THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT
May Day absence means Castro may be more ill than we thought
BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's no-show at the massive May Day march in
Cuba indicates that despite recent signs he is recovering from the
illness that forced him to delegate powers nine months ago, his health
is worse than most of us thought.
This is not based on any medical diagnosis, but on political diagnosis.
May Day was a big deal, and not just because it is Castro's favorite
holiday. Unlike other major public events he missed in recent months --
including the Non-Aligned summit in September and a postponed 80th
birthday official celebration in December -- there were political
reasons why Castro wouldn't have skipped Tuesday's event for anything
had he been physically able to be there.
With television crews from around the world arriving in Cuba in recent
days after growing speculation Castro would make his triumphal
reappearance, it would have been a unique opportunity to draw
international attention to his crusade to get a United Nations
condemnation of the United States for the recent release from jail of
accused anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.
Castro's presence at the International Workers' Day celebration -- even
if he had just stood silently for a few moments -- would not only have
marked his victorious return from near-death, it would have reenergized
his regime at home and abroad.
After weeks of largely unsuccessful Cuban and Venezuelan efforts to turn
the Posada release on bail into a major international cause, Castro's
reappearance would have helped install the case on the international agenda.
That would have helped the ailing Cuban leader reverse his image of a
decrepit dictator in much of the world and allowed him to ride into the
sunset as a courageous David fighting an evil Goliath.
That's the image Castro has always sought as a way to justify his
absolute hold on power, and it is certainly the one he would like to
portray more than ever toward the end of his life.
Castro and some of his closest allies had built up significant
expectations in recent weeks that he would appear at the May Day rally,
an annual show of force where state workers are expected to march and
wave Cuban flags.
An April 11 article titled Thoughts of the Commander in Chief,
apparently written by Castro in Cuba's Communist Party official daily
Granma, had called on Cubans to attend the celebrations -- as if many
had a choice -- to protest Posada's release.
Castro claimed that a Texas judge's order to release Posada was done on
''instructions'' from the White House. Cuba says Posada was one of the
masterminds of a 1976 bomb explosion aboard a Cubana de Aviación flight
that killed 73 people and is responsible for a bomb explosion in Havana
that killed an Italian tourist in 1997.
In his Granma article, Castro added that the May Day celebration ''would
be the ideal day'' for the Cuban people to show their opposition to
President Bush's ''terrorism,'' and to the U.S. refusal to extradite
Posada to Venezuela, where he is wanted in the airplane bombing.
Almost simultaneously, Cuba's state-owned media released pictures of a
healthier Castro, fueling speculation his reappearance was imminent.
Last week, Bolivian President Evo Morales said Castro would ''surely''
appear at the parade, after earlier assurances by Venezuela's President
Hugo Chávez that Castro was already ''walking, almost jogging,'' and
that the Cuban leader had retaken control of ``most government functions.''
My conclusion: I'm no medical doctor, and I don't have a way of knowing
whether Castro suffers from an intestinal ailment or Parkinson's disease
or both, or whether he is terminally ill or will reappear in better health.
But as a political observer, I have no doubt Castro wouldn't have missed
this opportunity for a million petro-dollars if he had been able to show
up, and draw world attention to the Posada case. For now, Castro must be
in pretty bad shape. He is ''jogging'' only in Chávez's mind.
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