Is Castro Dying?

[Sojiita]

Cuban officials mum on Castro's condition

Saturday, August 5, 2006; Posted: 10:55 p.m. EDT (02:55 GMT)


MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- The announcement Monday night was dramatic: Cuban leader Fidel Castro underwent surgery for intestinal bleeding and was handing over power to his brother.

But in the long week that followed, Havana provided no details and released no pictures of Castro -- fueling speculation on his condition in a host of countries.

Cubans were told Tuesday in a statement attributed Castro that most details of his health would be kept "a state secret" to prevent the island's enemies from taking advantage of his condition.

Most Cubans have put on a brave face, insisting that they are sure Castro, who turns 80 on August 13, will recover and that the government will function fine until then. But others have privately expressed worries that their leader may be more sick than the world knows.

The world, meanwhile, has stepped in to fill the information void.

In Brazil, the daily Folha de Sao Paulo ran a story Saturday saying "Cuban authorities" informed Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his party's leaders that Castro's health is worse than publicly acknowledged. The newspaper reported Castro apparently has abdominal cancer and that the unidentified Cuban authorities said he would be too incapacitated to reassume power.

But hours after the newspaper hit the streets, Silva's office took the unusual step of shooting down the story.
"There's no truth to the news published today," said Andre Singer, Silva's spokesman. "The president has ... not received any information from Cuban, or any other authorities, on the alleged diagnosis published by the newspaper."

Folha, however, said it was standing by its story.

"The information was obtained from aides of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva," the paper said in a statement, adding that it will publish its response to Silva's denial in its Sunday editions.

Cuban officials have insisted that Castro is recuperating and alert.

On a trip to Bolivia, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage said Saturday that Castro is recovering satisfactorily from surgery and denied the cancer report.

"He is coming along well. He does not have stomach cancer," Lage told reporters.

Cuban Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon said in comments broadcast Saturday -- recorded Thursday -- that Castro "remains in stable condition" and "is resting in order to recover as quickly as possible."

But Cuban officials have kept silent on what precisely is ailing Castro, where he is and what surgical procedure he underwent.

In Miami, home to the large Cuban exile community, the information void has led some of the local media to ask medical experts and exile leaders to speculate.

"I was getting a call every 15 seconds or 30 seconds," said Ramon Saul Sanchez, head of the Cuban exile group Democracy Movement, adding that some of his interviewers even asked him to make conjectures on whether Castro is dead. He said he responded that there is nothing to do but wait.

Omar Montejo, a spokesman for the University of Miami School of Medicine, said he has fielded calls all week from local and national media looking for medical experts to talk to. He said he gets calls for gastrointestinal specialists and sometimes oncologists, on the assumption Castro could have cancer.

"In the beginning, the first day or so, there was a lot of media calls trying to see if our medical experts could come up with an educated diagnosis based on the little bit of information that we had," Montejo said. "At one point we considered a news conference simply because we were getting so many calls."

Montejo said it's hard for doctors to comment in the absence of more concrete information or a diagnosis.

In a piece that appeared Saturday in the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional, columnist Fausto Maso was pessimistic about Castro's chances.

Under the headline "The interminable death of Fidel Castro," Maso wrote: "He will be able to live some time more, but in an operation like that at his age, up to a fourth of those who enter the operating room die and those who survive are left with their days numbered."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americ....ap/index.html


*I wonder if he dies, will it help Cuba to open up more..cause any great changes?..help relations with the US???*

[A*O]

This reminds me of the good old days of Russian communism when leaders would die weeks before anyone was told. Fidel is 80yrs old so even without any health problems his days are numbered. You have to wonder if he's got a Backup Plan in place for when he's no longer around but like so many egomaniac dictators he probably never got around to it and there will be a big power vacuum. Apart from Cuba's quaint loyalty to old-style communism does the world really care about this Caribbean island anyway?

[Sojiita]

This reminds me of the good old days of Russian communism when leaders would die weeks before anyone was told. Fidel is 80yrs old so even without any health problems his days are numbered. You have to wonder if he's got a Backup Plan in place for when he's no longer around but like so many egomaniac dictators he probably never got around to it and there will be a big power vacuum. Apart from Cuba's quaint loyalty to old-style communism does the world really care about this Caribbean island anyway?

If it opens up a little..and the government changes to a more capitalistic one, it would have a great affect in the US(rushing in to cash in on development)..would cause an economic boom in Cuba, and would have profound affects in the Miami area with all of it's cuban exiles/emigrees. An ending to the sanctions and embargo by the US would help the economy of both nations.

[sputnik]

damn, i hope he holds on for a while still. i have to visit that island before the old fellow croaks and the cubans in miami turn it into a tropical latino disney

[HWBL]

I'd say he is. "Spontaneous" internal bleeding of any kind, usually means a growth, like a tumor is eating away at something. I believe I heard they'd also removed a portion of his intestins..... All in all, at his age (or any age for that matter) not a good sign. From the most recent moving pictures I've seen of him, his color seemed off as well. I think this is indeed a former USSR tactic going on.

[UndercoverGator]

He's toast, he's old and the prognosis doesn't sound like something that he will easily recover from, certainly not at his age.

Sojiita you're probably right about US dollars flooding into Cuba to take advantage of the opportunity but I would like to think Cuba would stay Communist. They should be forced to, as a living museum of Communism. If not them where else are the Neoconned going to get their jollys talking about the evil Communist threat, Communism is nearly dead worldwide now.

[Delphinium]

I think he is dead or terminally ill.

Sadly, I think that super-political semi-whack job florida cubanos are going to rush into cuba with their americanized morals etc. and totally rip apart the native culture and society of today's cuba. I forsee at least one civil war, and years of political and social miserey in Cuba.

Until little Elian can rise and take power that is.

[A*O]

Stop Press! Castro has announced his successor!

Ahh, herro you rucky Habaneros!

[Sojiita]

He's toast, he's old and the prognosis doesn't sound like something that he will easily recover from, certainly not at his age.

Sojiita you're probably right about US dollars flooding into Cuba to take advantage of the opportunity but I would like to think Cuba would stay Communist. They should be forced to, as a living museum of Communism. If not them where else are the Neoconned going to get their jollys talking about the evil Communist threat, Communism is nearly dead worldwide now.

North Korea! One of the craziest communist countries ever! Extreme police state, huge cult of personality, giant useless brutalistic architecture, massive spending on the military and pet projects(like the 105 story hotel in Pyongyang that looks evil and was never finished and was sucking up money left and right, made with bad concrete so it will never be used and is too big to destroy-it looms over the Pyongyang landscape like a tower of evil), military spending while one out of every ten citizens starves to death(famine in the ninetiies)..N. Korea has about everything!

pics of the Ryugyong Hotel in the capital of N. Korea Pyongyang. unfinished and unfinishable-notice the construction crane still on the top-where it has been sitting idly for the last 15 years!!! 105 stories of ugly evil-castle like waste that will never be used!





pic ot the huge arch there(built to be bigger than ANY in Paris. just what N. Korea needed..why use the money for food?





LOL! I was working on getting these pics and then A*O beat me to it with her 'fearress reader'!!

[UndercoverGator]

D'oh! Smacks self in head. I forgot about the Asian Commies and their various fiefdoms.