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Chavez due in Cuba for Castro birthday bash
By Isabel Sanchez
AFP
HAVANA
Petroleumworld.com 08 13 06
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was expected here Sunday to help celebrate the 80th anniversary of President Fidel Castro, who was reportedly walking after surgery that saw him cede power for the first time in 47 years.
"Tomorrow I will be with Fidel celebrating his 80th birthday, I will be in Havana from tonight, I'll bring him a good present," Venezuela's fiery leftist president said.
Chavez, who has closely allied himself with Cuba's communist leader, made the announcement in a speech after registering to seek re-election in Venezuela's December 3 presidential election.
Castro has not been seen in public since before July 31, when a news anchor read a statement saying he had temporarily ceded power, for the first time since 1959, to his brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro, following intestinal surgery.
Speaking before some 25,000 red-clad supporters, Chavez said he would embrace Castro "on behalf of all of you".
But there was no immediate confirmation from either government on whether Castro and Chavez would meet fate to face.
In Caracas, Chavez showed a crowd his gifts for Castro: an antique dagger, and a porcelain cup and saucer painted with a portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte, both of which Chavez said had belonged to South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.
He said there would also be "another little present" but did not say what.
Chavez said Thursday that he had received a written message from Castro via an emissary that had filled him with optimism for Castro's recovery.
Meanwhile the Cuban state press said that Castro is now walking and in good spirits, even if closer details of his health were a state secret.
An unidentified "friend" told Cuba's Granma newspaper in an article published Saturday that Castro was taking a few steps after physical therapy and conversing "animatedly."
"He's as strong as the caguairan," the Granma headline read, referring to a particularly sturdy tropical hardwood tree that grows in Cuba.
"Like the tree emblematic of Cuba, he is upright, strong (and) tough, ideal for building lasting works. Our friend saw El Comandante walking about, like someone looking forward to new victories," Granma wrote.
Cuban officials have insisted regularly over the past week that life in the Americas's only Communist country is "completely normal" as Castro recuperates, although neither he nor his brother have been seen in public.
Immediately after his surgery, Castro had asked that his birthday celebration be postponed until December 2, the 50th anniversary of his return from exile in Mexico to topple US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Yet the birthday bash goes on.
A giant concert featuring musicians and dancers took place Saturday to honor Castro in what the official government information agency called "an expression of the people's strong and unified support for the revolution."
The concert was held outside the US Interests Section in Havana and last throughout the night.
Singer-songwriter Amaury Perez orchestrated the soiree, which also featured musicians Frank Fernandez, Rosita Fornes and Kiki Korona, as well as the groups Hipnosis, Karma and Eddy K.
The regime that has been in place since Castro marched his bearded revolutionaries into Havana on New Year's Day in 1959 desperately wants normality, and plans for Sunday's birthday celebration include a nationwide "cane mobilization," recalling the earliest days of the revolution, when idealistic young men and women cut sugar cane for the good of all.
AFP 13 0229 GMT 08 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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