From a Washingtonian whose family hails from Cuba:
For most Cubans Castro has been dead for a long time — they have been in the post-Castro transition for more than a year (which the U.S. would have noticed if it bothered to have any contact with the country). Since his brush with death in July ‘06, all of Castro’s official statements — not including a few rambling videos and audios — have been written products of the familiar committee that always takes charge of Communist countries during transitional periods.
In his statement published overnight, he says that during his convalescence, “I was able to recover the full command of my mind.” First of all, that is a funny thing to say; and second of all, it’s not true, as any of the audio or video clips of Castro in the last 18 months readily show; he has trouble completing simple sentences; he rambles in an utterly directionless fashion; he is clearly well into senility. As the Argentines say, “he is more ciao than hola.” Any Cuban can see that Castro hasn’t been in charge of anything in at least a year-and-a-half. So, for Americans, this may be a significant event, but for most Cubans, it’s old news, and in any case, the news in Cuba is propaganda and Cubans have learned not to pay attention to it. So, long story short, I’m sure that nobody in Cuba thinks this is a very big deal.
The key thing to watch for now is the battle for control of the state between the aging Sierra Maestra generation of rebels and the new generation of younger communists who know that they will live to see end the communism and have to worry about what happens next. The older generation is still ruling Cuba, albeit from nursing homes (to use the expression of a former general of the Cuban army). When the new generation starts to play to public opinion instead of party ideology, then you will know that the end of communism has arrived.
The worst thing that people can do is to turn the state of health of this destructive egoist into a determinant of policy. His final victory is to keep the American policy of ostracizing Cuba alive simply by breathing. Meanwhile, Cuba continues to suffer silently, under the weight of problems that are now much bigger and more oppressive than Fidel and his stupid ramblings.