site.btaBTA's Former Havana Bureau Chief Looks at Castro's Legacy

ESD 11:53:01 28-11-2016
LN1151ES.110
110 - POLITICS - FIDEL CASTRO - LEGACY - INTERVIEW

BTA's Former Havana Bureau Chief
Looks at Castro's
Legacy


Sofia, November 28 (BTA) - Svetlozar Nikolov, the English-language editor of Daily News, was the chief of BTA's Havana bureau from 1976 to 1981. We spoke to him a couple of days after Raul Castro announced the passing of his brother and long-serving Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

1. What was your personal response when you heard of Castro's passing?

I have no strong personal feelings about him. He was not a person to be described simply in black or white, satanized or glorified. But his name will surly go down in history as the name of a big historical figure with all his controversies.

What I remember from my days in Havana is what a pain in the neck his 4-hour speeches were! Then I had to cover those and there was a six-hour time difference which worked against me.

Of course, he was a brilliant speaker, especially at the big rallies in the Plaza de Revolucion which were sometimes attended by over 1 million people. He loved to use simple rhymes in his speeches to stress his political highlights, such as "victoria, gloria and historia" and so on. And people chanted in exultation.

2. What do you think kept him at the helm of Cuba for such long years and with the US embargo?

What kept him in power was his elite secret services and strong army, to start with. According to Cuban sources, there have been several hundred of life attempts against Castro, including many by CIA.

Very importantly, he also had the support of the Soviet Union and the whole socialist bloc.

The other thing is that a part of Cuban people felt a real bond with Castro. Remember that he ousted the corrupt regime of Fulgencio Barista and gave land to the landless peasants and the poor. He carried out serious reforms in education and health care.

I have not been there long years but the TV coverage in the past couple of days showed young people saddened by his death, which means that some still have this respect for him.

But he was a dictator nonetheless. He had little tolerance for political opponents and they were punished severely.

3. Have you personally met him?

I only met him a few times. One time was during the Havana visit of the Bulgarian communist leader, Todor Zhivkov. But I have a particularly vivid memory of another time, at a celebration in the Soviet Embassy. He had with him his bodyguards, all of them as tall as him. He was wearing his trademark olive fatigues and military cap. The embodiment of strength and energy.

At the same time he had those snake eyes that really bothered you.

There was a Polish journalist that we often went together to cover events, and he used to say that Castro had a real mystic control over Cuban people. Once he told me, "Look at his eyes! They look like the eyes of a snake! He is the most potent santero in Cuba." Many people really believed in this in a culture of black and white santeros and voodoo magic.

He rarely appeared personally at news conferences. He gave interviews rarely and mostly to Western journalists.

At the only news conference, sort of, I remember with him, we were seated in a room with TV sets and Castro was in the next room speaking to Dan Rather for his CBS 60 Minutes Show in the presence of few Western journalists. The people from the Cuban Foreign Ministry had warned us that we can be present without participating.

4. What do you think is his legacy for his country?

He was much loved and much hated in Cuba.

Cuba had top-class hospitals and very good schools. They had free school books, uniforms and food. He almost eradicated illiteracy. I remember they had the so called escuelas del campo where they were taught basic farming skills, which was revolutionary at the time and something we are trying to do only now in Bulgaria with the so called "dual education" of learning while working.

He waged a personal battle for ensuring good sugar crop, safra in Spanish. Sugar was a key export and was important for the welfare of his nation.

But the centrally planned economy was a disaster, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Food was rationed and available mostly "por la tarjeta".

Of course, this was always blamed on "the US imperialism and the US embargo".

In addition to his role in his own country, he also played an enormous part for encouraging and sponsoring revolutionary processes in Latin America and Africa. He was "an exporter of revolution" - which earned him global condemnation and criticism, but also friendship.

He was close to eminent literary figures, especially Cuban authors Alejo Carpentier and Nicolas Guillen.

5. You have family in Miami and we know that they have may be the world's largest anti-Castro community. What was their response to the news of Castro's death?

I haven't spoken to them in the past couple of days and I am not sure how happy they are but I remember meeting family people there who had a real hatred for Castro. I attended a family event once with many people, and all of them said that Castro was a poison for Cuba.

At the same time there are people, back in Cuba, who still love him dearly and consider him the father of the new Cuban nation. LN/






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