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Weekly Report - 29 March 2012 (WR-12-13)

Papal mass in Havana as Revolution’s saviour undergoes radiotherapy

Expectations for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Cuba were never going to be as high as they were for the visit of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, in 1998 but perhaps because of this they were exceeded. Pope Benedict reiterated John Paul’s call for an end to Cuba’s isolation, but this indirect criticism of the US embargo was matched by some thinly veiled calls for greater political freedom in Cuba directed at the Communist party hierarchy. Cuba’s economic czar, Marino Murillo, was moved to comment that the only reforms envisaged were economic in order to perfect Socialism, but he more than anyone will know that the survival of the Revolution depends to no small extent on the outcome not of the visit of ‘God’s representative on earth’ but of the radiotherapy treatment being undergone in Havana right now by its saviour Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez.

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