17nov05
WASHINGTON: The CIA has concluded that Cuban leader Fidel Castro suffers from Parkinson's disease and has warned US policy-makers to be ready for trouble if the 79-year-old President's health erodes over the next few years.
The non-fatal but debilitating condition would mean Castro may be entering a period where doctors say the symptoms grow more evident, medicines are less effective and mental functions start to deteriorate.
Although Castro's brother Raul, head of the armed forces, has been anointed as his successor, Cuba analysts fear the possibility of a tumultuous period during which an incapacitated Castro refuses to give up power but can no longer project his overpowering personality to Cuba's 11 million people.
"For Fidel to start shaking in a real and substantial way -- in public -- sends quite a powerful message to people around the world," said Frank Mora, a professor of national security strategy at the US National War College in Washington.
Rumours that Castro has Parkinson's have been around since the mid-1990s. In 1998, he even jokingly challenged journalists to a pistol duel at 25 paces to show the steadiness of his hands.
But the Central Intelligence Agency began briefing senior members of the US State Department and Congress about a year ago that its doctors had become convinced Castro was diagnosed with the disease about 1998, according to two longtime US government officials familiar with the briefings.
A US State Department official said there was already evidence that Castro's abilities were fading noticeably. He is increasingly slurring his words and going off on tangents in public speeches, although he seems to have good days and bad days.
Clearly, "he is not the same person he was five years ago", the official said.
However, others insist that Castro is fine.
"He enjoys excellent health," Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, said last month when he was asked about Castro's failure to attend the Ibero-American summit talks in Spain.
Parkinson's symptoms include tremors, stiffness, difficulty with balance and muffled speech, although its exact manifestations vary according to the victim.
High-profile people stricken with the disease include the late Pope John Paul II, actor Michael J. Fox and boxer Muhammad Ali.
Castro has displayed some signs of ill health in recent years, though perhaps no worse than other 79-year-olds.
He fainted during a speech in a Havana suburb in 2001 and was seen almost collapsing during the inauguration of Argentine President Nestor Kirchner in 2003. A public tumble last year left him with a fractured knee and arm, and former Ecuador president Lucio Gutierrez wrote in his recent book that he had to prop up a nodding-off Castro several times while sitting next to him at an international event.
Cuba watchers note that Castro was not shown touring areas of Havana hit by Hurricane Wilma, out of character for a man who has managed every crisis in Cuba since coming to power in the 1959 revolution, from the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion to the Elian Gonzalez affair in 2000.
KRT
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