Raúl sits in at big party

Posted on Sat, Dec. 02, 2006

CUBA | FIDEL CASTRO'S 80TH BIRTHDAY
Raúl sits in at big party
Cuba officially celebrates Fidel Castro's 80th birthday today, but the
leader may be too sick to attend the ceremony.
BY FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com

Raúl Castro on Friday turned up at a ceremony marking brother Fidel's
80th birthday amid conflicting reports that Fidel is not suffering from
cancer but is still too sick to attend the main event today

Raúl's daughter told the Reuters news agency in Havana that Fidel is
unlikely to show at the main event celebrating his birthday, a military
parade in Havana today.

'He's not going to the festivities, because everybody is telling him,
`We don't want you to move.' We're going to celebrate, but he should
stay away and take it easy,' '' Mariela Castro told Reuters.

''My impression as an ordinary Cuban is that we are going to have him in
another role, as the wise 80-year-old leader that now is going to take
care of himself,'' she said.

CBS Evening News, citing no sources, meanwhile reported Friday from
Havana that Fidel does not have cancer. U.S. officials have said they
believe the Cuban leader has terminal cancer and will not live past 2007.

Raúl Castro made his first appearance at the weeklong birthday events
Friday, a gathering of some of the foreign dignitaries in Cuba for the
celebrations.

Raúl sat at the head table near President Evo Morales of Bolivia and
Nicaragua's president-elect Daniel Ortega at the last of the events
sponsored by the Guayasamín Foundation, a group that supports Fidel
Castro. He did not speak.

But there remained intense speculation about whether Fidel would make an
appearance at the massive military parade in his honor today.

''Fidel recovers! We shall have him among us!'' Vice President Carlos
Lage said Friday night, without specifically referring to the military
parade. ``He will continue to lead us! We shall ask him to do so for
several more years!''

Fidel did not attend the opening event for the week's activities, but
sent a statement saying that his doctors had determined that he was too
sick to attend.

Some 1,500 people have been attending a string of events initially
scheduled four months ago, when Castro announced he was so sick that he
needed to delay his Aug. 13 birthday celebrations until today -- the
50th anniversary of the start of the revolution.

Among other guests are Haitian President René Préval and Colombian Nobel
prize-winner author Gabriel García Márquez.

Miami Herald translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/16145907.htm