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Castro salutes Cuban people

Fidel Castro

HAVANA: Fidel Castro saluted the Cuban people for their “50 years of resistance” against the United States, in a written message read out on state television shortly before the first minutes of the New Year.

“During the course of the morning, the 49th year of the Revolution will have been left behind and we will have fully entered the 50th year, which will symbolise a half century of heroic resistance,” said the message read by a presenter.

The broadcast showed old photographs of the Cuban leader. “We proclaim to the world with pride this record which makes us believe in the most just of our demands: that there be respect for the life and the wholesome joy of our nation.”

Cuba will mark the 50th anniversary of the January 1, 1959, triumph of the revolution led by Mr. Castro a year from now, but is already characterising all of 2008 leading up to that date as the “50th year of the revolution.”

Mr. Castro, 81, has not been seen in public in the 17 months since he announced he had undergone emergency intestinal surgery and was provisionally ceding his powers to a caretaker government led by his younger brother Raul, the 76-year-old Defence Minister.

Mr. Fidel Castro’s exact ailment and condition are carefully guarded state secrets, but Mr. Raul Castro recently told voters in the eastern city of Santiago that his brother is doing well enough that Communist Party leaders support his candidacy to be re-elected as a deputy to Cuba’s National Assembly, or Parliament, on January 20. — AP

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