Fidel factor a wild card at Cuba's May Day events
|
| Published on Saturday, April 28, 2007 |
Email To Friend Print Version |
By Carlos Batista
HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): Cuba's communist authorities are mobilizing at least six million people to mark May Day May 1, but have not confirmed whether President Fidel Castro -- who has not appeared in public since he underwent major surgery nine months ago -- will take part.
"I have no confirmation or information that Fidel will be in Revolution Square" Tuesday for the International Workers' Day events, Salvador Valdes, the secretary general of Cuba's one union group which organizes parades and marches, told a news conference.
In 48 years since rising to power, Fidel Castro, now 80, only has missed May Day events due to travel outside the country in 1959 and 1963.
Valdes also declined to say whether Raul Castro, 75, who took over as interim leader July 31 after his brother underwent intestinal surgery, would be on hand.
Marches in the country of more than 11 million people, led in all cases by "the main authorities," should have a turnout "topping six to seven million Cubans," Valdes said.
A number of international journalists have been arriving in Havana hoping to cover Fidel Castro's return to the public eye after the surgery that took him away from Cuba's helm for the first time in almost five decades. Prior to his illness, most Cubans had never known another leader.
Earlier this week a fitter, less gaunt Castro was seen in official photos after he met with a top Chinese official, in a sign he unofficially is back at work on more of his customary official duties.
That fuelled speculation among many Cubans that Fidel Castro might be on hand at the May Day parade in Havana.
National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon, one of the communist regime's top figures, however said he thought Fidel Castro should take a pass and opt for a television appearance instead.
Cuban officials and ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have given updates on Fidel Castro's health in recent months, hinting he is set for a comeback and defying predictions by his arch-nemesis, the United States that his death was near.
This weekend, Fidel Castro will miss a summit in Venezuela of his closest allies and partners in the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a socialist effort to rival US-led plans for free trade in the Americas. Cuba will be represented by Vice President Carlos Lage.
In addition to focusing on workers' issues, the events in Havana on Tuesday will include a condemnation of the US release of ex-CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, who is blamed for the deadly 1976 downing of a Cuban airliner.
A fierce opponent of Fidel Castro, Posada Carriles was released from jail in Texas on a 350,000-dollar bond on April 19, pending the May 11 start of his trial on immigration charges, and immediately flew to his wife's home in Miami.
He was convicted in Venezuela in 1976 of masterminding the downing of the Cuban jet off Barbados, but escaped from prison in 1985.
He was sentenced to eight years' jail in Panama in a bomb plot to assassinate Fidel Castro during an Ibero-American summit in 2000, and was pardoned four years later.
He was detained by US immigration officials in May 2005 for entering the United States illegally. US authorities have refused to extradite him to Cuba or Venezuela, expressing fears he might be tortured.
| | | | Reads : 236 | | | |
|
|
