In Memoriam Vilma Espin

The ‘First Lady of Cuba’, Vilma Espin Guillois, has died. The wife of acting leader Raul Castro (and thereby sister-in-law of El Comandante, Fidel), she was a great revolutionary figure in her own right. Like all the best Communists, she came from impeccable bourgeois stock. Her father was an executive with the Bacardi rum company. As a youngster she was based in Santiago de Cuba, in the east of the island, and she joined the revolutionary struggle against the dictator, Fulgencio Batista, as early as 1956 — a full three years before the successful overthrow of the ancien regime. She married Raul in the aftermath of the 1959 takeover and soon established herself as the foremost champion of women’s rights, in the profoundly macho milieu of the guerrilla movement: Fidel, Che and Co.

When the Cuban Federation of Women was founded in 1960, she became its first President, and remained in that post until her death. In that guise, she headed the Cuban delegations to the UN Women’s conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi and Beijing. She had four children and seven grandchildren, belonging to that school of feminists who believe that espousing women’s rights does not mean eschewing family.

When Cuba celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Revolution in 1999, I made a radio documentary for the BBC World Service, and I was both pleased and surprised to be summoned to meet Vilma Espin (in Cuba, one doesn’t so much bid for interviews as get bidden by people who feel they have something to say). We met in a luxurious villa in the Miramar district of Havana. I barely had time to ask my first question before she set off on a discursive ramble about her life, the history of the Revolution and the state of the world and US imperialism. My producer and I recorded the first hour or so, but then mimed putting cassettes into the machine, as we had more than enough material, and it was clear she had no intention of stopping. For three hours she reminisced, without a break. Not as long as Fidel’s classic speeches, of course, but very much of a kind.

It was monologue, not dialogue, and gave no opportunity for probing, but it was of course fascinating. I still treasure the picture that was taken of the two of us afterwards, under a painting of Che Guevara. The rest of the gerontocracy is still in place in Havana, needless to say. Not for long, logic tells us. In 1999, it looked as if a new generation, headed by the dynamic Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina, might take over the baton, but that was not to be, as he was purged in 2002. So Cubans are left wondering what on earth will happen when the Grim Reaper pays his inevitable call.