Cuba dismisses US call for democracy

HAVANA, Aug 5 (Reuters) Cuba quickly dismissed another US call for Cuban democracy as Fidel Castro's government began to break the silence that followed his surgery and provisional hand-over of power to brother Raul.

Neither Castro nor his brother has been seen in public since Fidel's operation on Monday for internal bleeding, but two members of the cabinet gave assurances that all was well with the Communist island and its 79-year-old leader.

In Miami, Cuban exile leaders who earlier in the week declared the beginning of the end of the Castro era began to come to grips with the idea that their nearly half-century wait for Fidel's demise may not be over.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a message beamed to Cuba yesterday night, told the island's residents that ''much is changing there'' and now was the time to push for democracy.

''We will stand with you to secure your rights -- to speak as you choose, to think as you please, to worship as you wish, and to choose your leaders, freely and fairly, in democratic elections,'' she said in a broadcast on the US-funded Radio Marti network.

But Cuba's Minister of Culture, Abel Prieto, told reporters at a Havana event that Rice's message, which followed a similar statement by President George W Bush on Thursday, would fall on deaf ears.

''Nobody in Cuba is going to listen to a message that comes from a functionary of a foreign government. That has no value for Cubans,'' he said in some of the first government comments since Castro's surgery.

'RHETORIC FOR MIAMI' ''I think all these messages are pure rhetoric for Miami,'' he said.

Prieto also said the Cuban government was functioning well with Fidel Castro recovering and his 75-year-old brother at the helm, despite suggestions from the United States that things were in flux.

Castro has led Cuba for 47 years, since he swept to power in a 1959 revolution.

''I don't feel any uncertainty. The people love Fidel a lot and that has been seen in these days,'' he said.

Cuba's minister of health, Jose Ramon Balaguer, told reporters during a visit to Guatemala that Castro was on the road to recovery.

He said an overworked Castro had a ''complicated operation from which he is recovering satisfactorily.'' In a radio interview, Balaguer said Castro ''will be back with us soon.'' United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan, during a trip to the Dominican Republic yesterday, said there were ''indications'' that Castro was recovering and wished the Cuban president well.'' None of this was good news for the Miami Cuban exile community, which danced in the streets on Monday when Castro's surgery and hand-over of power was announced.

Alfredo Mesa, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, said the exiles, of whom there are 650,000 in the Miami area, were beginning to lose their early hope that Castro was dead and change was at hand for their homeland.

''Right now, it's more 'let's be judicious in our response and see,' because there's nothing to celebrate about a succession of power to Raul Castro,'' he told Reuters.

REUTERS MS PM1157