Signs keep adding up

[Jimmy2]

Some readers have chided me for reporting news that (they say) reflects badly on Fidel Castro's image and is morbid or downright ghoulish. These are the reports that aroused their ire:

1. President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said Sunday that Fidel would never return to public life and added that Fidel would live on, beyond physical life.

2. President Rafael Correa of Ecuador returned home Sunday from Havana saying that he was unable to meet with Fidel, as he had hoped, and that he didn't know the state of Fidel's health.

3. President Martín Torrijos of Panama returned home from Havana Jan. 6 without seeing Fidel, and Castro did not write a "reflection" on Torrijos' visit. Instead, Cubadebate, the website where such an article would customarily have appeared, ran a reprint of a 1976 speech Fidel gave in honor of Torrijos' father, Omar.

4. Fidel's latest "reflection" (on an environmental issue) was written on Dec. 15, almost one month ago.

5. Fidel's latest published pictures were released Nov. 18 after a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao. No pictures of his meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev were released, either by Havana or the Kremlin, after the two met on Nov. 28. No pictures of his meeting with Argentine writer Stella Calloni (about Dec. 10) were released. The absence of images suggests that Fidel's appearance may have deteriorated.

6. Fidel's entire message to the Cuban people on Dec. 31, the eve of the Revolution's birthday, was one sentence long: "Upon the celebration in the next few hours of the 50th anniversary of the Triumph, I congratulate our heroic people." Totally unlike Fidel.

7. For the past several days, Granma and other publications have been running reprints of Fidel's speeches going back to 1959, as if to remind readers that Fidel then was young and full of fervor and promise.

I am not the only one to try to read the runes. Newspapers in South America and Europe have published articles wondering about Fidel's silence in the past month -- despite many important international events -- and focusing on President Chávez's comments. In fact:

8. Russian newspapers now are giving increased coverage to those comments, recalling that, during surgery in 2006, "part of [Fidel's] bowels" were resected and that he was at death's door. On Monday, the Russian newspaper Gazeta published Chávez's statements under a headline that read "Chávez buries Castro alive." And it ended the article by saying: "In the course of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's visit to Cuba in November 2008, his press service released communication about the encounter between Medvedev and the elder Castro; however, no documentary evidence of the encounter was published." (Emphasis mine.) Clearly, Moscow is mindful of the news and public-relations aspects. More recently:

9. The website Cubadebate on Tuesday published a praiseful article about President Correa's visit written NOT by Fidel but by Randy Alonso Falcón, host of the TV program Round Table, in which Fidel often participated. I find this remarkable. This kind of laudatory article about a visiting leader has always been written by Fidel, not by a surrogate.

Pardon me for expanding so much on the topic of Fidel's health, but I do believe it is of interest to some readers of this blog. And that is what Cuba-watching is about.

---Renato Pérez Pizarro

[Ken Gargett]

jimmy, keep posting.

surely members have enough intelligence to make up their own minds and the more info out there, the better. i'm happy to see stuff from all sides.

and as for this wuzzy no politics crap, the prez is away. as far as i'm concerned, all members can pour as much petrol on the fire as they like.

[Jimmy2]

I have always posted news about Cuba since the begining here and i hope some of you enjoy it.

[Freefallguy]

1. President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela

Doesn’t play well with others… his design is to personally unite all of South and Central America much in the fashion of Simone Bolivar’s attempt. I’d much rather see him aspire to make as fine a cigar worthy of his appellation.

[Freefallguy]

and as for this wuzzy no politics crap, the prez is away. as far as i'm concerned, all members can pour as much petrol on the fire as they like.

You do know cynicism when you read it, yes?

[anacostiakat]

I have always posted news about Cuba since the begining here and i hope some of you enjoy it.

Definitely enjoy your posts Jimmy! Keep it up Brother!!

[Ken Gargett]

You do know cynicism when you read it, yes?

pour away, pour away...