BARACUTEY CUBANO

FIDEL CASTRO DELEGA TEMPORALMENTE EN RAÚL CASTRO LAS TRES MÁS IMPORTANTES RESPONSABILIDADES POR RECIENTE Y URGENTE OPERACIÓN INTESTINAL POR TRASTORNOS RELACIONADOS CON SU ÚLTIMO VIAJE A ARGENTINA.

MAS IMPORTANTES RESPONSABILIDADES A RAÚL

(CBS4 News) HAVANA In an unprecedented announcement, the Cuban government announced Monday night that Fidel Castro was temporarily giving up power to his brother and Vice President Raul, due to surgery for an illness he developed while traveling to Argentina. This is the first time Castro has turned over power to anyone since taking control of Cuba in 1959.

The announcement was made at 9:15 Monday night on Cuban Television,monitored in Miami. A spokesperson for the Cuban government made the announcement, which came in the middle of a newscast. There was littleadvance notice of the special announcement.

The announcement ended with a screen showing Castro’s signature, making the order official. Little information was given about the details of Castro’s illness.

The spokesman said Castro would be out of public life for two months,during which time Raul Castro, designated as his brother’s successor,would have complete control of the country.

The announcement was met with shock and surprise in Miami, home of the largest Cuban exile population in the world. Joe Garcia, director of the Cuban American National Foundation, said he believed the Cuban government is not revealing all it knows about Castro’s illness.

Garcia says he believes this may be Cuba’s first attempt at a transition of power to Raul Castro, the official plan for Fidel Castro’s departure from power.

Castro, the longest serving leader in the longest in the world, is just 14 days from celebrating his 80th birthday August 13th. The nation had been getting ready for the event, preparing for parties and celebrations to celebrate the day. Those events may be on hold if Castro is not able to attend, but Cuban officials have not announced any change.

Castro has been rumored for years to be ill. In 2001, he fainted after a 7 hour speech in the hot sun. In 2004, he tripped and fell in public, and was out of public view for a week.

In 2005, the CIA reported it believed Castro suffered from Parkinson’s Disease, a claim Castro himself denied, but then said he wouldn’t care if he had it; he pointed out Pope John Paul II suffered from Parkinson’s, and he still managed to travel around the world.
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BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5233556.stm

Castro steps aside after surgery

Fidel Castro has led Cuba since 1959
Cuban leader Fidel Castro has undergone surgery and temporarily handed power to his brother Raul.
A statement written by the president and read on TV by his secretary said Mr Castro had suffered internal bleeding.

It said this had been caused by stress following a trip to Argentina and last week's ceremonies marking the anniversary of Cuba's revolution.

Mr Castro, 79, has been in power since 1959. Raul Castro, the defence minister, is his designated successor.

Cuba has a communist, one-party system.

The BBC's Stephen Gibb in Havana says the fact that the Cuban leader did not appear in person to issue his statement has added to speculation about the gravity of his condition.

A major celebration of his 80th birthday had been planned for 13 August, but has now been postponed until December.

Handing over the reins of power will be a shock to many Cubans, 70% of whom have known no other leader, our correspondent adds.


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http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-07-31-cuba-castro_x.htm

Castro relinquishes power to brother

HAVANA (AP) — Fidel Castro temporarily relinquished his presidential powers to his brother Raul on Monday night and told Cubans he underwent surgery.
The Cuban leader said he had suffered gastrointestinal bleeding, apparently due to stress from recent public appearances in Argentina and Cuba, according to the letter read live on television by his secretary, Carlos Valenciaga.


"The operation obligates me to undertake several weeks of rest," the letter read, adding that extreme stress "had provoked in me a sharp intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding that obligated me to undergo a complicated surgical procedure."

Castro said he was temporarily relinquishing the presidency to his younger brother and successor Raul, the defense minister, but said the move was of "a provisional character." There was no immediate appearance or statement by Raul Castro.

The elder Castro asked that celebrations scheduled for his 80th birthday on Aug. 13 be postponed until Dec. 2, the 50th anniversary of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces.

Castro said he would also temporarily relinquish his duties as first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba to Raul, who turned 75 in June and who has been taking on a more public profile in recent weeks.

In power since the triumph of the Cuban revolution on Jan. 1, 1959, Castro has been the world's longest-ruling head of government. Only Britain's Queen Elizabeth, crowned in 1952, has been head of state longer.

The "maximum leader's" ironclad rule has ensured Cuba remains among the world's five remaining communist countries. The others are all in Asia: China, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea.

Over nearly five decades, hundreds of thousands of Cubans have fled Castro's rule, many of them settling just across the Florida Straits in Miami.

Castro rose to power after an armed revolution he led drove out then-President Fulgencio Batista.

The United States was the first country to recognize Castro, but his radical economic reforms and rapid trials of Batista supporters quickly unsettled U.S. leaders.

Washington eventually slapped a trade embargo on the island and severed diplomatic ties. Castro seized American property and businesses and turned to the Soviet Union for military and economic assistance.

