Fidel Castro breaks long silence with interview
By PAUL HAVEN
Associated Press
HAVANA -- Fidel Castro has broken a long silence by granting an
interview to a Venezuelan television station, his first since rumors
began to spread that the former Cuban leader might be sick or near
death. A top Cuban official said Thursday that the revolutionary is in
good health.
Photographs of the sit-down with a journalist from Venezolana de
Television were posted on Cubadebate, a state-run website. The
85-year-old appears relaxed and healthy in the pictures, sitting in an
easy chair and wearing a white jacket and green pants.
The website said the interview occurred Tuesday in Havana, but it had
not yet been broadcast and it was not immediately clear when it would be.
"I hate to inform those who are enjoying themselves by believing that
Commandante Fidel has had a stroke that he is alive and kicking," the
Venezuelan journalist who conducted the interview, Mario Silva, was
quoted as saying on the website.
In Venezuela, Silva showed a collection of photos from the interview on
his program "La Hojilla," or "The Razor," on Wednesday night, and said
he expected the full interview to be broadcast in a day or two. The
images showed he and Castro sharing a meal, talking and standing
together, apparently as they said goodbye.
Cuban Parliament Chief Ricardo Alarcon also weighed in on the health
rumors that have sprung up in recent weeks, saying Castro "is well and
enjoying good health."
"Fidel himself said it awhile ago: The day he dies nobody will believe
it because they have killed him so many times," he added.
Castro has not appeared in public since a Communist Party summit in
April, when he seemed unsteady and unusually frail. He has all but
stopped writing his trademark opinion pieces, and didn't make a
statement or release a photograph on his birthday last month.
The silence has led to a fresh round of death rumors from Miami,
propagated on exile radio and television stations and through social
media sites such as Twitter. Castro's health was even the subject of a
computer virus embedded in a spam email titled "Fidel is Dead."
Castro stepped down temporarily, then permanently, in July 2006, handing
power over to his brother Raul. He stayed out of the public eye for four
years before bursting back on the scene in 2010. But after a flurry of
appearances, the former Cuban leader went silent again.
The television interview would be Castro's first this year, though
photographs and video of him meeting with Chavez and other visiting
dignitaries have been released.
Paul Haven can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/paulhaven
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