Castro and Company Open Cuba's Doors

HAVANA, Cuba, Sept. 16, 2006 — -- This week, Cuba used the mystery surrounding Fidel Castro's health to attract attention to the Nonaligned Movement summit in Havana.

With the help of ally Hugo Chavez, the country kicked-off an effort to revitalize the 116-member NAM organization and transform it into a force countering U.S. predominance in the world.

Hundreds of journalists poured into the country. It was the first time Cuba opened its doors to them since Castro underwent emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding and temporarily handed power to brother Raul Castro on July 31. They were far more interested in the 80-year-old revolutionary's health and that of the Caribbean island than the summit.

Cuba obliged: Pictures and video streamed from Castro's secret clinic showing Fidel Castro sitting and then standing as he met a few close allies, who then announced he was giving orders by phone, gaining weight, walking and even singing. Word Castro would not preside at the summit came only as the meeting opened on Friday.

"Fidel will be playing baseball soon," Chavez said after a chat with the commandante upon arrival, proceeding then to spew forth fiery anti-U.S. rhetoric at every opportunity and vow that NAM will become a force to be reckoned with.

"Chavez sees his role as inheriting Castro's international profile," said Frank Mora, a national security expert at the War College in Washington. "He will speak for the abused and the poor as Fidel did for decades. … Raul will be the successor in Cuba; Chavez, the successor in the international arena."

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with Fidel Castro immediately after arriving in Havana, the first personality outside the circle of confidants to visit him since he became ill.

Meanwhile, like a well-oiled machine, Castro's seconds-in-command worked the summit and press.

First Vice President and Defense Minister Raul Castro stood in for his brother, welcoming each country to Friday's summit opening over which he presided. It was Raul's international debut after serving his brother faithfully for 47 years on the domestic front.

Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon gave press conferences and interviews to the U.S. media, insisting Fidel Castro remained head of the country and the Cuban delegation to the summit, thus the NAM president for the next three years.

"If, in fact, Fidel Castro is recovering, the NAM presidency is really the perfect golden parachute," quipped Julia Sweig, Latin America director at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Up-and-coming leaders Vice President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque met some of the arriving participants and gave speeches during the preliminary meetings and activities.

The NAM, formed in 1961 to define interests of the Third World apart from the Soviet Union and the United States, has floundered since the end of the Cold War. It will be difficult to turn the organization, which operates by consensus despite huge differences among members such as India and Pakistan, into a united force.

"Many members of the non-aligned movement do not get along and disagree on basic issues like nuclear disarmament, the need for open markets and democratic values," said Dan Erikson, Caribbean expert at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.

The Cubans learned during the week how difficult a task it will be to lead NAM, as their proposals to adopt majority versus consensus rule and joint Cuban-Venezuela health, literacy and energy initiatives were defeated.

The final declaration of more than 150 pages contained a laundry list of international and regional issues and often contradictory positions, with the only unifying message being that the developing world remains unhappy over the developed world's political, military and economic stance toward them.

While Castro and Chavez worked to make the event an anti-U.S. gathering, many countries that have worked closely with the United States to fight terrorism were present, as were the vice president of Iraq and foreign minister of Afghanistan.

The United States, invited to observe, declined and called for a referendum on democracy in Cuba.

"It's a gathering that has its origins in another era," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington. "And I think it's really up to the participants and the member states to see what it is that they make of this gathering."