Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Wednesday he was eating enough solid food to recover from several intestinal operations that had not been successful at first.
In his most detailed account of his health crisis since handing over power and dropping out of sight 10 months ago, Castro said he spent months being fed intravenously, but has recovered his weight to a stable 80kg.
”It wasn’t just one operation, but various. Initially there was no success and this led to a prolonged recuperation,” he said in an editorial column distributed by the Cuban government by email.
”For many months I depended on IVs and catheters through which I received an important part of my nourishment,” the 80-year-old leftist firebrand wrote. ”Today I receive orally everything my recovery requires,” he said.
Castro has not appeared in public since emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding forced him to cede power temporarily on July 31 to his brother Raul Castro for the first time since his 1959 revolution.
Castro, who gave up smoking cigars 20 years ago, said his greatest dangers now were his age and the abuses he subjected his health to when he was younger.
The Cuban leader gave no indication of when he might show up again in public or resume leadership of the government.
Castro did not name his illness, a closely guarded state secret. The US government, which has tried to oust him for decades, suspected he had cancer and only months to live.
But Spanish newspaper El Pais reported in January that Castro had botched surgery for diverticulitis or inflamed bulging of the large intestine that was complicated by serious infection and needed three operations, including a colostomy.
Video images of Castro released in October showed a gaunt and shuffling old man. Last month, however, images of him meeting with a Chinese Communist Party delegation showed him looking heavier, although still in hospital.
Cuban officials say he has regained 18kg he lost after his surgery.
Castro took to writing editorial columns in March to reassert himself in Cuba. The columns, called Reflections of the Comandante, are published in the ruling Communist Party’s newspapers and read out repeatedly on radio and television.
His articles have attacked his ideological nemesis, the Bush administration, for threatening the world’s food supply with its biofuels plans, promoting free trade and encouraging defections from Cuba.
A column published on Tuesday criticised Britain for building nuclear-powered attack submarines, saying the money could have been used to train 75 000 doctors, treat 150-million people or build 3 000 polyclinics in poor countries.
”For now I do what I must do, mainly think and write about matters I believe are important,” he wrote in his latest column, entitled ”For the deaf who refuse to listen.”
Castro said he had no time to cut his hair and trim his beard to be filmed or photographed.
Besides writing, Castro said he spent his time in convalescence reading, receiving information, talking to his aides by telephone and doing rehabilitation exercises. – Reuters