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Chávez win bolsters Cuba
succession hopes
By Marc Frank in Havana.
The Financial
Times, UK, December 8 2006.
Hugo Chávez's sweeping victory in
the Venezuelan presidential election this
week could help to ensure political cover
and economic support for the emerging leadership
in Cuba as Fidel Castro fights for his life
somewhere in Havana.
"As long as oil prices stay high,
subsidised and bartered oil from Venezuela
to Cuba will remain a huge source of support
to the island," said Julia Sweig, director
of the Latin America programme at the Council
of Foreign Relations in Washington. "And
precisely because Venezuela is more strategically
important to the US than Cuba, if the US-Venezuela
relationship stays at its current high-pitch,
Raúl Castro will be able to consolidate
the succession in the shadow of the larger
regional tension."
Fidel Castro said in a 68-word message
of congratulations to Mr Chávez:
"I shall be brief, lest emotion betrays
me. The victory was re-sounding, crushing
and without parallel in the history of our
America.''
Mr Castro, after missing a military parade
and other events in honour of his 80th birthday
last week, also failed to meet visitors
such as Bolivia's President Evo Morales,
or call Mr Chávez after his victory,
sparking fresh speculation that his health
has deteriorated.
Venezuela and Cuba have found a strong
synergy, playing off each country's strength
since Mr Chávez won his first election
in 1998. Venezuela received an in-stant
free healthcare system from Cuba that would
have taken years and tens of billions of
dollars to build, and education resources
to help Mr Chávez keep his promise
to teach every citizen to read and write.
Cuba received preferentially-financed oil
in return and, after signing an agreement
with Venezuela in late 2004, payment for
health and other technical assistance that
had been provided free, according to Havana.
Cuba's imports totalled $5.5bn in 2004
and non-tourism service income was about
$1.5bn, compared with an estimated $10bn
(€7.5bn, £5.1bn) of goods imported
this year and non-tourism service revenues
of more than $5bn. The steady oil supply
and billions in revenues from the export
of professional services are fuelling an
economic boom after more than a decade of
crisis.
Most important, Cuba's leaders are now
able to point to a way out of the ideological
and political debacle that followed European
communism's collapse. The lights are back
on, decrepit waterworks and transport are
being gradually upgraded, new housing built,
consumer goods replaced and there is more
food on the table.
"Chávez's election was key,"
a European diplomat said. "Cuba will
now be at least partially protected from
what happens outside the country as the
succession takes place."
Venezuela is using its vast oil wealth
and Cuba its human capital to push their
anti-US vision of a united, more socially-oriented
Latin America at a time of growing restlessness
among the region's poor.
US allies in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua
have lost at the polls to men who blame
the US for the region's woes and favour
a closer relationship with Venezuela, Cuba
and their proposed model of local integration
against US-centred trade pacts.
Venezuela provides the financing and Cuba
the professionals to jump-start each
new leader's social programmes.
Thousands of Cuban doctors and other professionals
are already at work throughout Bolivia.
However, there is some evidence that Cuba's
human resources - about 30,000 of 70,000
doctors work abroad - can no longer meet
the demand, creating strain on health services
and doctor shortages even in Venezuela.
Venezuela and Cuba have launched a crash
programme to train 100,000 doctors from
the region over five years to fill the vacuum.
Most other Caribbean and Latin American
countries, though more moderate, are under
increasing domestic pressure to meet basic
social needs and also favour a regional
integration that includes Cuba, as it increasingly
provides them with relatively cheap services
and educates their youth.
But here the Venezuela relationship is
crucial. "God, imagine what would have
happened with Fidel sick if he [Mr Chávez]
had lost," said a secretary at a Havana
day care centre. "We have fewer doctors
but, so far, the benefits are worth it."
Copyright
The Financial Times Limited 2006
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