Cubans Cheer an Absent Fidel Castro on May Day
HAVANA _ In the end, it was Raul Castro, not his ailing older brother, who waved at the throngs Tuesday that paraded through Revolution Plaza for International Workers’ Day.
Fidel Castro, 80, who has not been seen in public since emergency intestinal surgery forced him to step down temporarily nine months ago, was visible only on poster-sized portraits carried by some of the hundreds of thousands of cheering workers at the annual parade.
The elder Castro’s failure to appear ended weeks of speculation that he might attend to assure Cubans that he was recovering from apparently grave complications from surgery last summer. He had attended the event for decades.
“I know I express the unanimous feeling of our people when I send the most fervent wishes for recovery to he who has not only been with us on days like this, but has guided us with his proverbial wisdom for more than 50 years,” Salvador Valdes, secretary general of Cuba’s central workers union, said in a speech before the march.
“A speedy recovery and lots of health, dear comrade Fidel,” Valdes added, capping his speech with the words, “Viva Fidel!”
“Viva!” the crowd roared in response.
After the parade, Caridad Rodriguez, 62, a bank teller, walked away from Revolution Square with her two grandsons. She said she was somewhat disappointed by Castro’s absence.
“We thought we might get a chance to see him again, but we know the comandante will appear when he is ready,” she said. “I have hope. We need to support Raul and Fidel more than ever now. That’s why there are so many of us here.”
Some Cubans said they understood their ailing leader’s absence from the two-hour parade on a hot morning. “He’ll know when the time is right to make an appearance,” said Ruben Lopez, 38, an administrative assistant carrying his 2-year-old son on his shoulders. “We’ll be here.”
Cuba’s state-run newspaper Granma on Tuesday ran the latest in a series of articles under Fidel Castro’s name. In the piece, dated Monday night, Castro reiterated his opposition to U.S. plans to use food crops to produce ethanol for cars. He made only a passing reference to the May Day event.
“(t)he first of May is a good day to carry these reflections to the workers and all of the poor people of the world,” Castro wrote.
In Revolution Square, many of the hundreds of thousands of marchers carried small Cuban flags. Some chanted, “Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!” Others held up portraits of the bearded revolutionary.
Many took the occasion to protest a recent U.S. court decision to free on bond accused terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, an elderly Cuban exile referred to here as the “bin Laden of the Americas.” Both Cuba and Venezuela accuse Posada, who was released pending his trial on U.S. immigration charges, in the bombing of a Cuban airliner off Barbados in 1976 in which all 73 people on board were killed.
Posada, a former CIA operative who also has Venezuelan citizenship, was charged with the bombing in his adopted country but escaped from jail in 1985 while awaiting trail.
Demonstrators in Havana on Tuesday carried signs saying, “Prison for the Executioner,” and accusing the Bush administration of applying a double standard in its “war on terror.”
“Our people know this criminal well,” Valdes told the throngs before the march.
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