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Castro resumes official business
Havana, 21.04.2007
Cuba's Fidel Castro has held talks with a top delegate from China in what is thought to be his first official act since his illness last year. Mr Castro - who has handed over power temporarily to his brother, Raul - has appeared to play a greater role in Cuba over the last few weeks. His health came under close scrutiny after he had stomach surgery last July. But his ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, recently said Mr Castro was "almost totally recovered". No pictures have been released so far of Mr Castro's meeting with a high-ranking delegate from the Chinese Communist Party, Wu Guanzheng. Mr Wu is on a four-day visit to boost political and trade ties between the two communist allies. odkaz na stránku
Cuba's President Fidel Castro - the world's longest-serving political leader - has not been seen in public since July and speculation is continuing about his health, with unconfirmed reports saying that he is in a serious condition. Here, world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds looks at the story of his life. The ailing Castro remains a symbol of revolution in his 80th year He is instantly recognisable both from his appearance - the beard and the military fatigues - and from his first name alone: Fidel. The name is expressed with affection by some, with hostility by others but it calls up history for everyone. The story of his life is very much the story of our times: revolutionary movements, the Cold War, East v West, North v South, communism v capitalism - except that most of the world has passed him by. Fidel Castro has remained the same, a symbol of revolution, a communist who has survived the fall of communism. He continues to inspire his followers with slogans and five-hour speeches. He rails against the United States, its economic and trade embargo and against the evils of free markets - and he maintains his rule with an iron grip that sends opponents to prison for years. Intolerance He is praised for standing up for the oppressed of Latin America, for opposing the Yankee imperialist, for making Cuba into a more equal society than many, for developing Cuba's health service and sending doctors abroad to help others. Cuba's assistance to the island of Grenada led to a full-scale US invasion And it wasn't only doctors he has sent abroad. He despatched troops to Angola and Ethiopia in support of fellow revolutionaries. His hand was seen in many a revolutionary movement in his own continent. But he is also condemned for intolerance, for keeping his people poor and for refusing to see the benefits of economic liberalisation that even the communists of China have embraced. He has stopped his people from leaving the island, leading them to risk their lives in rickety boats to try to get out. At one stage in the early years of the Reagan administration he was accused of trying to take over Central America for the Soviet Union by revolution. Washington at that time saw a path that led from the guerrillas of El Salvador through Nicaragua to Cuba and right up to the door of the Kremlin. Brink of nuclear war Cuban assistance to the small and then revolutionary island of Grenada in the Caribbean prompted a full-scale US invasion. President Castro has remained in almost permanent confrontation with the United States - and it with him. Such thaws as there have been, like under President Jimmy Carter, have always frozen up again. The US came to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union The American embargo on Cuba has been used by both sides - as a policy by the US to isolate Cuba and as an excuse by Fidel Castro for the island's poverty. He has cut a giant figure on the world stage during the 47 years he has controlled Cuba - at one point bringing the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. It was the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 that propelled him into worldwide prominence. Before that he had been just a glamorous revolutionary leader. He had overthrown the dictator Batista in a classic guerrilla war and had fought off an American-led invasion by Cuban exiles on the Bay of Pigs in 1961. But when Nikita Khrushchev decided, with Fidel Castro's agreement, to station nuclear missiles in Cuba itself, the island leader turned from being a thorn in the side of the Americans into being a mortal threat. It was only the skilled diplomacy of Jack Kennedy (and of Khrushchev in the end) that saved the day, and Fidel's own island from destruction. Strengthened The then US defence Secretary Robert McNamara met President Castro in 1992. He said the Cuban leader told him there were 162 nuclear missiles in Cuba at the time of the crisis. He asked Castro if he had recommended they be used. The answer was:
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