The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 3/4/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Associated Press In this June 29, 2007 file photo, Cuba's then acting President Raul Castro, right, stands with Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque during a session of the National Assembly of Popular Power in Havana. President Raul Castro abruptly removed some of Cuba's most powerful officials on Monday, including Perez Roque, putting a personal stamp on the government in the biggest shakeup since he took over from his ailing brother Fidel Castro a year ago. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano, File)

HAVANA (AP) - Fidel Castro said Tuesday that two of his closest lieutenants had become seduced by "the honey of power," and hinted that they were demoted because their angling for leadership roles in a post-Castro Cuba had become unseemly.

The article Castro published on a government Web site provides the first official hint of why two of the most powerful and public faces of the Cuban government were abruptly removed Monday in Cuba's largest leadership shakeup in decades.

Castro sniffed at suggestions that President Raul Castro is putting his personal stamp on the government he inherited from his older brother a year ago. He wrote that officials sought his advice "even though there was no law requiring those who named them to do that."

And he said the "two most mentioned" were too eager to advance.

"The honey of power, for which they had not sacrificed at all, awoke in them ambitions that led to an undignified role," he wrote. "The external enemy was filled with illusions for them."

The elder Castro did not name names, but the highest profile demotions were the ouster of Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and the stripping of Vice President Carlos Lage from his post as Cabinet secretary.

Foreign analysts and news media have often described the two as potential leaders of Cuba once 82-year-old Fidel and 77-year-old Raul Castro leave the scene. The next-in-line under Cuba's constitution is Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, 78.

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