Weekly Report - 17 February 2011 (WR-11-07)

Furious youths camping out in the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana, throwing stones at the interior ministry and waving placards calling for the Castro brothers to go, while soldiers sit by and watch. This image formed part of two opening paragraphs of wishful thinking in El Nuevo Herald this week as it sought to equate Cairo with Havana. If the Cuban government is at all perturbed by any repercussions of Egypt's revolution it is not showing it. Fidel Castro penned a “Reflection" this week expressing support for the Egyptian people in their righteous revolution against oppression.
 
In fairness to El Nuevo Herald, it was cautious about overplaying the parallels. As is should be. Egypt is, after all, an Arab country and Middle Eastern lynchpin buttressed by the US; Cuba, a Communist island in the Western Hemisphere, with comparatively little to do with the rest of the world, and still less the US. Reports of the imminent downfall of the Castro brothers have hardly been lacking since 1959 and yet despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, Fidel's serious illness, and US President Barack Obama's coming to power, to name but three events that were meant to hasten the end of the Revolution, the Castros remain firmly in charge.