Castro recovery lifts Cuban government's spirits

Havana, May 3: Cuban leader Fidel Castro was not strong enough to appear at the annual May Day workers rally, a highlight of the communist calendar, but his recovery from a life-threatening intestinal disorder is already being felt.

Party leaders are looking self-assured again as evidence mounts that the man who has run Cuba since a 1959 revolution has survived his health crisis and the country has seen no upheaval during his nine-month absence.

Even without Castro by their side, smiling Communist Party leaders waved confidently from above a high podium at half a million Cubans who marched through Havana's Revolution Square yesterday to show support for acting president Raul Castro.

The upbeat mood contrasted with the somber atmosphere at a military parade that Castro failed to attend in December when he is thought to have been at death's door.

While it is not clear what role Castro will take, officials insist he is recovering steadily and will resume governing at some point.

Most Cuba watchers see the man who once decided almost every detail of Cuban life from milk production to shoe imports settling into the role of an elder statesman involved in major policy issues but not running day-to-day government.

''At this point it seems that Fidel Castro is more useful to the regime as a father figure or inspirational leader, while the actual management of the government will be left to his successors,'' said Dan Erikson, an expert on Cuba at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington.

''Raul Castro has now had plenty of practice in managing major events in Fidel's absence, and they feel no pressure to have Fidel speak until he is 100% ready,'' he said.

Castro has yet to make a public appearance since emergency surgery forced him to relinquish power temporarily to his brother last July.

Stronger

Recent photographs and video footage of the 80-year-old revolutionary showed him gaining weight and looking stronger.

But he is still not ''presentable'' in public, one Western diplomat said.

''If they bring him out, he has to be alive and kicking,'' said a European ambassador in Havana. ''You can't have the chap just sitting there watching the crowd.'' Unable to make his legendary long speeches, Castro has turned to writing editorial columns from his sickbed.

He has attacked his ideological nemesis, the US government, for threatening to increase world hunger through its plans to use more foodstuffs to produce biofuels.

He also set the agenda for the May Day march by calling on Cubans to protest the US release on bail of an anti-Castro exile and former CIA operative accused of master-minding the mid-air bombing of Cuban airliner that killed 73 in 1976.

Castro's recovery has restored his influence over policy directions the country is taking, which is seen as a setback for debate on reforms to deal with economic hardships in Cuba.

Raul Castro, who is thought to be more open to market reforms, has encouraged critical discussion of the Cuban state's shortcomings in food supply, housing and transport.

''The debate on economic reforms has all died down since Fidel Castro emerged on the horizon again,'' said the European diplomat.

Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez said on Saturday an unprecedented debate on property options was merely academic and state ownership would continue to be the rule in Cuba.

Reuters>