Saturday, February 10, 2007

by Anthony Boadle

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters): Six months after surgery forced him to relinquish power, Cuban leader Fidel Castro is consulted on major issues but does not "interfere" in day-to-day governing, his brother and Cuba's acting president said.

The 80-year-old revolutionary has not reappeared in public since he had emergency intestinal surgery in late July and delegated power to his younger brother Raul Castro.

A video clip released last week showed Fidel Castro has put on weight but remains frail.

"He is getting better by the day. He is doing plenty of exercise. He has a phone next to him and uses it a lot," Raul Castro, 75, told reporters on Thursday night.

"He is consulted on the most important matters. He does not interfere with anything, but he is up to date on everything," the acting president said at the opening of a book fair.

Cuba watchers said Castro's backstage presence will help the political succession under way and his successors' attempts to mend Cuba's battered state-run economy.

"Luckily, he doesn't call me ever," Raul Castro joked, looking at ease in a gray suit instead of his usual general's uniform.

"He calls Lage or Felipe," he said, referring to Vice President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque.

Foreign diplomats in Havana say Perez Roque, Castro's former personal secretary, has told them the Cuban leader calls him up to 15 times a day.

Castro is thought to have suffered from diverticulitis, or inflamed bulges in the large intestine, although his condition is a tightly guarded state secret. His illness was officially attributed to the "extreme stress" of his workload.

Castro is said to be recovering from complicated surgery and digesting food again, but most observers believe he will not be strong enough to resume a full leadership role.

"It's a much better scenario than one in which he simply dropped dead all of a sudden and left everyone wondering what was going to happen," said Wayne Smith, an American expert on Cuba and former head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana.

"The succession has already taken place. Cubans have grown accustomed to his absence and it will be less of a shock when he goes," he said.

Raul Castro, who is believed to favor a more open economy than his brother, has focused on the state's main shortcomings in food supplies, housing and public transport.

"Castro's looming figure may well allow Raul and company to make some tweaks around the edges on economic and institutional efficiency," said Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Washington.

But she said it was hard to see Fidel Castro giving his blessing to a more market-driven economy while he is alive.

"The notion of Fidel Castro not interfering is something of an oxymoron," she said.

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