WASHINGTON -- Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who brought communism to the Western Hemisphere, vexing U.S. policymakers for nearly a half- century, resigned yesterday as president of Cuba.
"My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath," Castro, 81, wrote in a message published in the Communist Party daily Granma.
But he said his failing health would not permit him to continue as Cuba's supreme leader: "It would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer."
Castro said he would not seek or accept re-election as president of the Council of State when the Cuban National Assembly meets Sunday. The announcement, once unimaginable, seals a transition that began 19 months ago when the ailing leader temporarily ceded authority to his brother Raul while recovering from intestinal surgery.
Raul Castro, 76, long his brother's second-in-command and designated successor, is expected to be elected president by the assembly on Sunday. Fidel Castro, who seized power in the Caribbean island nation on New Year's Day 1959, will retain control of the Communist Party and keep his seats in the assembly and the Council of State.
Raul Castro has hinted at modest reforms to lift the troubled Cuban economy since he became acting president in July 2006. But broader change is not expected, and any moves still would likely require the approval of Fidel Castro, who has been reluctant to loosen the state's grip on economic or political life on the island of 11.4 million.
President Bush, traveling in Rwanda yesterday, said the announcement "ought to begin a period of democratic transition" in Cuba - beginning with the release of political prisoners.
"The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of liberty," Bush said. He called on the international community to work with the Cuban people "to begin to build institutions that are necessary for democracy."
"Eventually, this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections," Bush said. "And I mean free and I mean fair, not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as being true democracy."
In Washington, meanwhile, a State Department spokesman said the U.S. embargo of Cuba would continue.
"At this point, there's no change in our policies," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. "I don't believe that there is anyone contemplating" lifting the wide-ranging economic blockade.
No surprise
Reactions in Havana to news of Castro's resignation were muted. Given 19 months to prepare for the handover, Cubans went about their business as usual, the Associated Press reported.
"It is like losing a father," said Luis Conte, an elderly museum watchman. Or "like a marriage - a very long one that is over," he said.
Island dissident Oswaldo Paya, whose pro-democracy Varela Project has petitioned the National Assembly for a referendum on civil rights and electoral reforms, expressed a cautious optimism.
"The change of a person does not signify the change of a system," he told the AP. "We have always maintained hope, and today we are more hopeful."
In Miami, motorists honked their car horns while revelers shouted "Free Cuba!" The Cuban American National Foundation, the largest and most influential exile organization, urged Raul Castro to seize the "historic opportunity ... to take significant steps toward democratic change, restoring to the Cuban people their inalienable right to self- determination."
Others were less hopeful. Florida's Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart said Castro's resignation meant nothing.
"There has been no change in totalitarian Cuba," the Miami Republican said. "Fidel Castro's absolute power is not based on titles. The dictator's written declarations have the effect of totalitarian decrees, whether signed with the title 'commander in chief' or 'comrade,' or simply with his name."
Jose Basulto, who flew over the Straits of Florida during the 1990s in search of Cuban rafters as founder of the exile group Brothers to the Rescue, said the announcement came as neither a surprise nor a harbinger of change. "They are very prepared for Raul's succession to power," Basulto said from his home in Miami.
State Sen. Alex X. Mooney, whose mother was imprisoned by Fidel Castro before fleeing Cuba in 1961, agreed that the free elections and free markets he has long hoped for "could be held off for a while."
"It looks like he's attempting to make a smooth transition to continue the communist oppression that's worked for him and his inner circle of oppressors so well," the Western Maryland Republican said. "I just hope it doesn't work."
Oriole defector
Orioles relief pitcher Danys Baez, who defected from Cuba nine years ago, said Cubans have seen little change since Raul Castro assumed day-to-day management of the government.
"People talk about changes, things are going to happen, but nothing's happened yet," Baez said at the Orioles' spring training facility in Fort Lauderdale. He said he didn't "want to talk too much about it" because he still has family in Cuba.
Raul Castro has long been seen as the pragmatic, sometimes ruthless right-hand man to his more ideological elder brother. After Fidel Castro gained control of Cuba, Raul Castro oversaw the execution of soldiers loyal to the dictator Fulgencio Batista. He has been second-in-command of a police state that has imprisoned and tortured political opponents.
At the same time, when the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s cost Cuba its principal patron, it was Raul Castro who pushed Fidel to soften the blow for ordinary Cubans by allowing some small-scale private enterprise. As minister of defense, Raul Castro built the Revolutionary Armed Forces into the most powerful institution on the island, with lucrative holdings in tourism, manufacturing and agribusiness.
Since assuming day-to-day management of the government, he has lamented Cuba's "excessive prohibitions" and spoken of the need for "structural changes" to boost agricultural output. He offered last year to open a dialogue with Washington - once Bush has left office.
A brake on reform
Edward Gonzalez, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, says Fidel Castro might still act as a brake on Raul's reformist impulses. In addition to the formal roles that he retains, the elder Castro plans to continue writing his influential essays, "as a soldier in the battle of ideas ... another weapon you can count on."
"There's still a state of limbo as long as he's around," Gonzalez said. "He'll call up Raul and say, 'What are you doing?'"
Dan Erikson, director of the Cuba Project at the independent Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, sees only "incremental types of economic reforms" in the near future.
"Nothing that looks remotely like capitalism as Americans envision it," Erikson said. "But there will be modest changes in Cuba. I don't see any evidence of a democratic uprising on the one hand or the government holding free elections and embracing democracy on the other."
Rep. Jeff Flake, a longtime critic of U.S. policy on Cuba, called yesterday for a new approach.
"The U.S. embargo gave Fidel a tremendous advantage in terms of lengthening his tenure," said the Arizona Republican, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "Let's not give his successor the same advantage by keeping the embargo in place."
matthew.brown@baltsun.com
nick.madigan@baltsun.com
Sun reporters Bradley Olson and Roch Kubatko contributed to this article.