Cuban Americans are popping open champagne in the wake of 81-year-old Fidel Castro?s resignation Tuesday morning, but their celebration in Baltimore was overshadowed by fears of what lies ahead.
Castro, who stepped down after almost 50 years in power, said he won?t be accepting a new term due to a long-standing illness that forced him to relinquish control to his brother Raul Castro, 56, in July 2006.
“Cubans are very happy today. We can breathe now, there is a breath of fresh air coming from Cuba,” said Dr. Louis Queral, 85, a former Baltimore Harbor Hospital surgeon who was vacationing in Miami when he heard the news.
“Cubans in Miami are excited, too,” said Queral, whose son is Mercy Medical?s chief vascular surgeon, Dr. Luis Queral. “There?s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
The resignation might open the door to democracy in Cuba, but years of broken promises have left many skeptical.
“I don?t want to build my hopes up, because I?ve been doing that for 40 years,” said Steve De Castro, 53, the owner of Babulu Grill in Baltimore. De Castro left Cuba with Castro?s permission in 1968 and reunited in America with his father and brother, who had received permission two years earlier.
“It?s a great time to start negotiating to lift the embargo,” he said. “Our chances are better than they have been in 50 years. It?s time to let the Cuban people be winners. They need food, they need clothing. At the end of the day, Castro?s dying and we still have 11 million people who, if they don?t get help, may die of poverty.”
Raul Castro has hinted at economic reform since he took over as acting president, but some worry he will implement minimal changes to pacify the Cubans to prevent a rebellion.
“Cubans don?t believe anything will change under Raul Castro. Their hopes are pretty dim,” said Rafael Lorente, a lecturer at the University of Maryland in College Park with expertise in U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba.
Lorente predicts a period of silence and little action, because the U.S. military is preoccupied and won?t want to respond to street protests in Cuba or a “rafters crisis.”
The resignation letter is probably a farewell signaling Castro is near death, Lorente said. “In a way Castro has won,” he said. “He got to go on his own terms and quit when he was good and ready.”
“He?s been through an embargo, assassination attempts, the Bay of Pigs, the missile crisis, the collapse of communism and even offers to smash his head in from Reagan and President Bush,” Lorente said. “He made it through all of it.”
