Castro's fate still mired in uncertainty

Typical of rumours about Cuban leader Fidel Castro's health, even his own announcement that he was handing power to his brother in order to undergo surgery was mired in uncertainty.

Was it the beginning of the end or merely a temporary interruption in Mr Castro's 47-year grip on power?

Mr Castro, who turns 80 on August 13, did not himself read the sombre statement on state television in the communist-ruled island that said he had handed the reins of government provisionally to his brother due to "an acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding".

His invisibility itself fed the rumour mill.

"It's a little too soon to presume what's going to happen," said Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican congresswoman from South Florida and ardent anti-Castro exile, late on Monday.

"What's the status of Castro's health, how many days is Raul Castro, who's a murderer just like his brother, going to assume this responsibility?" she asked.

The news prompted spontaneous celebrations in Miami's Little Havana district, where many hard-line Cuban exiles have made it their life's ambition to see General Castro defeated by incapacitating illness or death.

But even Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez, leader of a Cuban American paramilitary group known as Alpha 66 that has long been involved in efforts to overthrow General Castro, said there was nothing certain about the fate of the "Comandante".

"Fidel Castro is going to die, but we don't know if it's now, or in the not-too-distant future," he said. Doubts about the gravity of Gen. Castro's health crisis were driven home by official statements from Washington, where officials declined to speculate about Gen. Castro's health.

John Kirk, professor of Latin American Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said the somber tone of the official proclamation in Cuba, Gen. Castro's age and the "ominous ring" of his concluding sentiment that "imperialism will never be able to crush Cuba", suggested his condition was serious.

On the other hand, his supposed death had been frequently broadcast, especially in Miami, both his parents lived long lives and he was known to have a remarkable constitution.

"My best guess - this is the price paid by a 79-year-old who works ridiculously long hours, who has just returned from an exhaustive trip to the Mercosur summit in Argentina, quickly followed by a two-hour speech on July 26, and whose body is giving him warning signals that he has to slow down," Prof. Kirk said in an e-mail sent to Reuters.

Ms Ros-Lehtinen had anticipated some of the problems that would arise in Miami if Gen. Castro died suddenly or fell fatally ill, in an interview with Reuters last week.

"It will be difficult for us to get the information in a timely manner," said Ms Ros-Lehtinen. "He (Castro) likes to play games of hide-and-seek where he will be not seen for a period of eight days or so and then suddenly appears," she said.

Fidel Castro factbox

¤ A firebrand revolutionary, his guerillas swept down from the Sierra Maestra hills to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. A bearded and charismatic orator, recognisable for his olive green cap and uniform, General Castro has been an inspiration to generations of Latin American leftists.

¤ Head of the Communist Party and President, he has kept a firm grip on power, and despite economic difficulties in the 1990s refused any transition from socialism to capitalism, a step taken by other former Communist states after the demise of the Soviet Union.

¤ Critics within Cuba and abroad charge that he has deprived Cuban citizens of political and economic freedoms. Many Cubans left the country, and General Castro considers dissidents to be counter-revolutionaries on the US payroll.

¤ He has been the target of a series of attempts by Washington to remove him. These include the abortive invasion attempt at Cuba's southern Bay of Pigs in 1961 by more than 1,000 Cuban exiles trained and financed by the US Central Intelligence Agency, which later resorted to bizarre plots to kill him.

¤ Fidel Castro was born on August 13, 1926, to a comfortably-off Galician-born farmer and a Cuban woman of humble stock in a small hamlet called Biran in eastern Cuba. Educated at Catholic schools, he later studied law at Havana University.

¤ He married Mirta Diaz Balart, sister of one of Batista's officials, in 1948 and they had a son, also called Fidel.