Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Castro recovering, says senior aide

Thursday, August 3, 2006

by: Esteban Israel

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters): Cuba's Fidel Castro is "very alert" and resting after stomach surgery, a senior aide said on Wednesday, but the man who has governed for 47 years has not appeared in public since standing down temporarily this week.

There was also no sign of younger brother Raul, who took over power provisionally on Monday from Castro, 79, the world's longest-ruling head of government.

Ricardo Alarcon, head of the national assembly and a close Castro aide, told a U.S. radio program he had spoken to the veteran communist leader on Tuesday.

"He's in, I would say, a normal period of recovery after an important surgery, that's essentially what I would say, but very alive and very alert," Alarcon told the Democracy Now! show.

A leading Cuban exile group in Miami called for Cuban military officials and civilians to establish a provisional government to "end the dictatorship of the Castro brothers" but the streets of Havana were quiet.

There was a small increase in police presence in poorer parts of the capital and communist neighborhood organizations said that "rapid response groups" used to put down riots in the past had been activated.

Some Cubans with relatives in the security forces said military and other uniformed personnel had been mobilized in barracks and police stations as a precaution.

"Our guns are oiled," said one neighborhood organizer, Rolando Gomez, 75, in Havana's decaying downtown. The committees are usually unarmed.

"We're putting the people's war into practice," he said.

Castro has not been seen in public since July 26 and the scant information about his condition has sparked rumors among exiles in the United States that he could be dead or merely running a "dress rehearsal" for his succession.

Defense Minister and younger brother Raul Castro, 75, has taken over the reins of the ruling Communist Party, the post of commander-in-chief of the armed forces and president of the executive council of state.

Raul, who commands loyalty in the army and police, is seen as competent although some foreign analysts doubt he has the charisma to hold the system together.

"We don't know what's going on. We're waiting for Raul to speak," said Vilma Gutierrez, a mother of three who works in a ramshackle state-owned shop selling subsidized potatoes and bananas. Her part of town saw riots in 1994 during the economic crisis set off by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Putting a finger to her lips, she said: "People are keeping their mouths shut. They don't know what's going to happen."

Havana's Carnival parade, due to start in the coming days, was postponed, the state news agency AIN said.

In Miami, Cuban American National Foundation Chairman Jorge Mas Santos said the end of the Fidel Castro era was at hand and that those opposed to Raul succeeding him as president should take charge.

"We are asking those in the military in Cuba to take hold of their own future to establish a provisional authority with the civil and military members of Cuba who do not want this succession of power," Mas Santos told a news conference.

The White House, which has said it will not relax its embargo on Cuba even if Raul takes over permanently, urged exiles in the United States not to try to cross the narrow straits from Florida and said Cubans should not leave the island either.

"This is not a time for people to try to be getting into the water and going either way," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

State television on Tuesday quoted Castro as saying he could give few details on his health due to the threat to Cuba from the U.S. "empire".

Washington has maintained an economic embargo on the island since 1962 and tried to kill Castro several times, once with a poisoned cigar.

Long isolated, Cuba's government has made friends with new leftist governments in Latin America in recent years.

Aymara Indians in Bolivia, run by ally President Evo Morales, held an indigenous religious ceremony to pray for Castro's health.

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