Fidel Castro salutes Cuban people for '50 years of resistance'

Fidel Castro salutes Cuban people for '50 years of resistance'

HAVANA - Ailing leader Fidel Castro saluted the Cuban people for their
``50 years of resistance'' against the United States in a written
message read on state television shortly before the first minutes of the
new year.

``During the course of the morning, the 49th year of the Revolution will
have been left behind and we will have fully entered the 50th year,
which will symbolize a half century of heroic resistance,'' said the
message read by a television presenter shortly before midnight. The
broadcast showed old photographs of the Cuban leader.

``We proclaim to the world with pride this record which makes us believe
in the most just of our demands: that there be respect for the life and
the wholesome joy of our nation.''

Cuba will mark the 50th anniversary of the Jan. 1, 1959, triumph of the
revolution that brought Castro to power a year from now, but is already
characterizing all of 2008 leading up to that date as the ``50th year of
the revolution.''

The 81-year-old Castro has not been seen in public in the 17 months
since he announced he had undergone emergency intestinal surgery and was
provisionally ceding his powers to a caretaker government led by his
younger brother Raul, the 76-year-old defense minister.

Fidel's exact ailment and condition are carefully guarded state secrets,
but Raul Castro recently told voters in the eastern city of Santiago
that his brother is doing well enough that Communist Party leaders
support his candidacy to be re-elected as a deputy to Cuba's National
Assembly, or parliament, on Jan. 20.

When the new parliament meets on a still unspecified day in early March
for the first time after the national elections, deputies will elect a
new ruling Council of State _ Cuba's governing body.

At that time, they will also have to decide whether to retain the elder
Castro as the council's longtime president. Fidel has not said directly
whether he would seek to retain the post, but recently indicated he
could be thinking about retirement.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-101cuba,0,2903105.story