Castro recovers health, but not role
BY DAVID ADAMS
St. Petersburg Times
Cuban leader Fidel Castro has yet to appear in public since falling ill
last July.
But this week he ended a long silence about his health, issuing a signed
statement late Wednesday saying he was eating solid foods and had
regained weight.
The statement appears to confirm his slow recovery from intestinal
surgery last year. But it also reinforces the growing conviction among
some Cuba watchers that Castro is not contemplating a full return to
power and may instead be content to occupy a back-seat political role
for the remainder of his life.
''This is the clearest indication in his own words,'' said Brian Latell,
the CIA's former chief Cuba analyst who now teaches at the University of
Miami. ``I don't think he's ever going to be back governing the way he
did in the past.''
Latell and others say the 80-year-old communist leader could be close to
permanently abdicating his official duties as head of state. He
temporarily ceded power in July to a collective leadership headed by his
younger brother, Defense Minister Raúl Castro, 75.
''I think he's abdicated already,'' said Tony Zamora, a Cuban-American
lawyer in Miami who visits Cuba regularly. ``He will continue to be
consulted and listened to, of course, but I don't see him coming back at
all.''
Despite his absence from public view, in recent weeks Castro has taken
to penning a series of ''reflections'' in Granma, the state-run
newspaper, on issues that concern him, such as the use of food crops to
produce biofuels.
He has noticeably declined to comment on day-to-day domestic issues
facing the Cuban government.
While Castro's imposing aura and larger-than-life personality can never
be underestimated, experts question whether his essays in Granma can
substitute for the kind of direct control he once enjoyed.
''He is disconnecting himself, or he is being disconnected, from the
entire Cuban dialogue about what they need to do economically,'' Latell
said. ``Whether it's forced or voluntary isn't clear.''
Perhaps the most forthright verdict on Castro's condition came recently
from his niece, Mariela Castro, a leading Cuban sexologist and AIDS
activist who has lately emerged as an unofficial spokeswoman for the family.
She told reporters that although her uncle was ''improving rapidly,'' he
will ''not govern again in the same fashion as before.'' She noted that
he was ''very respectful in not wanting to interfere in the decisions
being made'' by his brother's government.
The way in which Fidel Castro's comments were made public appear to fit
that pattern.
Castro's description of his health condition was tacked on at the end of
an unrelated ''reflection'' on the latest figures on world cereals
production.
After mentioning the importance of replacing incandescent light bulbs
with newer energy-saving compact fluorescent ones, he switched subjects.
''I shall digress now to tackle a topic which deals with my person, and
I ask for your indulgence,'' he wrote.
He then proceeded to give the most detailed account of his health since
he fell ill. After ''many months'' of intravenous feeding, he was eating
and his weight was back up to 176 pounds. ''Today I receive orally
everything my recuperation requires,'' he wrote.
Castro also for the first time confirmed reports that his initial
surgery had failed.
''It was not just one operation, but various,'' he wrote. ``Initially it
was not successful, and that had a bearing on my prolonged recuperation.''
Looking frail, Castro has appeared periodically in official photographs
and video published in Cuba's state media. In late March, he was seen in
an outdoor photograph with Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez.
In late April he was shown meeting with a delegation from China at the
hospital where he is convalescing.
But he surprised his followers by failing to appear during a big annual
May Day parade.
Castro on Wednesday apologized for the recent lack of official images.
''I don't have time now for films and photos that require me to
constantly cut my hair, beard and mustache, and get spruced up every
day,'' he wrote.
''He cannot shave and he can't take a haircut. That's really weird,''
Zamora said. 'He is clearly saying, `My role has changed. I was really
sick and I need to take care of myself, so I'm not coming back.' ''
While experts remain unsure exactly what kind of role Castro will play,
the ailing leader may have provided the answer Wednesday.
''For now, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, reflecting and
writing about questions that I judge of certain importance and
transcendence,'' he wrote. ``I have a lot more material to go.''
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