MILITARY PREPARES FOR HAVANA PARADE

Fighter jets zoomed overhead and armed vehicles rolled through the Plaza of the Revolution Monday as Cuba’s military rehearsed for a parade saluting its own founding and the 80th birthday of ailing leader Fidel Castro.

The Dec. 2 military parade will be the first in Havana in a decade and will mark the 50th anniversary of the landing of a yacht that carried Castro and his armed band to Cuba to launch their guerrilla war.

The event will also salute Castro, who asked that celebrations for his 80th birthday on Aug. 13 be delayed after he underwent surgery for sustained intestinal bleeding that prompted him to step aside temporarily in late July. Castro’s brother, 75-year-old Defense Minister Raul Castro, has been acting president since then.

During the Monday rehearsal, uniformed soldiers on foot and horseback practiced their steps across the broad plaza.

Olive-green armored vehicles, rocket launchers and artillery on wheels were transported to the site, as well as a replica of the yacht named Granma, which carried the Castro brothers and other rebels from Mexico, landing on Cuban shores on Dec. 2, 1956. The date is considered the founding of communist Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces.

The revolution that culminated in the ouster of Fulgencio Batista’s government and Castro’s rise to power in 1959.

Military officials at the rehearsal declined to comment on the rehearsal or the upcoming parade.

Raul Castro earlier announced there would also be a military parade on Nov. 30 in the eastern city of Santiago.

There has been no official word on whether Castro will be well enough to attend the parade or a series of events beforehand planned for his birthday.

The nature of Castro’s ailment and surgery has been treated as a state secret and he has not been seen in public since the July 31 announcement of his illness, although officials have occasionally released photographs and videos of him during his recovery.

Alfredo Guevara, who guided Cuba’s renowned cinema program in the early years after Castro rose to power, declined to speculate Monday on whether his longtime friend would show up for the festivities.

But he told reporters at a news conference about an upcoming film festival that he understood that the Cuban leader was completely lucid: “His brain is functioning and functioning well.” The birthday celebrations are being offered by the foundation of late Ecuadorean painter Oswaldo Guayasamin and were originally scheduled around Castro’s actual birthday in August.

Guayasamin, who died in 1999, was a close Castro friend and painted four portraits of the Cuban leader over the years. He joined Castro once every decade to celebrate his birthday.

The birthday celebration, starting on Nov. 28 and running through Dec. 2, will include an art exposition, a concert with leading artists from Cuba, Argentina and South Africa, and an academic conference called “Memory and Future: Cuba and Fidel” led by writers and activists.

Source: AP

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