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Succession gets complicated
By Carlos Alberto Montaner,
www.firmaspress.com. Posted on Tue, May.
31, 2005 in The
Miami Herald.
If Fidel Castro decided to die today, the
wake would be full of people more nervous
than mournful. Raúl, his brother
and heir, might not find it so simple to
assume power, much less exercise it effectively.
Once again, powerful testimony has surfaced
about his very close links to the Medellín
drug cartel during the 1980s, a disclosure
that would be devastating for any head of
state.
Strange as it may seem, in this capricious
world of ours it is more serious and disqualifying
to be a drug trafficker and accomplice in
the shipment to the United States and Europe
of tons of drugs than to be responsible
for thousands of executions and abuses against
democrats and dissidents.
Drug connection
The news came to light some weeks ago in
a report from Televisión Española.
The source was John Jairo Velásquez,
better known as ''Popeye,'' right-hand man
and chief of security of Pablo Escobar,
the Medellín Cartel capo who was
gunned down in 1993. From the Bogotá
prison where he is held for murder, Popeye
gave all kinds of details about the close
relations between Raúl Castro and
the Colombian drug barons. His testimony
was very similar, of course, to that given
by another Colombian drug trafficker, Carlos
Lehder, some years ago.
Without wasting a second, the Cuban government
tried to raise doubts about Popeye's truthfulness
-- he's planning to publish his memoirs
under the Churchillian title of Blood, Betrayal
and Death. But the Colombian hit man's assertions
match to the millimeter the information
already in the DEA's hands, including photographs
that show how military bases on the island
are used for the unloading and reshipment
of drugs.
Those who know how Cuba's intelligence
and armed forces operate find it absolutely
impossible to believe that those operations
could be carried out without the knowledge
and approval of the high command, most especially
of Raúl Castro, competent and meticulous
chief of the military apparatus for more
than four decades.
Extradition
The next step in this truculent episode
lies halfway between diplomacy and justice.
It is possible that the United States, a
victim of the drug-trafficking operations
authorized and backed by Raúl Castro,
may ask the Colombian government to demand
the extradition of the illustrious brother
so that he may respond to these accusations
in a court room, inasmuch as he's not protected
by any kind of immunity.
After all, if Popeye's testimony served
to indict former Colombian Senator Alberto
Santofimio Botero for instigating in 1989
the assassination of liberal leader and
presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galán,
it could hardly be ignored in the case of
Gen. Raúl Castro.
That petition would also coincide with
another made recently by José Basulto,
lead pilot of Brothers to the Rescue, who
in 1996 was the target of an attack by Cuban
military planes against his fleet of three
unarmed civilian planes over international
waters. The attack ended in the downing
of two planes and four young men murdered,
a deed for which Basulto quite justifiably
blames Raúl Castro directly.
Naturally, nobody expects Fidel Castro
to turn his brother over to Colombian justice,
much less to U.S. justice. But the political
impact of this renewed scandal could totally
derail the succession plan in Cuba.
Legitimacy
Cuba's military brass, the Communist Party,
the Interior Ministry and government agencies
are convinced that after the comandante's
death they will desperately need a figure
that will give international legitimacy
to an unpopular, tottering and totally anachronistic
regime. The ruling elite cannot look kindly
upon the rise to head of state of a person
stigmatized by drug trafficking.
Also, it would be highly dangerous, as
shown in the case of Panama after the invasion
that toppled Noriega in December 1989. Nobody
in the world moved a finger to protect him.
It is very difficult to defend drug traffickers.
©2005 Firmas Press
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