Castro: Dead or Alive

One of the big questions in international politics these days is the health status of Cuban El Presidente Fidel Castro. Spanish doctors have been saying he's either dead or on deaths door, while Cuban officials and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez both are saying he's making a rapid recovery. Castro had surgery on his intestines several months ago but has suffered form complications.

So what's the deal. Well, we cannot be sure. I'm more inclined to believe the Spanish doctors than socialist propaganda factory Hugo Chavez. Everybody has a steak in the future of this tiny island nation due to it being one of the last remnants of the cold war. Cuba is arguably the most successful communist nation (since China is only communist on paper these days). Where as trade has been opened up between former NATO and Communist rivals, Cuba still remains out there. There are a lot of hard feelings between Cuban exiles who fled to Florida following the revolution.
Cubans certainly did not get what they bargained for when Fidel came to power. For people like Ernesto "Che" Guavara, it was hopped that the team would move from country to country "freeing" them from capitalism. Che continued this but Fidel stayed put. Instead of workers controlling the means of production, everything fell to Fidel as the dictator. One of communism's greatest faults is that it can easily fall to tyranny. The revolution failed Cubans and it eventually fell to be another Soviet client state.
Cuba today hasn't changed much. The country has top notch education and health systems, some of the best in Latin America. Still, people are poor. None of the economic problems that the revolution promised to fix were ever solved. Cubans just trader one dictator for another.

Even if Chavez is correct, and Castro is recovering, it's obvious he won't live forever. The man is 80 and will die sooner or later. His brother, Raul will inherit his position as leader of Cuba. Raul though is not a young man himself. Castro is like Lenin to Cuba, he will live forever in spirit. However, there is no way his death could be hidden from Cubans forever. When he dies, Cuba will likely fall into what the Soviets became after Nikita Khrushchev left office. It will fall into corruption, the people will become poorer, democracy will eventually return but Cuba will take decades to recover. Unfortunately, this is always the case with communist states. China is already in this period. Communism is simply a poor theory due to it's huge holes and the fact it goes against basic human nature. Humans are a collective species but also need some aspect of individualism. We don't like to all be treated the same. That's how the corruption develops in the first place.

The key to Latin America's problems is ending government corruption and scapegoating the north. Socialism in not the magic answer since it has failed in every single country where it was implemented. Unfortunately, I cannot see Latin America ever fixing itself in the foreseeable future.