US-Cuba thaw marks end of 'hard Castro-ism'

The decision by the United States and Cuba to renew diplomatic relations marks the end of "hard Castro-ism" on the communist island and a victory for pragmatic diplomacy, analysts said.
Cuban President Raul Castro helped pave the way for Barack Obama to make the politically delicate gesture by toning down the Havana government's anti-American rhetoric after taking over from his older brother Fidel Castro in 2006.

Wednesday's announcement would likely have been impossible under Fidel, the father of the communist island's 1959 revolution, political analysts and diplomats told AFP.
Fidel had carved out an image as the eternal enemy of "American imperialism," an animosity made deeply personal by a string of failed assassination plots by the CIA during the Cold War.
But Raul, 83, has taken baby steps toward economic reform as well as a change in rhetorical style since taking the reins from his 88-year-old brother eight years ago.
Ironically, Raul was long seen as even more of a hardliner than Fidel when he served as his brother's defence minister.
However, he said after taking office that he was willing to negotiate with the US as equals.
The move to end the Cold War standoff likely means the Cuban president was ready to compromise, said one Latin American diplomat.
The release of three Cuban spies from US prisons and an American from a Cuban jail was only "the most visible part of the deal," the diplomat said.
There had been signs of an emerging thaw in US-Cuban relations in recent months.
In October, Cuba has won plaudits including from US Secretary of State John Kerry -- for sending scores of doctors and nurses to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
In another key moment that was broadcast around the world, Obama and Castro shook hands at Nelson Mandela's funeral in South Africa in December last year.
But many observers said the detente originated one month earlier, when Obama told a fundraising dinner in Miami that it was time to admit the United States' five-decade trade embargo on Cuba had failed.
In Cuba, another key change was Raul Castro's willingness to allow Pope Francis to act as a liaison for talks.
Raul has also made symbolically important reforms at home. Moreover, he no longer calls Cuban emigrants traitors or "worms."
He has continued to rail against the embargo and refused to consider ending one-party communist rule.
But he has also brought a more pragmatic style to Cuban diplomacy, winning the support of other Latin American countries -- reflected in the fact that 30 leaders attended a summit of regional group CELAC in Havana last January.