HAVANA, Aug 2: Fidel Castro said he was in ‘good spirits’ after surgery, according to a statement read out on Cuban television, but he made no public appearance, as Cuban-Americans in Florida celebrated his decline.
Castro, who has temporarily handed power to his brother for the first time in 47 years, said he was not revealing more about his health in order to avoid ‘benefiting the enemy’, in a written statement read out by a national television presenter Tuesday.
“Given Cuba’s specific situation and designs against it by the US empire, my health becomes a state secret,” he said in the statement.
The communist stalwart, who turns 80 on Aug 13, said he was ‘in perfectly good spirits’, without clarifying the state of his health or future treatment he may receive.
“All I can say is that the situation will remain stable for several days before a verdict can be reached,” he said.
Late on Monday Castro blamed his ailment on the intense agenda of recent trips to Argentina and eastern Cuba, which “touched off an acute intestinal distress with sustained bleeding, which forced me to undergo delicate surgery’.
Parliamentary speaker Ricardo Alarcon on Tuesday assured the public that Castro’s last moment was ‘far away’, and that even after a delicate operation ‘he keeps track of the smallest detail and takes steps to confront any enemy aggression’.
The statements broke the silence on Castro’s condition one day after the announcement that the leader had been sidelined for the first time since he took power in 1959, as he relinquished rule to his brother, Defence Minister Raul Castro.
Raul has yet to make a public appearance since taking the reins, and Cubans have not seen Fidel for a whole week.
“I don’t know if they are trying to prepare us for what’s coming because of his advanced age,” a Havana security guard, 52, said privately. “He is just not up to travelling around any more.”
“It is serious, really serious this time,” said an elderly worker who requested anonymity like most Cubans asked to comment on Castro’s health.
Cuban dissidents were not surprised by Raul Castro’s designation as temporary leader, noting he had already been named his brother’s heir.
“Any doubts over who was going to lead the succession are already cleared up ... it is evident that Raul Castro is going to lead this succession with a revolutionary dictate,” said Manuel Cuesta Morua, spokesman of the social-democrat movement Progressive Arc.
To the north, the United States, which has sought Castro’s overthrow for more than four decades, reacted cautiously.
“We don’t know what the condition of Fidel Castro is. We don’t know the exact facts of this because Cuba is a closed society,” said White House spokesman Tony Snow, noting there was “no reason to believe” speculation that Castro was dead.
Mr Snow also indicated that Washington’s policy of trying to isolate Havana was unchanged.
US EMBARGO: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post published editorials on Wednesday urging the White House to lift the economic embargo on Cuba and to be ready to reach out to a post-Castro government.
In particular, the Times called on President George W. Bush to ‘transcend the ideological fixations of the exile community’ and become the first US president ‘with a real chance to help Cubans build a better, post-Castro future’.
News that Castro had relinquished power sparked hopeful celebrations among the more than one million Cuban-Americans living in Florida.
Cuban exiles in Miami, many of whom personally fled communist rule over the course of four decades, kept up street parties for a second straight day.
“Whenever the death of a human being makes a whole people happy, it is a blessing,” said Paulino Garcia, 65, a security guard outside a restaurant in Little Havana.
And if Fidel lives to return to power?
“I think that some of us here will keel over,” he said.—AFP
