A week after surgery forced him to put his brother in charge of the island he has dominated for 47 years, Cuban leader Fidel Castro remained out of sight and out of power, but was said to be on the road to recovery.
Cuban officials and Latin American allies said the 79-year-old former guerrilla fighter was recuperating from gastric surgery but faced weeks of convalescence.
Their statements were short on detail and appeared aimed at ending speculation about whether the long-time United States antagonist was still alive but without raising expectations for a rapid return to power.
”The news we have is that he continues progressing well. It will be a number of weeks, but he is going to recover,” Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage said in Sucre, Bolivia, where he had travelled for the opening of a constitutional assembly.
A mid-level Havana party member told Reuters that Castro was out of intensive care and ”doing as well as can be expected for his age,” but may have to reduce his workload.
One of the world’s longest-ruling leaders, Castro is admired by many in the Third World as a fighter for social justice. He is also vilified by critics, most notably the United States and Cuban exiles in Miami, who see him as a tyrant who has brought Cuba to the verge of economic ruin.
He put brother Raul (75) in charge of Cuba while he recovers from the surgery.
Up and about
In Caracas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close ally and economic backer of Cuba, said on Sunday that Castro was able to converse and leave his bed.
”He’s already standing up out of bed, he’s talking — more than he should, because he talks a lot,” Chavez said during a conversation with Bolivian President Evo Morales broadcast on television.
Colombia’s Marxist rebel group Farc posted a greeting on its website wishing Castro a swift recovery and sending him ”a fraternal socialist and Bolivarian salute of solidarity”.
The group, branded terrorists and drug-traffickers by US and Colombian authorities, has long claimed Castro’s communist revolution as an inspiration for its four-decade battle to install socialism in Colombia.
The Cuban government has not revealed the exact nature of Castro’s illness on grounds that it is a state secret.
The surgery was announced on July 31 to have been for internal bleeding caused by overwork and stress. Cuban officials have denied a report that Fidel has stomach cancer.
Cuba watchers in the United States said that whether Castro’s condition is terminal or not, the transition of his government has begun.
”If we have a debilitated Fidel and an aging Raul, where Fidel would die in the near future and Raul will take the reigns for a few years, enough time will pass for Raul to prepare the landscape for when he is gone,” said Frank Mora, a Cuba expert at the National War College in Washington.
”However, we would go from a first among equals to all being equal … This suggests a power struggle or certainly some serious political maneuvering among the successors, each claiming to speak on behalf of the Fidel-Raul legacy.” – Reuters