Castro “better” on 80th birthday

By Anthony Boadle

HAVANA (Reuters) – A Cuban newspaper on Sunday published
the first photographs of Fidel Castro since his stomach surgery
and the Cuban leader said he had stabilized “considerably” but
was not out of the woods.

He sent a message to Cubans on his 80th birthday that was
published by youth daily Juventud Rebelde with four waist-up
photographs of him wearing a sweat suit and speaking on the
telephone, apparently sitting in a chair.

Castro has not appeared in public since ceding power to his
younger brother Raul Castro on July 31 after undergoing an
operation to stop intestinal bleeding.

One photograph showed Castro holding a supplement on him
printed on Saturday by the Communist Party newspaper Granma, 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 newspaper’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,”
the man who has led Cuba for 47 years assured his people.

Details of Castro’s health are considered a state secret,
so there has been little information about his condition or
even confirmation he was alive.

While Castro’s condition appears to be stable, it is not
known whether he will be able to resume his government duties.

Cuban officials have said the workaholic Castro, whose
intestinal bleeding was caused by overexertion, will have to
lessen his workload if he is to recover.

Raul Castro, 75, has not appeared in public either, adding
to the uncertainty over the political future of one of the
world’s last communist outposts.

A separate hand-written note on the Web site signed by
Castro and dated at 12:39 a.m. Sunday morning, expressed
encouragement to five Cubans jailed in the United States for
espionage.

Some 3,000 mainly young Cubans wished Castro happy birthday
at midnight Saturday during a five-hour concert in his honor on
the “Anti-Imperialist Stage” opposite the U.S. diplomatic
mission on Havana’s Malecon seafront boulevard.

“Fidel, Fidel, long live Fidel,” they chanted.

“We hope he gets better. For all oppressed people, Cuba is
an example that socialism is possible,” said Juan Carlos Cruz,
a Bolivian studying medicine in Cuba for free. Students bused
to the show held Cuban, Venezuelan and Bolivian flags.

CUBANS URGED NOT TO FLEE

Castro is the last of the key Cold War-era figures on the
world stage and has survived through the administrations of 10
U.S. presidents, despite their long efforts to oust him from
power.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Castro’s closest ally in
Latin America, said on Saturday he would go to Havana, with
gifts and a cake in hand, to celebrate Castro’s birthday, but
had not yet been seen.

Since Castro’s surgery, President Bush has urged Cubans to
push for a democratic government.

But at the same time, the White House, caught up in a
campaign against illegal immigration, has urged Cubans not to
hop in boats and cross the 90 miles of water to Florida.

An electronic message board installed six months ago on the
front of the U.S. mission in Havana, but blocked from view by
138 Cuban flag posts, urged Cubans during the concert to stay
on the island and work for change.

Michael Parmly, head of the U.S. mission, briefly attended
the birthday celebration, standing amid the crowd while the
music played.

(Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Havana and Brian
Ellsworth in Caracas)