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In Tampa, People Hold Little Hope For Quick Change

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By KAREN BRANCH-BRIOSO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 20, 2008

TAMPA - It was an announcement that many Cuban-Americans longed to hear for 49 years.

But a pre-dawn Tuesday Internet posting that Fidel Castro would no longer be Cuba's president came as no thunderbolt.

Coming 19 months after an ailing Castro handed provisional power to his brother, Raul, with little change in the island nation, how could it?

So Tampa's Cuban-Americans reacted with cautious hope. Or little hope at all.

At most, many say, it's the first step of what could be a long transition for Cuba.

"It's an opening. It's baby steps," said Tampa lawyer Ralph Fernandez, an ardent Castro foe bolted awake by a 4:30 a.m. call from a Cuban ex-political prisoner in Miami. He took heart that the leader went out in a weak physical state.

"I want the guy remembered in his pajamas," he said.

Many in Tampa, however, suspect Castro is in a clandestine morgue.

"He's got to be dead or very close to it," speculated Irelio Carvajal, 40, owner of Black Beans Restaurant in Town 'N Country. He came to Tampa as a 12-year-old in the Mariel boatlift.

"You never know in a country like that. The press is not free. Everything is controlled."

Carvajal and others say that with Castro out of the picture, Cubans on the island will be bolder about demanding change. To increase private enterprise. To allow freedom of travel.

Come Sunday, the Cuban National Assembly will name a new president. Raul Castro, as acting president, is among likely successors.

Annia Cuba, 38, who left Pinar del Rio three years ago, said that with Raul in control, there will be no change.

"In the end, it's going to be the same," said Cuba, a waitress at Arco Iris restaurant in West Tampa. "I don't think Fidel's resignation means anything. I wish to God it would, but this was all planned out in advance. This is part of their plan to prepare the people of Cuba psychologically."

Yet Raul Castro is no Fidel Castro. And that, many say, could prompt change.

Maria Espinosa, who left Matanzas, Cuba, nine years ago, is sure of it.

"Raul doesn't have the charisma that Fidel had and who could convince people of things," said Espinosa, 45, an employment specialist with Lutheran Services of Florida.
Raul Castro "can't speak two hours like Fidel would because the people would just leave. He'll have to be more flexible because he can't impose things the way that Fidel did."

Domingo Noriega, 47, a civil engineer who came from Cuba to Tampa in 1981, thinks Raul Castro is more pragmatic than his older brother.

"He knows that Cuba's system - as it exists - doesn't function," said Noriega, who thinks there would be change under Raul Castro, but not large-scale change. "But, the changes will start with him."

On the edge of the Florida Bakery parking lot in West Tampa, a group of Cuban men gathered Tuesday morning. Their voices rose as they discussed what Castro's resignation might mean.

Ibrain Navarro, a West Tampa construction worker, is among the more hopeful ones who think Raul Castro has been discussing an opening in covert talks with U.S. officials.

"I think he's already working on it," said Navarro, 44. "He's intelligent."

Many advocates of easing the U.S. embargo and travel restrictions to Cuba said this is an opportune moment to make that move.

Carlos Cano, a Cuban-American and associate professor of languages at the University of South Florida, said change needs to take place here.

"The U.S. government needs to realize that it has a 40-year-old policy that doesn't work, and it isn't suddenly going to start working," Cano said of the embargo.

"Internally, the regime has weathered the transition" from Fidel to Raul Castro, Cano said. "The change now needs to be in Washington."

Jose Coll, 35, a social work professor who led a group of Saint Leo University colleagues on a trip to Cuba in August, said he thinks Fidel Castro's announcement provides an opening to the U.S. government for talks of democratic transition in Cuba.

But he doesn't expect significant change for now.

"Unfortunately, it's going to still be the same type of system," said Coll, of Carrollwood.

"We had a lot of conversations with citizens around the island, and everybody was already accustomed to Castro really not being in power. There was already a sense of acceptance. It's a formality more than anything else."

Reporters Lindsay Peterson, Keith Morelli and Jose Patino Girona contributed to this report. Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso can be reached at (813) 259-7815 or kbranch-brioso@tampatrib.com.

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