RAUL CASTRO: “CERBERUS OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION”
AFP reports:
Cuba’s interim leader and defense chief Raul Castro was a no-show as some 200,000 people rallied in Santiago to mark the Revolutionary Armed Forces’ 50th anniversary, amid uncertainty about his ailing brother Fidel Castro’s health.
“We recognize Raul as the firm guardian of the Cuban Revolution,” Ramiro Valdes, a regime old-timer and current Communications Minister, told the crowd of workers and students in a sea of red, white and blue Cuban flags.
[However, Valdes uses Cerberus of the Cuban Revolution to describe Raul Castro. In Greek mythology, Cerberus was the hound of Hades — a monstrous three-headed dog with a snake for a tale and serpentine mane. He guarded the gate to Hades (the Greek underworld) and ensured that the dead could not leave and the living could not enter.]
Raul Castro often presides over military events in Santiago, about 900 kilometers (600 miles) southeast of Havana, and many Cubans expected he would take part there Thursday.
But Raul, deputised to stand in as Cuba’s leader for Fidel, who underwent intestinal surgery on July 27, did make his first public appearance in weeks Wednesday when he joined an open-air event in Havana celebrating revolutionary folk singer Silvio Rodriguez’s 60th birthday.
There a group of schoolchildren asked him to forward greetings to Fidel.
“He’s fine, today I’m going to see him,” Raul, 75, told the children, according to state television.
Reuters further adds:
Ramiro Valdes, a veteran revolutionary who fought alongside the Castro brothers in their guerrilla force that seized power in 1959, said the future of Cuba depends on the unity of its people with the ruling Communist Party.
In the four months since Fidel Castro stepped aside, “all our people, the Party, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Interior Ministry, the revolutionary cadre, have grown stronger, should-to-shoulder with Raul,” Valdes said.
Cuban institutions have continued to function efficiently despite the “blockade” of U.S. sanctions, Valdes said.
“Never have we been so strong, so united, so alert,” said Valdes, who was reappointed minister in August.
“Yankee imperialists” are dreaming of political change that will not happen, he said, in reference to increased pressures by the Bush administration to undermine a Castro succession.
U.S. officials and Western diplomats in Havana suspect Castro has terminal cancer. Cuban officials refuse to comment, saying his medical condition is a state secret.
Cuba watchers say the transfer of power to Raul Castro is already a done deal whether or not the elder Castro survives.
Raul Castro, a low-key leader compared to his charismatic brother, did not attend the military ceremony in Santiago marking the 50th anniversary of an armed revolt.
On Wednesday, Raul appeared in public for the first time in weeks to present popular folk singer Silvio Rodriguez with a birthday gift, a model of the yacht Granma on which the Castros and 80 rebels came ashore in 1956 to start their revolution.
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