Raúl Castro fills in for Fidel at Cuba's May Day parade
By Ray Sánchez
Havana Bureau
Posted May 2 2007
Havana · In the end, it was Raúl 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 Raúl 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.
"The 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 used 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.
Ray Sánchez can be reached at rlsanchez@sun-sentinel.com.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-acastro02may02,0,5689209.story?coll=sfla-news-cuba
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