Carlos location Dávila

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Carlos Aurelio Lage Dávila (born October 15, 1951 in Havana ) is a Cuban medic and politician. He is a pediatrician and from the early 1990s to 2009 he was a key figure in the Cuban government.

Political career

In 1969 the doctor's son began studying medicine at the "Victoria de Girón" medical faculty. After graduating, he went to Ethiopia as a pediatrician , where he was head of the Cuban group of doctors. He participated as a delegate to the X., XI. and XII. World Festival . From 1976 to 2009 he was a member of the Cuban parliament Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular and from 1980 to 2009 a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba . Between 1981 and 1986 he was First Secretary of the Communist Youth Union of Cuba (UJC - Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas ).

Since 1987, Lage has been one of the four members of Fidel Castro's coordination and support group . With the economic crisis of 1993 he took over the management of the restructuring of the Cuban economy with the aim of adapting it to the new requirements of the world market, which arose through the loss of trade relations with the countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (Comecon) and filled the post of Vice-President of the State Council .

Carlos Lage was also secretary of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers and a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). Lage was considered absolutely loyal to the head of state Fidel Castro, but not as submissive. His two sons, Carlos and César Lage Codorniú, were also high junior officials of the communist state as chairman of the official Cuban student union (Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios) and FEU chairman at the UCI elite university.

Lage is considered to be one of the main architects of the new economic policy after the collapse of the Soviet Union . Among other things, he was jointly responsible for the introduction of the US dollar as a second currency in Cuba and for the development of the tourism industry . Furthermore, as a confidante of Fidel Castro, he represented the head of government on important trips abroad. The relationship with Raúl Castro, on the other hand, was considered more difficult. Although both are similarly pragmatic, they were more rivals than friends. After a corruption scandal in the Cuban tourism company Cubanacán at the end of 2003, its boss was given leave of absence. The then Minister for Tourism was also dismissed and replaced by a military man and confidante of the then Defense Minister Raúl Castro, with the result that the army took control of an important branch of the economy. Lages competencies, however, were trimmed. As a result, Lage was entrusted with stabilizing the energy sector. In 2004 and 2005, the energy supply in Cuba was extremely unstable. There were frequent power cuts, especially in hot summer, so that neither air conditioning nor fans worked. The situation was stabilized with the 2006 “Energy Revolution ” ( Revolución Energética ).

End of political career

As part of a major government reshuffle by the head of state and government, Raúl Castro , Lage, who at times was even traded as a possible successor to Fidel, was relieved of his post in the Council of Ministers on March 2, 2009. One day later he resigned from all political offices in the State Council, the Politburo of the PCC and as a member of parliament. Lage and Felipe Pérez Roque , who was simultaneously recalled from the office of Foreign Minister, acknowledged in similar letters to Raúl Castro that they had made mistakes. Previously, the sick ex-head of state Fidel Castro remarked that some of the dismissed ministers had been poisoned by the "honey of power". "The enemy outside had certain illusions with them," he wrote, without giving any specific details. According to an article in the New York Times , during a house search of Conrado Hernández , Cuban citizen and sales representative of the Basque regional government, footage, possibly made for the Spanish secret service, was found, in which Lage and Pérez Roque, who regularly visit Hernández's farm, were found Parties met that made vulgar jokes about Fidel and Raúl Castro and Vice President José Ramón Machado Ventura . In the summer of 2009, a three-hour video documentary was shown exclusively to party members across the country, showing the misconduct of the dismissed and their assessment by the Politburo under the leadership of President Raúl Castro.

Lage was replaced by Brigadier General José Ricardo Guerra , a Raúl confidante from the armed forces. Since the end of his political career, Lage has lived shielded from the public and the media and has been working in the state health system again since summer 2009. In May 2016, the independent Cuban network newspaper 14ymedio reported, citing work colleagues, that, after having worked in various smaller administrative posts, Lage was now employed in the department for hygiene and epidemiology of a polyclinic in the Plaza de la Revolución district of Havana.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Wulffen : Cuba in transition , p. 141
  2. ^ Carlos Lage Jr: 'La gente tiene que ver que el socialismo también es material' . In: Cuba Encuentro. September 12, 2007, accessed January 1, 2016 (Spanish).
  3. ↑ Student Denies Arrest, Says Criticism Was 'Within the System' ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: IPS news from February 12, 2008, accessed on October 17, 2011 (English)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ipsnews.net
  4. ↑ Der Spiegel 13/2000
  5. ^ Dress rehearsal in Cuba , faz.net , August 3, 2006
  6. ↑ Haroldo Dilla : Morsche Balken , ila 299, October 2006
  7. ↑ Bernd Wulffen : Kuba im Umbruch , pp. 141–144, cf. Google Books
  8. ↑ Cuba / China: Enrich us! The time 01/2008
  9. ^ Spiegel Online Raúl Castro upset government from March 2, 2009
  10. ↑ Granma : Letter from Carlos Lage Dávila to Raúl Castro (Spanish) of March 3, 2009
  11. ^ Fidel Castro: Healthy Changes in the Council of Ministers of March 3, 2009
  12. ^ RIA Novosti Castro explains government reshuffle : Poisoned by the “honey of power” from March 4, 2009
  13. ↑ El País / Mauricio Vicent: Lage y Pérez Roque se autoinculpan en la prensa de sus "errores" (Spanish) of March 6, 2008
  14. ^ New York Times : In Cuba, Change Means More of the Same, With Control at the Top , April 10, 2009
  15. ↑ Financial Times / Marc Frank: Cuba's Raúl conducts purge by video ( Memento of the original from June 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), July 15, 2009, accessed April 25, 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ft.com
  16. ^ Peter Burghardt: The Cuban Signal. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . March 4, 2009, accessed January 1, 2016 .
  17. ^ Tim Padgett: What Lies Behind the Cuban Purge. In: TIME . March 5, 2009, accessed January 1, 2016 .
  18. ↑ CubaNet.org: Nuevo empleo para Carlos Lage (Spanish), July 13, 2009, accessed December 27, 2015
  19. ↑ Zunilda Mata: Alejado de "las mieles del poder", Carlos Lage se dedica a luchar contra el mosquito. In: 14ymedio of May 30, 2016, accessed October 25, 2016 (Spanish)
personal data
SURNAME Location Dávila, Carlos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Location Dávila, Carlos Aurelio (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cuban medic and politician
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Havana , Cuba