Posts from — December 2006

The military parade began along the Plaza of the Revolution at 8AM EST with the Cuban national anthem and a multiple cannon fire salute.Defense Minister Raul Castro was the only one to give a speech. He made reference to the Cuban government’s willingness to establish relations with the United States and negotiate under Cuba’s conditions. He made no reference to Fidel Castro’s state of health.

Fidel Castro was not present.

859AM: Central Army passes, Gran Unidad de Tanques Sanguily, Special Forces.

905AM: Amphibious transports and tanks (modernized T-55 & T-62).

909AM: Anti-air cannons, modernized by the Union of Military Industries.

911AM: MiGs 21, 23 & 29 roar over the sky.

912AM: General Staff of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

918AM: Cuban populace marches.

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CBS News is reporting:

Castro remains seriously ill, but CBS News has learned that he does not have cancer, despite rumors. However, CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports that it’s unlikely he will ever recover enough to return to power, even if he survives for years.

COMMENTARY: CBS NEWS offers no evidence in this dispatch to disprove that Fidel Castro has terminal cancer.

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AP’s Anita Snow writes about Cuba’s military hardware, key points:

Communist Cuba’s military is rolling out its olive green Soviet-era hardware this weekend, summoning 300,000 troops and citizen soldiers for a show of strength in times made uncertain by Fidel Castro’s illness. Anti-aircraft missiles, tanks and armored vehicles, MiG fighter jets and helicopter gunships have rehearsed in recent days for Saturday’s parade in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution.

Cuba’s military stockpiles have been diminished by years of disuse, lack of parts and tropical humidity. But experts believe the island still has more working tanks, missiles and other materiel than most Latin American nations.

The show of strength also underscores the role Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces will likely play in maintaining order and guiding the nation after Castro is gone. Cuba’s aging leaders have long insisted the island’s communist system will outlive them.

Estimates of troop strength on this island of 11.2 million people vary between 39,000 to 55,000, depending on the source and which branches of the service are included.

“The Cuban Army remains one of the most formidable in Latin America” and “remains well-trained and professional in nature,” according to the publication Jane’s World Armies.

Cuba can also count on more than 1 million militia members, as well as paramilitary and civilian defense groups. Cuba’s “War of All the People” military doctrine calls on all other able-bodied citizens to take up arms in the event of a foreign invasion.

Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces, which replaced the military that existed before the Cuban Revolution, traces its roots to Dec. 2, 1956, when 82 rebels landed on the island on a yacht - the Granma - that sailed from Mexico.

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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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