Castro message comes with first photographs

Castro message comes with first photographs
Copyright by Reuters and The Associated Press
Published: August 13, 2006

HAVANA A Cuban newspaper on Sunday published the first photographs of Fidel Castro since his surgery and the Cuban leader, shown wearing a sweatsuit and sitting in a chair, said his health had stabilized "considerably" but that he was not out of danger.

He sent a message to Cubans on his 80th birthday that was published by the youth daily Juventud Rebelde with four waist-up photographs of him speaking on the telephone. Castro has not appeared in public since ceding power to his younger brother Raúl on July 31 after undergoing an operation to stop intestinal bleeding.

One photograph showed Castro holding a copy of the special supplement that the Communist Party newspaper Granma published Saturday for his birthday, an apparent move to show the pictures were current.

"To say the stability has improved considerably is not to tell a lie. To say that the period of recovery will be short and there is now no risk would be absolutely incorrect," Castro said in the message posted on the youth daily's Web site.

"I suggest you be optimistic and, at the same time, always prepared to receive bad news," he said. "The country is running well and will continue to do so," added the man who has led Cuba for 47 years assured his people.

Details of Castro's health are considered a state secret, so there had been little information about his condition or even confirmation he was alive. It is not known whether Castro will be able to resume his government duties.

Raúl Castro, 75, has not appeared in public either, adding to the uncertainty over the Cuba's political future.
President Vladimir Putin of Russian added his name to the list of those sending greetings to the Cuban leader on his birthday, praising him as one the world's most outstanding politicians.

From Moscow, the Kremlin said Putin also wished Castro a speedy recovery and said Russia and Communist Cuba would continue to be "active partners, with the aim of developing ties in various spheres in the interests of both our peoples and ensuring peace and stability."

Russia in recent years has sought to revive relations with its Soviet-era ally. In 2000, Putin became the first post-Soviet Russian leader to visit Cuba.

Manuel Guillot, an official at the Cuban Embassy in Nicaragua, said Saturday that Castro might be well enough to preside over the Nonaligned Summit in September, to be held in Cuba.

A former Nicaraguan interior minister, Tomás Borge, who now serves as deputy secretary to the Sandinista party, sent birthday wishes to the Cuban leader Sunday and said he would attend a special Mass to ask God to help Castro recuperate.
"The obscene noise of the imperialists and their poor followers haven't succeeded in silencing the bells that sound in the hearts of millions and millions of human beings when they hear your name," he said.

On Saturday, Granma said Castro was walking and talking again, and even working a bit. It was the most optimistic report yet since intestinal surgery forced him to step aside as president.

Meanwhile, his close friend and political ally, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, said Saturday that he would visit the Cuban leader. "Tomorrow I will be with Fidel celebrating his 80th birthday," Chávez said at a news conference in Caracas after declaring his candidacy for re-election in December.

"I'll take him a nice gift, a good cake, and we'll be celebrating the 80 years of this great figure of America and our history," Chávez said.

South Florida's Cuban exile community used the newspaper report to criticize the island's government. "Dead or alive, change in Cuba must come now. The era of Fidel Castro must end," said Alfredo Mesa, spokesman for the Cuban American National Foundation.