Americas Features
Cubans consider life without historical leader Castro
By Franz Smets
Aug 2, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Havana - Cubans have remained eerily quiet since hearing of the serious illness of President Fidel Castro.

Most of the country's population has not known a government other than the communist regime under Castro and his brother Raul, who appears to have made the transition from eternal deputy to clear successor, after taking the reins of power Monday due to Fidel's illness.

For many people in the last communist state in the Western world, there is little reason to celebrate the announcement.

While the seriousness of Castro's condition is unclear, those who remain loyal to the regime are anxious because they fear the end may be near, while the rest feel insecure because they do not know whether or not this is the long-awaited moment that will lead to a new beginning.

'Everything is going to stay like he has meant it to,' said Angel Rodriguez, a petrol station attendant in the Southern port of Trinidad. 'We are doing well. But there should still be changes, that is of course the point of revolutions.'

The supposedly temporary ceding of power by a man who for half a century determined the thoughts, actions and destinies of his people, sparked a rumour-mill in Havana as soon as Monday's announcement was made.

Among its products was the possibility that Fidel might already be dead, or alternatively that the whole thing is in fact just a practise run for the power transfer which will eventually have to take place.

Publicist Reinaldo Escobar considers this to be the beginning of 'Fidelism,' a phenomenon he says will him spread through Cuba once Fidel Castro dies and his acolytes rise to power.

According to official announcements, the Cuban leader has only transferred power to his brother on a temporary basis. This means that Fidel Castro, who turns 80 on August 13, counts on recovering and returning to office.

'Do we really want that?,' many people in the largest island in the Antilles are asking themselves. Many already regard the revolutionary leader, for all his achievements, as a historical figure.

Every morning thousands of people wait at crossroads in villages and towns, or under the bridges of national roads, for an inadequate public transport to get them to work, school, shops or markets. It is obvious that they long for improvements in their lives and the meeting of their most basic needs.

Even the regime's critics see Raul Castro and the men around him as Cuba's only current option without Fidel.

'We hope that this means an opening of the country,' said dissident Manuel Cuesta Murua, of the Arco Progresista group.

The Cuban Catholic Church, currently the only other power besides the regime that is present in all parts of the country, also speaks of a transition with Raul.

Dagoberto Valdez, chief editor of the critical catholic magazine 'Vitral' hopes that cautious reforms are undertaken under Raul, maybe even with the financial help of Cuban exiles in the US state of Florida.

'It would be a catastrophe if the successors did not manage to clear up the mess after 47 years of economic mismanagement,' said Valdez, who also leads a centre for civic education under the auspices of the Bishop of Pinar del Rio, in Western Cuba.

European economists also believe in the possibility of piecemeal reforms, without fundamental changes to the underlying system, in a Cuba after Fidel Castro.