Chavez in Castro's Magic Mountain

July 3, 2011

Great column by former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda:

The secretive guest at Castro's Magic Mountain

Chavez's secret convalescence in Havana gives the countries a chance to work out a Plan B

The news photo is evocative: the ancient Fidel Castro at the bedside of the ailing Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, who is currently convalescing in an extended, secretive stay in a Havana hospital.

Perhaps they are discussing the misdeeds of imperialism and the enduring virtues of Simon Bolivar and Jose Marti.

In any event, the scene brings to mind Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, perhaps the greatest novel of the 20th century. Set in the Swiss Alpine village of Davos on the eve of the First World War, the novel revolves around the illness, recovery or death of a dozen or so patients of tuberculosis or "consumption", all secluded in a sanatorium on the slopes of the magic mountain.

Memorable characters inhabit the novel — Madame Chauchat; the grief-stricken Mexican woman known as Tous-les-Deux; and of course the protagonist, Hans Castorp. But at the novel's core are the endless conversations between two patients, Lodovico Settembrini and Leo Naphta, respectively the Italian idealist and the Jesuit cynic, about war, morality, life, death and the saving of Castorp's soul.

Admittedly it's a leap from Chavez to Castro.

Mr Castro and Mr Chavez are not Thomas Mann's creations, and it is doubtful that their exchanges match the philosophical and historical musings of the German novelist. But what is almost as extraordinary is the notion of two strongmen — one a brutal dictator, the other a wannabe autocrat — incapacitated by old age or ill health in the only place where the nature of their ailments can be kept secret.

There Mr Castro and Mr Chavez can try to deal with the consequences of their own demise, given their mutual dependence. In Mr Castro's case, at least, we know he has been ill for nearly five years, though largely recovered now; he is almost 85 years old and lucid only on and off (according to people who have been with him recently); and he no longer runs Cuba on a daily basis.

We don't know what his prognosis may be or how much influence he wields on his "younger" brother Raul, now 80.

In principle, Raul is committed to significant change in the island's ramshackle economy — while conserving total power.

We know much less about Mr Chavez, which is the whole point of the Havana convalescence. Whatever else may be true, the Venezuelan caudillo's claim that he will spend weeks in Cuba because of an emergency operation on a pelvic abscess is not credible.

Cuba isn't respected for its hi-tech, top-level medical expertise. We can better evaluate Cuban social medicine or its barefoot doctors when international comparisons become possible.

Whatever ails Mr Chavez — from prostate cancer to a minor infection — is a mystery. So the explanation for his undergoing treatment in another country is secrecy.

The only other country in the world where the health of a president remains a state secret is North Korea, a bit far from Venezuela.

If nothing is seriously wrong with Mr Chavez (perhaps aside from an ailment that might cause personal embarrassment, given macho considerations), unpublicised healthcare in Havana will allow him to keep everything under wraps and return home triumphantly, whenever medical and political criteria coincide.

Contrariwise, if Mr Chavez is terminally ill, his Cuban connection will enable him and the Castro brothers to plot a course for the future that hopefully — for the trio at least, if not for the peoples of their two nations — ensures continuity of policy and alliances.

Many bets have been lost in the past half-century over claims that Cuba cannot survive without one or another essential prop. Surely Cuba depends on a massive Venezuelan subsidy — hard currency and cheap oil in exchange for Cuban doctors, athletics coaches and security personnel. The loss of that subsidy could well be an insurmountable challenge to the Castro regime's survival.

Similarly, the very notion of chavismo without Chavez may well be chimerical. He has no viable successor, and all the Cuban intelligence and security agents in Caracas would likely prove unable to put Humpty Dumpty back together again in the form of Mr Chavez's older brother, Adan; or his vice- president, Diosdado Cabello; or his former cabinet minister and head goon, Jesse Chacon.

If that is the case, Havana and Caracas have a problem. Mr Chavez came to power 12 years ago. With the exception of the Castros, he is the longest-standing current chief of state in Latin America.

Presidential elections are scheduled in Venezuela for December next year. But the disappearance of the lieutenant-colonel would either force an early vote or create a power vacuum where anything could happen. The Cubans would have scant influence on the outcome, but their fate may largely depend on it. No wonder the Castros want to keep Mr Chavez alive and under their wing, at least until he recovers, or they all come up with Plan B.

Meanwhile, we can just guess what ails Mr Chavez, and what the tropical Naphta and Settembrini are holding forth about on an island "mountain" that is hardly magical any more.