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May
Day absence means Castro may be more ill
than we thought
By Andres Oppenheimer, aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Wed, May. 02, 2007.
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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