On April 16, 1961, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist. The following day, he humiliated the United States by capturing more than 1,100 exile soldiers in the Bay of Pigs invasion.

The world neared nuclear conflict on Oct. 22, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy announced there were Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. After a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev removed them.

Meanwhile, Cuban revolutionaries opened 10,000 new schools, erased illiteracy, and built a universal health care system. Castro backed revolutionary movements in Latin America and Africa.

But former liberties were whittled away as labor unions lost the right to strike, independent newspapers were shut down and religious institutions were harassed.

When social pressures increased, Castro provided a safety valve.

In 1980, people desperate to leave the island poured into foreign embassies and the Cuban leader let 125,000 countrymen flee to Florida by boat through Mariel port, west of Havana.

When economic crisis sparked rioting in Havana in 1994, Castro opened Cuba's borders again, and an estimated 30,000 people took to the sea in rafts.

With Cuba's economy in a tailspin after the loss of Soviet aid, Castro was forced to open up to foreign capitalists and allow limited private enterprise.

But when the economy began recovering in the late 1990s, Castro reasserted control and stifled private business.

Castro continually resisted U.S. demands for multiparty elections and an open economy despite American laws tightening the embargo in 1992 and 1996.

He characterized a U.S. plan for American aid in a post-Castro era as a thinly disguised attempt at regime change and insisted his socialist system would survive long after his death.

Fidel Castro Ruz was born in eastern Cuba, where his Spanish immigrant father ran a prosperous plantation. His official birthday is Aug. 13, 1926, although some say he was born a year later.

Talk of Castro's mortality was long taboo on the island, but that ended June 23, 2001, when he fainted during a speech in the sun. Although Castro quickly returned to the stage, many Cubans understood for the first time that their leader would one day die.

Castro shattered a kneecap and broke an arm when he fell after a speech on Oct. 20, 2004, but typically laughed off rumors about his health, most recently a 2005 report that he had Parkinson's disease.

"They have tried to kill me off so many times," Castro said in a November 2005 speech about the Parkinson's report, adding he felt "better than ever."

But the Cuban president also said he would not insist on remaining in power if he ever became too sick to lead: "I'll call the (Communist) Party and tell them I don't feel I'm in condition ... that please, someone take over the command."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Posted 7/31/2006 9:47 PM ET

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content
/article/2006/07/31/AR2006073101121.html

Castro has surgery

By Anthony Boadle
Reuters
Monday, July 31, 2006; 11:24 PM

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro, one of the world's most enduring leaders, handed over power provisionally to his brother and underwent surgery, he said in a statement read out on state television on Monday.

Castro, who has led Cuba since his unkempt guerrillas swept down from the Sierra Maestra hills to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, said he overexerted himself this month on a trip to a summit of South American leaders and celebrations of his 1953 assault on a military garrison.

He delegated his posts as first secretary of the ruling Communist Party, commander in chief of the armed forces and president of the executive council of state to Raul Castro, 75, his younger brother and designated successor.

"This caused an acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding," said the statement signed by Castro and read out by aide Carlos Valenciaga.

Street celebrations immediately erupted in Miami, a hotbed of opposition to Castro's communist government where news of his delegation of power was greeted as a signal of his imminent demise.

"We're obviously taking it seriously," Alfredo Mesa, the 31-year-old director of the anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation, said of the reports from Havana.

"People on the island who have received this information are also taking it seriously," Mesa told a Miami television station.

HAVANA QUIET

The streets of Havana, a city of 2 million, were quiet and there were no signs of stepped up police patrols. Youths sipped rum and listened to guitar music on the Malecon sea-wall.

"It will all work out OK," said a parking attendant.

Somber-looking television newscasters, some wearing black, announced that Castro would have an important announcement to make to the country after the news.

Castro said the operation has forced him to rest for several weeks.

Castro undergoes surgery

Castro's health has been an issue since he fainted during a speech in 2001, raising uncertainty over the future of Cuba, the Western Hemisphere's sole communist country.

His pace has slowed since he stumbled after a speech in October 2004, fracturing a knee and an arm.

Castro said he was delegating power to his brother because Cuba was "under threat from the U.S. government."

The State Department said it could not confirm the reports of Castro's surgery or the delegation of powers and White House spokesman Peter Watkins said he didn't want to speculate on Castro's health. "We are monitoring the situation," he told Reuters.

The administration of President George W. Bush, seeking to undermine a succession to Raul Castro and foster a transition to multi-party democracy and a free-market economy, has tightened enforcement of sanctions on Cuba and increased funding of Cuba's small and repressed dissident movement.

One U.S. official described Castro's carefully scripted announcement as exceptional and suggested Cuban officials were trying to control expectations about the government's future.

"At this point, there's no reason to discard what they've said. They have a reason to mold expectations," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Raul Castro said in June that the Communist Party will govern Cuba and maintain the island's socialist society when Fidel Castro is no longer around.

"I have no doubt that our people will fight to the last drop of blood to defend ... this historic process," Fidel Castro said in his televised statement.