Cubans wonder if Castro will resume full power

Cuban leader Fidel Castro was recovering from surgery yesterday but Cubans questioned whether he would ever be strong enough to return to full power.

A week after the 79-year-old Castro's unprecedented provisional handover of power to his younger brother Raul, his exact whereabouts and condition remained a mystery to ordinary Cubans. Senior Cuban officials, seeking to allay suspicions that longtime US foe Castro had lost his grip on the island nation he has dominated since his 1959 revolution, insisted in brief statements that he was recovering from surgery for internal bleeding. But they said he may have to reduce his workload.

"Fidel is definitely out of intensive care and doing as well as can be expected for his age, though no one knows exactly where he is, what he has and if he will ever resume all his activities," a mid-level Havana party member said.

"Everyone is breathing a little easier with the news, though we all remain very concerned," a government official said. Cuba watchers said it was significant that two top officials who gave word on Castro's recovery after days of speculation over whether he was even alive, Vice President Carlos Lage and Health Minister Jose Ramon Balaguer, were traveling abroad. Had Castro taken a turn for the worse, they would have been needed at home, they said.

National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon said Castro came through the complicated surgery so well that a few hours afterward "he was talking, he was making jokes. That's why I feel confident he will recover very soon," he said, adding that Castro would have to slow down. He spoke Saturday night on a radio station in Miami, home to 650,000 Cuban-Americans and the center of Castro opposition.

In Caracas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close ally and economic backer of Cuba, said in his Sunday television address that he had trustworthy information that Castro was making a "notable" recovery.