The Cuban Cosmetic Change
Readers may recall that last Tuesday I wrote about Raúl Castro's House Cleaning. Raúl Castro replaced ten high-level posts in the Cuban government.
As I pointed out in that article, the changes came shortly after the release of the Lugar Report on Changing Cuba Policy, after French envoy Jack Lange's visit, and on the same week as the US Senate votes on the $450 billion omnibus bill
In 2003 the European Union imposed sanctions on Cuba following the arrest of 75 Cuban dissidents, of which 55 remain imprisoned. Without any concession on Cuba's part, the EU voted last June to lift the sanctions and restore aid, even when according to the BBC the sanctions did not restrict trade or investment.
Since this is the first time so many Cuban government officials had been replaced at once, the story has been covered by the international media: