching sites just 90 miles off the American shores. He weathered an American-backed invasion and used Cuban troops to stir up revolutions in Africa and Latin America.

Those actions earned him the permanent enmity of Washington and led the United States to impose decades of economic sanctions that Mr. Castro and his followers maintain have crippled Cuba’s economy and have kept their socialist experiment from succeeding completely.

The sanctions also proved handy to Mr. Castro politically. He cast every problem Cuba faced as part of a larger struggle against the United States and blamed the abject poverty of the island on the “imperialists” to the north.

For good or ill, Mr. Castro is without a doubt the most important leader to emerge from Latin America since the wars of independence of the early 19th century, not only reshaping Cuban society but providing inspiration for leftists across Latin America and in other parts of the world.

His record has been a mix of great social achievements, but a dismal economic performance that has mired most Cubans in poverty. He succeeded in establishing universal health care, providing free education through college and largely rooting out racism.

But he never broke the island’s dependence on commodities like sugar, tobacco and nickel, nor did he succeed in industrializing the nation so that Cuba could compete in the world market with durable goods. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of its aid to the island, Cuba has limped along economically, relying mostly on tourism and money sent home from exiles to get hard currency.

Yet Mr. Castro’s willingness to stand up to the United States and break free of American influence, even if it meant allying Cuba with another superpower, has been an inspiration to many Latin Americans, among them the new crop of left-leaning heads of state like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil..

Though he never restored democracy and has ruled with absolute power, in the minds of many Latin Americans, he stood in stark contrast to right-wing dictators like the one he overthrew, who often put the interests of business leaders and the foreign policy goals of Washington above the interests of their poorest constituents.

Whether Mr. Castro’s remaking of Cuban society will survive the current transition remains to be seen. Some experts note Raúl Castro is more pragmatic and willing to admit mistakes than his brother. He has given signals he might try to follow the Chinese example of state-sponsored capitalism.

Others predict that, without Fidel Castro’s charismatic leadership, the government will have to make fundamental changes to the economy or face a rising tide of unrest among rank-and-file Cubans.

SOURCE

I have this fucker on my work Death Pool, let's hope his resignation is related to his health.

In Miami, Cuban Exiles Unmoved

Cuban exiles in the United States reacted coolly on Tuesday to the overnight news that Fidel Castro was resigning the presidency of Cuba, an island he has ruled with an iron fist for almost 50 years.

With Mr. Castro’s younger brother Raúl, who has been running the country for a year and a half, seen as most likely to succeed him, many said they expect the system of communist central control to continue unchanged.

Modest crowds gathered under gloomy skies in Miami’s Little Havana district, to the west of the main downtown core, but the excitement level was limited. Some Cuban flags were displayed, and signs saying “No Castro, No Problem” were waved.

Virgilio Hernandez, 67, who came to the United States from Cuba as a child, said: “Castro is known in all parts of the world as a horrible man. But the manipulation will continue under Raúl. Things will not change until we have a real election.”

People on the scene said the celebration at the end of July 2006, when Fidel Castro announced that said illness was forcing him to turn over day-to-day leadership of the country to Raúl Castro, were larger because the action seemed to signal Fidel Castro’s imminent demise.

Some Cuban exiles in Miami said on Tuesday that any real change would have to come within the country’s military, which Raúl Castro has commanded for decades. Even without Fidel Castro, one man said, there are a “bunch of auxiliary gang members who don’t want to see change.”

Responses in the Cuban community in Hudson County, N.J., were similarly restrained. “It was about time for him to step down,” said Orencio Fernandez, 64, while speaking to people in a bakery on Bergenline Avenue in West New York, N.J. “But he’s not dead yet. Things will change in Cuba when he dies and his brother dies, because the brother will carry on the same way.”

Mr. Fernandez, who lives in nearby North Bergen, said he heard about Fidel Castro in a news broadcast and went to the Web site of the Communist party newspaper in Cuba to print out the announcement. He was showing it to people as they came into the bakery.

A. R. Fernandez, a printer who left Cuba in 1960, looked at it and said: “It will continue. The brother took power. The older generation is still in power.”

Representative Albio Sires, Democrat of New Jersey, who once was mayor of West New York, said, “The first thing that struck me is, obviously, he is very ill, otherwise he would not have surrendered the reins after 50 years.”

With Fidel Castro out of the picture, Mr. Sires said, “I’m hoping that this leads to democracy in Cuba — that Raúl will start making moves in areas of freedom of the press, release of political prisoners and in terms of setting up elections.”

“The people of Cuba have been very patient the last 18 months” since Fidel Castro first relinquished power, he said. “I think the people of Cuba want change.” Mr. Sires was 10 years old when his family fled Cuba in 1962 with the help of relatives.

Senators John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who are running for president, issued separate calls for the release of political prisoners in Cuba.

“Fidel Castro’s stepping down is an essential first step, but it is sadly insufficient in bringing freedom to Cuba,” Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, said in his statement. “Cuba’s future should be determined by the Cuban people and not by an anti-democratic successor regime. The prompt release of prisoners on conscience wrongly jailed for standing up for the basic freedoms too long denied to the Cuban people would mark an important break with the past.”

Senator McCain, Republican of Arizona, said that despite Mr. Castro’s action, “freedom for Cuba is not yet at hand.”

“We must press the Castro regime to release all political prisoners unconditionally, to legalize all political parties, labor union and free media, and to schedule internationally monitored elections,” Mr. McCain said in a statement.

Mr. Obama also said that the United States should be prepared to take steps to normalize relations with Cuba and to ease the longstanding embargo on trade with the island nation, if its government “begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change.”

But the United States has indicated that there are no immediate plans to lift the embargo. Senator Clinton, Democrat of New York, said in her statement, “I would say to the new leadership, the people of the United States are ready to meet you if you move forward towards the path of democracy, with real, substantial reforms.”

Mr. Castro’s resignation letter, published on the Web site of the state-run newspaper Granma in the middle of the night, comes just ahead of a Sunday meeting of the National Assembly, the group that formally chooses Cuba’s governing Council of State, including the presidency that Fidel Castro has held for almost five decades. Mr. Castro, 81, said he would not seek or accept a fresh term in office from the assembly, which he and his party control.

Although declining to remain president, Mr. Castro said he would comment on events in Cuba: “I shall continue to write under the title ‘Reflections of Comrade Fidel.’ It will be another weapon you can count on. Perhaps my voice will be heard.”

SOURCE

Why would Cuba make the announcement of his retirement at 3am? I think the fucker died last night. A few days after Raoul is installed as El Presidente for Life, Cuba will let everyone in on the gag.

nothing change

I hope not, it's a fucking paradise for us right now.

Remember it's the US that won't allow US visitors - the Cubans will take your money just as quickly as they take mine.

Back to your cubicle [Name Removed]

And back to carrying Moxie's water for you, Gunga Din. Personally, I think that's a worse job description than Assistant Crackwhore.

Cubans are Jews who speak spanish (financially way)