The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
52°F
Current Conditions
Few clouds
View complete weather report
Subscribe now

Castro’s condition improving, officials say

Army reservists patrol the streets of Havana, Cuba, Saturday as part of a slight increase in security seen since President Fidel Castro temporarily ceded power. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Vanessa Arrington Associated Press
Army reservists patrol the streets of Havana, Cuba, Saturday as part of a slight increase in security seen since President Fidel Castro temporarily ceded power. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

HAVANA – Cuban officials said Saturday that Fidel Castro was steadily recovering from surgery and the government was still preparing for its worst-case scenario: an attack by government opponents taking advantage of the leader’s health crisis.

Castro, whose 80th birthday is Aug. 13, has made no appearances in the five days since his surgery for gastrointestinal bleeding was announced to the Cuban public. Defense Minister Raul Castro, his younger brother and the man named to temporarily replace him as the island’s top leader, also was nowhere to be seen.

Vice President Carlos Lage said that Fidel Castro is recovering satisfactorily from surgery and that the communist leader sent his “fraternal greetings” to the people of Bolivia, according to Cuban news agency Prensa Latina. Lage was in the South American nation for the opening today of a convention to rewrite its constitution.

Lage is among a group of six Cuban leaders assigned leadership responsibilities by Fidel Castro after the leader’s surgery. He is charged with overseeing Castro’s “energy revolution,” a massive renovation of the island’s antiquated electrical grid.

Cubans had been warned there would be few details about the leader’s health – called “a state secret” in a Tuesday statement attributed to Castro. Yet some privately speculated the lack of information could indicate he was extremely ill.

The Cuban government beefed up security, mobilizing citizen defense militias and asking military reservists to check in daily because of the concerns. Veterans – most of them in their 60s and 70s – promised they would fight for Cuba in the event of an attack.

“We will continue working with the same revolutionary fervor that you taught us,” the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution said in a statement on the Communist Party daily Granma’s front page. The veterans fought in Castro’s battles of the 1950s to oust dictator Fulgencio Batista and then defended the island against the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion.

The enemy in Cuba is perceived to be the U.S. government and hardline Cuban-American exiles. President Bush’s call on Thursday for democratic change on the island was seen as a provocation, as are statements like those made this week by William Sanchez, an attorney for the Cuban-American nonprofit Democracy Movement who urged Bush to tell Cuba to set an elections timetable and let Cuban-Americans come to the island to help with a political transition.

The U.S. government insists it is pushing for peaceful change in Cuba and has no intentions of invading. White House press secretary Tony Snow dismissed as “absurd” the suggestion that the United States would attack.