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Cuba's Fidel Castro May Be May Day No-Show
Cubans prepared on Monday for massive May Day workers parades unsure whether Fidel Castro would resume governing the country by making his first public appearance since falling seriously ill nine months ago. Temporary stands went up in Revolution Square, the political heart of the communist state Castro built 90 miles from the United States after a 1959 revolution. A podium was placed high above the square, from where Castro would likely speak if he appeared on Tuesday. "Tomorrow is the day the chief will reappear in his green uniform. He is recovering. Tomorrow everything will be like it was again," said Lazaro, a sound technician who declined to give his surname and who was dressed in white and colored bead necklaces to venerate Afro-Cuban gods.
Story Continues Below But senior government officials would not confirm or deny whether the 80-year-old revolutionary will show up in public for the first time since he underwent emergency bowel surgery and handed over power temporarily to his brother Raul on July 31. They said between 6 and 7 million Cubans will turn out for nationwide parades as a show of support for the government and a rejection of U.S. policies toward Cuba. "I don't think he will show up," said Yasmin, an economy student at Havana University. "They say he is recovering, but one thing is to speak on the telephone and another to spend an hour in the sun." It would be the first time in four decades that Castro has missed the Workers Day rally, which this year will denounce U.S. authorities for refusing to extradite an anti-Castro exile and former CIA agent accused of downing a Cuban airliner in 1976. Castro's prolonged absence and secrecy over his illness have cast uncertainty over Cuba's political future. Cubans have not been told what Castro suffered and have only seen him in photographs or video footage meeting with foreign dignitaries, or speaking by telephone with his closest ally and protege, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. "He is charge, he is in charge, he is doing a lot of thinking," Chavez said in a speech at a Latin American summit in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, on Sunday. Another leftist ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, said on Friday that he was sure Castro would return to governing Cuba by attending the May Day parade in Havana.
Not all Cubans are happy at the prospect of his return. "Those who admire him want to see him reappear as strong as before. Those who despise him are depressed at the thought," said dissident Manuel Cuesta Morua. He said many Cubans struggling to survive daily economic hardship have become indifferent to Castro's fate. "The Cuban people really want to know what's happening with Fidel Castro, instead of getting news about him from Venezuela or Bolivia," he said.
© Reuters 2007.
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