Isabel Vincent. National Post, Canada. Saturday, February 26, 2000
The Comandante's appearance is shocking. And he never speaks above a whisper
HAVANA - Earlier this week, my seven-month-old daughter and I found ourselves face to face with Fidel Castro. She wailed. I stood transfixed.
The Cuban photographers standing next to me put down their cameras, ostensibly out of respect for the Comandante. Perhaps they did not want to photograph him at such close range. If they did, the signs of age would surely be too shocking. They might focus too closely on Fidel's liver spots,
which dot his forehead and thin, very feminine hands, with their unusually long fingernails. At 73, the revolutionary's beard is thinning and grey. There are deep wrinkles surrounding his eyes; his cheekbones are sunken; coffee stains line his thin lips. In fact, my photographer was the only one
taking pictures of Fidel and, occasionally, the high-pitched whirrrr of the camera's motor-drive shattered the hushed atmosphere.
We were standing in the main theatre of the Palacio de Convenciones in a crush of Cuban sports heroes. My daughter was in a knapsack strapped to my back, and I stood beside the only other foreign journalist in the room, a tall blonde ABC producer named Carol Marquis, whose usual habitat is
Europe. In her high heels, pearls and perfectly coiffed hair , she seemed more appropriately dressed for a tea party in the Hamptons than for the wildly patriotic Cuban sports rally calling for the return of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez we had just attended.
The rallies to repatriate Elian are now a daily event in Cuba. From the moment I arrived on the Communist island last week, I began attending them, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Cuban leader, whom I have been trying to interview for the past five years.
Fidel Castro is probably the most elusive leader in the world. This is partly because since he came to power 41 years ago, he has had to become security-conscious. "There have been more than 600 plots to assassinate me; it's a miracle I'm still here," he told a group of journalists
recently.
His low profile is a big part of his mystique. Foreign journalists and Cubans alike know very little about the man everyone here calls Fidel. His home, which is concealed from public view, is said to be somewhere in Siboney, a quiet suburb in the western part of the city; his office in the
Council of State on the Plaza de la Revolucion is buried deep within the building. When he does agree to an interview, as he did with U.S. photographer Eddie Adams more than a decade ago, there is utter secrecy. The journalist never knows if the interview will be granted, and is usually kept waiting
for weeks. Then, when Fidel decides the time is right, he arrives unannounced, usually in the wee hours of the morning in a motorcade of black Mercedes sedans, surrounded by stony-faced bodyguards in guayaberas -- the white shirts traditionally worn by Cuban men -- and earphones dangling from one
ear. In Mr. Adams' case, the detail arrived at his hotel and took him duck-hunting with Fidel.
Over the years, I have tried everything from writing letters to the Cuban foreign ministry to begging highly placed Cuban and Spanish friends who are part of Fidel's inner circle to speak to him on my behalf. One year, I put in a request to interview him on the subject of baseball -- which I
thought was ingenious, because how many people know Fidel is a diehard baseball fan who once tried out as a pitcher for the Washington Senators? My hopes were crushed when I arrived at the Ministry of External Affairs in Havana. "Do you know how many requests we have for interviews with the
President about baseball?" asked an official. "Hundreds. But, of course, we will file your request."
So, when I arrived in Cuba last week, I had already given up hope, and didn't even bother to make another formal request. Whenever I work here I spend my days in a frenzy of frustration at the slow pace of accomplishing anything official. I decided this time I was just going to cover whatever
came up. I even signed up for the First International Cuban Conference on Water, one of the only events open to the foreign press. And I attended the daily Elian rallies.
They usually consist of organized marches along the Malecon sea wall. Most afternoons, Cuban schoolchildren wearing "Free Elian" T-shirts and waving small Cuban flags take to the streets and congregate at the U.S. Interests Section building to shout "Abajo la mentira! Liberen a
Elian!" ("Down with lies. Free Elian.") A few days a week the rallies, known as tribunas de protestas, are limited to organizations and held at a suburban convention centre.
Last Tuesday, I took a taxi to the Palacio de Convenciones, where the National Institute for Sports and Recreation, known by its Spanish acronym INDER, was sponsoring a rally. There was a rumour that Fidel might be on hand.
