The Abegg Love Letters : The Latell Report: Tensions in the Leadership

The Abegg Love Letters

To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ; mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance. -Jude 1:1

As Missionaries with United World Mission, we serve in Latin America to provide support & training to missionaries on the field. We work with Latin Partner Ministries that focus on everything from theological education to medical care, from children’s homes to retirement homes. Our goal is to come along side organizations & amplify their impact for good and the Gospel.

Friday, May 22, 2009

The Latell Report: Tensions in the Leadership

The Latell Report from the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) has a very interesting insight/perspective on the current power structure within Cuba. I’ve included some excerpts below. Please visit: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfh84558_278gccpx8ct for the full article. Eventually it will be available on their own website at: http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/

The Latell Report May 2009

Tensions in the Leadership

It is no easier today than it was fifty years ago to gauge the state of play within the Cuban nomenclatura. In fact it is now even more difficult to assess how decisions are being made, how power is shared and delegated, and who in the leadership tiers below the Castro brothers may be rising or falling in influence. Yet there are numerous reasons to postulate that tensions are greater now than at any time since the Ochoa-de la Guardia purges of 1989.

Most importantly, confusion may well be rampant about Fidel Castro’s evolving role. Almost three years since surrendering Cuba’s presidency --but not his position as Communist Party First Secretary-- he has reasserted some of his historic decision making prerogatives. His health has apparently improved and with it perhaps his dissatisfaction with the quality of leadership that his brother Raul, Cuba’s president since February 2008, has been providing.

Fidel recently overruled Raul by repeatedly expressing intransigent positions regarding the prospects for improving relations with the United States. In numerous commentaries, or “reflections” as he and the Cuban government prefer to describe them, he has insistently voiced strident anti-American views that are rarely repeated with the same acidic spins by other Cuban officials. It seems reasonable to speculate, therefore, that Fidel may be at odds with policy prescriptions developed within the leadership since Raul’s assumed the presidency. Yet, Fidel’s manifestos, now emanating almost daily from his convalescent quarters, carry enormous weight and have never been contradicted or repudiated…

(Please visit: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfh84558_278gccpx8ct for the full article).