el destino

Habana 3/22 -- The ominous mood in Havana the past few days seems to have been justified, with the announcement today that yet another serious health problem has beset Cuba's longtime leader and political mastermind, Fidel Castro. The surprise, if any, is not that the aging president's health is failing, but that his official spokesman has made his illness known to the outside world. The public announcement seems not to have rattled the people in the streets of the capital for the time being. It is almost as if they've been expecting this moment, and its arrival has occasioned both relief and a vague feeling of inevitability.

A member of the ruling party elite, with whom I spoke late this afternoon, admitted that the president's health was failing. But he also insisted that Castro, despite his years is "a bear of a man, able in a single shrug to shed both illness and the boasts of the American imperialists." "He will be back cutting ribbons next week," the advisor, who asked not to be identified in my blog, concluded.

My source was more interested in reviewing developments at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva today, where a number of delegates this morning raised accusations that the United States was training mercenaries who would ultimately be inserted in a Cuban takeover attempt. Cuban delegate, Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez, said in Geneva that "mercenaries are recruited on US territory to carry out...missions against the Cuban people." Reyes proposed that the UN commission send an inquiry team to Florida to verify the accusations, a move that my source applauded.

The mood among others I talked to this afternoon varied. For many, the moment glimmered of il destino. "It has been coming for a long time," one shopkeeper noted. "Rogar para el," the maid at my apartment block whispered, giving the sign of the cross and reminding me how deeply Catholicism resides on this island despite decades of ostensibly atheist rule.

But for the most part, the public went about its business, quietly performing the mid-week tasks that help sustain the island's surprisingly bouyant economy.

I asked the government advisor whether he anticipated any problems when a presidential transition ultimately comes. Not at all, he said. The government is ready, the military is ready, the bureaucracy is ready, he added. And, ironically, the people seem to be ready as well. Perhaps that is why the government is comfortable in announcing today's bad news.

habana hombre

Habana hombre is Senor DIego Ortiz, senior member of the international service union delegation in Cuba.