Lowell Ponte
Thursday, May 18, 2006

Reprint Information

Book on Katie Couric Makes Waves White House: We're Not Subject to FOIA FBI Seeks 2 Mysterious Men on Ferry Publisher: Conservatives Do Read As Much As Liberals Romney Shrugs Off Mormon History Film

On Monday Fidel Castro, the world's longest-ruling Marxist dictator, offered to resign the Presidency of Cuba.

Earlier this month Forbes Magazine listed Castro as the world's seventh wealthiest ruler, estimating his personal fortune at $900 million, almost double the $500 million personal net worth of Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.

"If they prove that I have an account abroad…containing even one dollar," Castro declared in a Cuban television appearance, "I will resign from my position, from my current responsibilities."

Forbes, reported Agence France-Presse, "cited former Cuban officials as saying that Castro had skimmed profits from a Havana convention center, retail conglomerate Cimex and vaccine and pharmaceutical products firm Medicuba to amass his fortune." Forbes also referred to rumors of Castro having "large stashes in Swiss bank accounts."

In 2005, Forbes estimated Castro's secret fortune at $550 million. The Cuban caudillo threatened to sue the magazine.

Story Continues Below

This year Forbes added a caveat: "Castro, for the record, disagrees, insisting his personal net worth is zero."

Might Fidel Castro, at least in some deceptively technical sense, be telling the truth?

Many of the world's richest people control vast fortunes, but their riches are "owned" by trusts, foundations, corporations or other legal instrumentalities. One such person is Teresa Heinz Kerry, the ketchup-heiress wife of 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Senator John F. Kerry.

In 1984 the Democratic Party's Vice Presidential candidate Rep. Geraldine Ferraro for months refused to answer any questions about her and her husband's enormous wealth. At last she held a press conference and released their personal income tax returns. When a Wall Street Journal reporter asked for their corporate returns, noting that this is where people like the Ferraros channel money that never appears on their personal returns, he was booed and loudly told to "sit down and shut up" by other reporters from the mainstream media. Candidate Ferraro haughtily refused to release her family's corporate tax returns.

Fidel Castro has expropriated for his personal use six of the largest mansions owned by Cuba's pre-revolutionary sugar barons.

Castro, as I have previously reported, has launched Cuban restaurant franchises in Shanghai, Portugal, Milan, and Panama. And hotel partnerships in Mexico. And A La Cubana bars in Dubai, Paris, Prague and Warsaw. And even a Coppelia ice cream franchise in Malaysia. Surely these capitalist enterprises have foreign bank accounts over which Fidel Castro has effective control.

But Presidente Castro would tell you that the Cuban Government owns these six mansions and the more than 80 foreign profit-making capitalist franchises identified as of 2003 by the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.

Castro almost certainly takes little or no official salary and pays zero rent and zero taxes. But at his whim he commands far more than $900 million worth of property, resources, money, yachts, personal passenger jets and other goodies to enjoy however he wishes.

No average Cuban citizen (whose pay from a life of required labor in Castro's sugarcane fields is 10 Cuban pesos, about 44 U.S. cents, per month) would dare to demand an independent audit of these things, over which Fidel and his royal heir apparent brother Raoul, head of the Cuban secret police, have total control.

But does this mean Fidel "owns" the mansions and foreign franchise wealth and profits? Or does President-for-life Castro merely "own" the government, the totalitarian state that claims ownership over these things as well as everything and everyone else in Cuba? In today's world, what does "ownership" mean?

And who is richer – a Western businessman who purportedly owns private property but is resigned to living in constant fear of having it expropriated by politicized tax audits, bureaucratic government harassment and politician shakedowns? Or Fidel Castro, who claims to own nothing but has for the past 47 years refused to resign as the absolute dictator of his domain and enjoys, tax-free, all the luxuries of a billionaire?

Editor's note:
CIA Translation of Secret Chinese Military Manual – Details Here
Fidel Castro and His Shocking Ties to Hollywood – Click Here Now

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Castro/Cuba