End of an Era in Cuba? For Exiles in Miami, Raúl Castro’s Exit Is Just 'More of the Same'
End of an Era in Cuba? For Exiles in Miami, Raúl Castro’s Exit Is Just 'More of the Same'
“It remains to be seen how much flexibility Díaz-Canel will have,” said AS/COA's Eric Farnsworth to Miami Herald.
Enrique Yglesias left Cuba two years ago for a better life. From Uruguay, he trekked to Guyana, across the Amazonian jungle and Central America to Mexico and the U.S. border, where he asked for asylum.
He just arrived in Cutler Bay in South Miami-Dade after his release from detention, so he hadn’t heard: Raúl Castro is retiring from official power in Cuba at 89.
The 36-year-old Yglesias’ reaction? Not much. For Cubans on the island and in Miami, he predicted, the fallout from the news that Castro is retiring from leadership of the Cuban Communist Party will be just “more of the same.”
“I left Cuba because of people like Raúl Castro and Díaz-Canel,” he said, referring to Cuban president and presumed Castro successor Miguel Díaz-Canel. “Every day there is more misery, and they carry on with the same old political nonsense.”…
“Even if Diaz-Canel has an inclination to chart a different course, his ability to do so is presumably circumscribed, so long as Raúl Castro remains alive,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice president at the Council of the Americas in Washington. “So it remains to be seen how much flexibility Diaz-Canel will have, or, frankly, how much he’ll want to have.”…