Before being allowed into the conference centre, all journalists had to surrender their equipment to a group of chain-smoking men who were said to be from the Cuban Ministry of the Interior. One by one we were ushered into an air-conditioned room in a little red-brick house across the street. It
was furnished with two ratty couches, where journalists had piled their laptops, notebooks and camera equipment, waiting for their belongings to be inspected. One of the chain-smokers, a thin, elderly man with a stern look, cleared away some equipment and insisted I sit on one of the couches to feed
my daughter. "It's too hot outside for the little baby," he said, fluffing up a filthy cushion.
Travelling with a baby here is easier than most people might think. Earlier in the week, I bumped into the Cuban foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque, as he and his entourage came out of an elevator. He took one look at my baby, and pronounced, "Oh, what a beautiful little boy." After
that, he was hooked, contorting his face, cooing. I got to speak to him for 20 minutes about Elian Gonzalez -- an interview that would have taken months to arrange had I gone through the normal channels.
It took what seemed like several hours for the chain-smokers to complete the security checks. This was "normal procedure" for these events, said the Cuban journalists, and did not necessarily mean that Fidel would be attending.
So it was a surprise to all of us sitting in the press section of the theatre when we saw the bearded Comandante, surrounded by his security detail and sports bureaucrats, take his place in the front row to rousing applause.
For more than two hours, sports heroes, physical-education teachers and students walked up on stage and made patriotic speeches denouncing the United States and the Miami Cuban "mafia" that has "kidnapped" Elian Gonzalez.
Little girls danced, a rock band played a tune and a Downs Syndrome teenager performed a remarkable gymnastics routine. Fidel blew her a kiss, and amid tumultuous applause gave her a big hug.
Other than that, he spent most of the rally leaning to his left and right, exchanging comments with sports bureaucrats, drinking a cup of coffee and, occasionally, dozing off. For a man known for fiery (and lengthy) speeches, he was uncharacteristically reserved, never addressing the crowd
directly.
"Why should he?" said Kusa, a translator with the Cuban Ministry of External Relations who was seated next to me, "Fidel doesn't need to speak because he's already managed to unite the Cuban people around this great, heroic event. For the first time since the victory of the
revolution, people have a purpose here. They are united behind a good cause -- returning Elian to Cuba."
Actually, many here say that whether or not Elian is returned to Cuba is of little consequence now. Fidel has already won the public relations battle at home.
After the tribuna, when he tried to make his way out of the theatre, he was dwarfed by a throng of athletes at the exit. Carol and I managed to get onto a small platform next to a group of Cuban photographers.
Felix Savon, the boxer, his children in tow, waited his turn to shake Fidel's hand.
Olympic gold-medallist and INDER vice-president Alberto Juantorena, dressed in the red and white track uniform of the Cuban national team, paraded his blonde-haired baby girl on one shoulder for Fidel to see.
Baseball player Victor Mesa took off his red cap in the presence of the Comandante, who was having a heated discussion about the latest Cuban spy scandal in the U.S. with some of the athletes. He underlined his words with flamboyant hand gestures and twitching facial expressions. But he spoke in
a whisper, so quietly that even though I was only a few feet away I could barely make out what he was saying.
The crowd seemed to move as one, straining to hear Fidel. Although he turned away several times to take his leave, the crowd would not let him. He turned back, one finger in the air, as if he had just been struck by a brilliant thought, a funny anecdote.
"Mr. President, Mr. President," said Carol, in a well-bred American accent. Fidel ignored her. "Mr. President. Diane Sawyer. Interview."
Fidel and the crowd looked right through her to me and my daughter, who let out several piercing wails. The brawny security detail desperately tried to placate her with funny faces and silly hand gestures.
I thought of asking for an interview when he glanced in my direction, but somehow I knew it wouldn't work.
There was nothing I could say that would have torn the Cuban patriarch from his adoring fans. Besides, I wasn't about to compromise myself by saying something pro-Elian or vaguely complimentary of Fidel.
For once, it was enough just to be part of an extraordinary moment. I stood there, transfixed, watching the old soldier joking with the troops.
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