Castro hints at retirement but aims to stay involved

HAVANA — Fidel Castro says he won't stand in the way of younger people who can lead Cuba, but he also insists on being "of consequence" until the end of his life. So it goes with the ailing 81-year-old — eager to see others keep up the revolution but reluctant to let go of power.

The real question is not whether Castro will retire but whether it will make much difference in Cuba.

The answer: probably not, as long as he's alive.

Despite much excitement this week over one ambiguous sentence in a letter about global warming in which Castro indicated he will not hold back Cuba's younger leadership, Castro already has settled into a kind of reflective semiretirement.

He hasn't appeared in public in the 17 months since having intestinal surgery and naming his younger brother Raul, now 76, as Cuba's "provisional" president.

But island life has hardly changed under his brother, and the elder Castro has retained a vibrant role in Cuban politics, penning several essays a week and showing up sporadically in official photographs and prerecorded messages.

"The succession in power from Fidel Castro to his brother Raul appears to be a done deal, but the evolution away from Fidelismo will start only upon the death of its namesake," wrote Peter DeShazo, a former U.S. State Department official who runs the Americas program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington.

"When that happens, Raul Castro steps out from behind the shadow of his flamboyant sibling and the beginning of a transition process to a new order in Cuba may commence," DeShazo said in a commentary released Tuesday.

After the Castro brothers, few younger leaders stand out despite the fact that Fidel has made a priority of nurturing fresh talent to carry on Cuba's communist revolution.

Vice President Carlos Lage, 56, is Cuba's de facto prime minister and a strong possibility to be No. 2 if and when Raul Castro permanently assumes the presidency. Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, 42, could be another candidate for vice president or play a key role in the politically powerful Communist Party, which Castro also now heads.

These younger leaders will be vital in any future reconciliation with the United States, which is barred by the 1996 Helms-Burton law from normalizing relations with Cuba so long as either Castro brother is involved in government. The countries have no diplomatic relations, and Cuba remains under a U.S. trade embargo imposed 45 years ago.