CUBA;Re: Fidel and Raul duke it out, it would appear.

Tim Ashby responds: " Reports of a power struggle between Fidel and Raul Castro are spurious.  Raul's loyalty to Fidel is indeed unconditional, and Raul seems content to serve as de facto CEO of the Cuban armed forces business empire.  Lage (whom I met with in London several years go) has been managing government operations for some time, and walks a fine line between doctrinaire Marxists and reformists. Raul Castro, Cuba's defense minister and designated successor to elder brother Fidel, is chairman of Grupo de Administracion Empresarial S.A. or GAESA (Enterprise Management Group Inc.) the holding company for the Cuban Defense Ministry's vast business interests.  Among GAESA's subsidiaries are Gaviota S.A., which directly controls 20-25 percent of Cuba's hotel rooms in partnership with foreign hoteliers, and Aerogaviota, a domestic airline flown by Cuban air force pilots.   Under GAESA's management team (military officers with MBA degrees), Cuba's military-industrial complex, the Union de la Industria Militar (Defense Industry Group), provides outsourcing services, such as rental car maintenance and tour bus repairs, to foreign companies and joint ventures on the island.  Spain's Sol Melia and France's Club Mediterranee are among Gaviota's venture partners in joint management and marketing of Gaviota-owned hotels and resorts throughout Cuba.  Gaviota reportedly controls 8,539 of the island's roughly 40,000 hotel rooms. Raul is more pragmatic than Fidel and not as doctrinaire and stupid as he often seems to foreigners.  For example, he introduced the Sistema de perfeccionamiento empresarial (SPE) or œenterprise management improvement system, that streamlined the Cuban military's operations.

In November 1997, Raul Castro went to China "to learn more about China's experience in economic construction.  According to Domingo Amuchastegui, formerly with Havana's Higher Institute of International Relations, "when Raul Castro went to China [in 1997], he spent long hours talking to Zhu [Rongji, Chinese premier and architect of economic reforms under Jiang Zemin] and invited [Zhu's] main adviser to Cuba.   Some Cuba analysts see parallels between Cuba's FAR and China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), particularly with the PLA's "bingshang," or military officers turned businessmen, and their pivotal role in the Chinese authoritarian transition to a market-oriented economy. I agree with Bill Ratliff that if Raul survives Fidel he will probably establish a cooperative government or junta with several of the current top leaders, who will subsequently make him a figurehead presidente, and undertake comprehensive Chinese-style economic reforms, thus maintaining power for themselves while improving Cuba's economy.".