Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
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Friends wax optimistic despite doubts about Fidel Castro's health

Friday, December 1, 2006

by: Michael Langan

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): Friends of Fidel Castro, from writers to a film star here Thursday for his 80th birthday bash, had opinions on the ailing Cuban leader's health, but no word on whether he would sit out his own party.

French superstar Gerard Depardieu, Castro's favorite movie actor and a personal friend, said: "Yes, I have had new information. He is doing well."

Cubans' expectations are largely focused on whether he will show up for a military parade Saturday, or perhaps the close of the birthday celebrations Friday. That could shed light on whether the man who led Cuba for more than four decades might ever be able to retake its helm.

Asked about Castro's recovery, Depardieu said: "I have hope that he will pull it off." He did not say if he had met with or planned to see Fidel.

Franco-Spanish author and journalist Ignacio Ramonet also said Fidel was "much better" and working on a third edition of the latest authorised Castro biography. The Cuban edition is called "100 Hours with Fidel."

"I think he is recovering well because we have been working by email in recent weeks, and he has done serious work, which you will see in the book's third edition," Ramonet said. "He has worked hard, so there is no doubt he is doing much better."

Miguel Bonasso, an Argentine writer, lawmaker and personal friend of Fidel, meanwhile said he did not believe Castro had cancer, as reported in some US media. But he declined to speculate on whether Fidel would attend a military parade in his honor Saturday.

"It would be rash to predict" whether Castro will show up, he said, adding: Castro "always has shown great dignity and wants to show himself fully fit." Bonasso has met with Castro twice since his July intestinal surgery.

Fidel has remained absent from the belated public celebrations marking his 80th birthday, which was August 13. The bash was delayed in the hope his recovery would be well along by now.

But he has not been seen in public since he handed the government over temporarily to Raul, on July 31. Few details have since emerged on Fidel's health, which is considered a state secret.

Though almost 2,000 foreign guests came to Cuba for the special celebrations, neither of the Castros showed up at the public events on Tuesday and Wednesday, including a colloquium entitled "Memory and the Future: Cuba and Fidel."

Then Cuba's interim leader Raul Castro was a no-show Thursday as some 200,000 people rallied in Santiago to mark the Revolutionary Armed Forces' 50th anniversary, amid uncertainty about his ailing brother's health.

Since Fidel took ill, "our Yankee enemy, and domestic opponents (of the regime), have received a clear warning not to get any ideas: We have never been stronger, more united or more alert," Communications Minister Ramiro Valdes assured a crowd in Cuba's second-largest city.

Fidel last appeared in a video on October 28 to refute rumors he was seriously ill or even dead, but warned that his recovery would be long and "not without risks."

A letter attributed to the ailing Castro was read late Tuesday to some 5,000 guests at Havana's Karl Marx Theatre at the gala opening of the birthday celebrations.

"I was not yet well enough, according to my physicians, to take part in such a challenging event, so I decided to speak with you in this way," said the letter, read by a state television news presenter.

And some official media comments and graphics during the birthday celebrations have had a decidedly farewell tone. One new graphic run repeatedly ends with an ominous: "Fidel is ... all of us."

Meanwhile Nobel literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 78 and a close friend of Fidel, arrived in Havana for a colloquium on "Fidelista" thought.

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