Good-Bye Fidel, You Will Hardly Be Missed!

Ray Walser / April 20, 2011

The Sixth Cuban Communist Party Congress and the Cuban people learned on April 19 that Fidel Castro is now fully retired. The Bearded One has become, so it appears, just another private citizen.

Showing up wearing a blue track suit, helped to his seat by an aide, and appearing every day his 84 years of age, Fidel Castro relinquished all party and state posts for the first time in over a half a century.

The four-day Party Congress was convened to accomplish two things: (1) open the doors for a revised economic strategy and (2) rejuvenate leadership on the island.

It accomplished neither.

The Cuban economy is in shambles. The Cuban state is broke. Raul Castro, Fidel’s successor, is dispensing band-aids rather than cures. A modicum of reforms are being introduced in order to accommodate the 1.5 million workers who will enter the privatized twilight zone of Cuba’s non-state sector as they struggle to replace the $24 a month salary they receive from the state. (more…)