Raul Castro's appointments, speeches show self-preservation is No. 1 goal

WASHINGTON — Raul Castro has killed all hope that a transition to the rule of law and a market economy will start anytime soon in Cuba. The appointments he has made as well as his first speech as president and his televised conversation with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez indicate that self-preservation is Castro's paramount objective even if he understands the need to shake up the moribund communist state.

Castro's appointments aim to consolidate the old guard, starting with first Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, a fiercely loyal party apparatchik, and including generals such as Julio Casas, until recently Castro's second-in-command at the Ministry of Defense and now one of the five vice presidents of the Council of State. The average age of the 31-member Council of State is 70 — the same age as the president of the Popular Assembly (parliament). The younger generation whose names had been naively mentioned as possible replacements for Fidel Castro — among them Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Carlos Lage, the manager of the island's economy — have been humiliatingly passed over.

Raul Castro has spent the past few decades surrounded by generals politically attached to him. He has given them power — the Cuban military controls many of the state-run industries in areas such as agriculture and tourism that generate some revenue. They will be the backbone of Raul Castro's government.

If this was not enough to signify continuity, take Raul Castro's half-hour speech before the Popular Assembly on Sunday. He assured his compatriots, loud and clear, that he will consult his older brother, whose "analytical capacity" is "intact," on every important decision in matters of state — that is, on defense, foreign policy and the economy. "Fidel is Fidel," he ominously reminded everyone, meaning not just that his decisions will have the legitimacy that arises from the ailing leader's nod but, more importantly, that nothing will change dramatically. This is an obvious signal to the military and the bureaucracy that any attempt to move away from orthodoxy will be seen in the future as an explicit betrayal of Fidel Castro and his revolution. In fact, the statement would be enough to justify the overthrow of Raul Castro himself should he venture into bold reform.