Cuba's Communist Party Expels Member

Cuba's Communist Party Expels Member

By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 51 minutes ago

Cuba's Communist Party leadership said Friday it has expelled one of its younger Politburo members for repeatedly failing to overcome "errors" such as abuse of authority and arrogance.

Cuban officials had once pointed with pride to Juan Carlos Robinson as an example of the island's young black leadership. Robinson, now 49, is from the eastern city of Santiago — Cuba's second largest city after Havana — and had been the party's first secretary for the Santiago Province since 1994.

But the Communist Party's daily newspaper Granma said Friday that Robinson had become "a lamentable and unusual case of the inability of a political cadre to overcome his errors."

Robinson's dismissal comes as Cuba is striving to build up its younger leadership to eventually take over for the original revolutionary leaders, many of whom are now in their 70s. President Fidel Castro will turn 80 in August and his brother and designated successor, Defense Minister Raul Castro, will turn 75 in June.

"Criticized, warned and exhorted more than once by the (party leadership) to overcome his failings, he pretended to recognize them and end them," Granma said. "But that wasn't what happened."

Robinson, Granma said, "had shown attitudes that were dishonest and incompatible with the conduct of a communist, let alone a cadre of the party."

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