Castro running Cuba 'by phone

Castro running Cuba 'by phone'
by Carlos Batista in Havana
December 17, 2006 05:50am
Article from: Agence France-Presse

AILING Cuban leader Fidel Castro was in telephone contact with a
governors' meeting, Cuba's Communist Party newspaper said overnight, a
day after the top US intelligence official said Mr Castro could be at
death's door.

Mr Castro's phone-in to the governors' meeting "prompted an ovation from
participants," the official newspaper Granma said.

It did not specify what day the call took place but presumably referred
to Friday, with the meeting under way at the convention centre in Havana.

Mr Castro was informed of the details of the meeting led by Vice
President Carlos Lage and assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon, Granma added.

The news came after US Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte
told the Washington Post that Mr Castro was very ill and close to death.

"Everything we see indicates it will not be much longer, ... months, not
years," the Post quoted Mr Negroponte as saying Friday. Mr Negroponte
gave no details in the interview to back up his statement.

Later on Friday, Mr Castro's closest ally, Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez, said in his country that he had spoken twice with Fidel by phone
on Thursday.

"I saw in the press there are some reports Fidel is dying. ... He seemed
very well to me yesterday, and, well, someday all of us will die
physically, but one thing that is true: ... Fidel does not have cancer.
I am well informed," Mr Chavez said.

Mr Castro, 80, handed over the reins of power on July 31 to his brother
Raul, the army chief. Fidel Castro underwent intestinal surgery in July
and details of his condition are guarded as state secrets.

Raul Castro, 75, has reached out to the United States more actively than
has his brother in the past four months, calling for negotiations.

The US government has said it would not accept a Castro dynasty, and has
called for free elections in Cuba.

But on Friday, a bipartisan group of 10 US lawmakers, all supporters of
easing US sanctions on Cuba, travelled to Havana to meet with top Cuban
officials. The largest US legislative delegation ever to visit
communist-ruled Cuba, it met late on Friday with Alarcon and was to meet
with other top Cuban officials.

The United States and Cuba do not have full diplomatic relations, and
Washington has for decades maintained an economic embargo on the only
one-party communist state in the Americas.

Rumours about Fidel Castro's health have gathered force since he sat out
a December 2 military parade in Havana honouring his 80th birthday.

Britain's The Independent has reported that Mr Castro is ailing from
cancer, has refused chemotherapy and could die before Christmas
(December 25).

On Wednesday, the top US diplomat for Latin America, Tom Shannon,
indicated that the United States had yet to find a reformer in the
communist Cuban government, but did not flatly rule out dialogue with
Havana in the context of a political opening.

"Once (Fidel Castro) goes, the successor government is going to have to
chart out some kind of path into the future. There are no clear signals
of what that path is going to be," said Shannon, the US assistant
secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere.

"We don't see any significant possibility of change of any kind until
Fidel is gone," he added.

Fidel Castro has not been seen in public since July 26, the day before
his surgery, though he has appeared in videotaped visits in his hospital
room.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,20941432-5005961,00.html