/RPT/CUBA-POLITICS: Rumours on Castro’s Death Originated Abroad

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Aug 28 1997 (IPS) - President Fidel Castro is in “an excellent state of health,” Cuba’s Foreign Ministry declared Thursday, describing rumours of the 71-year-old leader’s death as blatantly false.

If the president died, the news would be announced with the called-for rigour and solemnity, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marianela Ferriol told foreign reporters at her usual Thursday press conference.

On Wednesday, TV channel 51 in Miami cited dispatches supposedly sent from Havana on the poor state of health or even the death of Castro.

Ferriol said such rumours “are cyclically fabricated and carry the registered trademark of the same old liars,” referring to right-wing Cuban exiles in the United States. “Every so often they invent stories and lies about our president with the aim of discrediting” the Cuban government and creating confusion here, she added.

If all the rumours and statements by Cuban exiles abroad were true, Castro would have suffered from every conceivable disease.

Such versions have been periodically spread since Castro disembarked in Cuba in 1956 to launch the struggle against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, which led to the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959.

Analysts say the rumours could mushroom in the run-up to the fifth Communist Party congress scheduled for October, and Pope John Paul II’s January visit to Cuba.

“History has made sure to demonstrate that such rumours are false,” said Ferriol, adding that “campaigns like this one do not deserve the slightest attention.”

Indeed, life went on as normal in Cuba Wednesday, when foreign correspondents accredited in Havana began to receive telephone calls from the U.S. media.

But the Mexican agency Notimex and the Agence France Press (AFP) were forced to deny that their correspondents in Havana had released dispatches. Notimex “categorically” denied having sent a dispatch cited by Channel 51 of Miami, adding that the TV station was not even one of its subscribers.

The daily ‘Granma’, the publication of the ruling Communist Party, reported Thursday that a Foreign Ministry official called Rene Orley Sanchez Castro was buried in the Havana cemetery Wednesday night. Local diplomats suggested that the functionary’s last name could have given rise to the rumour.

Whatever the source of the rumour, it is true that many of Castro’s followers are worried that he has not given a speech for months. He did not even deliver his traditional Jul. 26 speech, commemorating the rebellion that kicked off the Cuban revolution.

Cubans speculated that his brother and right-hand man, General Raul Castro, delivered the address for one of two reasons: either the president was ill, or he decided that a fiery speech against the United States should be delivered by the Minister of the Armed Forces.

Local observers say this has been a tough year for Castro, given that the recovery of the economy so direly needed after seven years of crisis could be further delayed. This year’s poor sugar harvest – Cuba’s leading export – could mean government forecasts of four or five percent economic growth will not be met.

Meanwhile, a wave of attacks on tourist installations this summer has kept authorities on alert, and the tension between Havana and Washington continues to mount.

Castro is currently preparing a report on the country’s economic situation and future outlook for the Communist Party congress. He is also considering the possibility of delegating one or more of his posts as army commander-in-chief, secretary-general of the Communist Party and president of the councils of state and ministers.