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Raul is fully in charge: Castro

HAVANA: The Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, on Friday said he helped choose the candidates for Cuba’s new government, and asserted that his brother Raul is fully in charge as the new President.

In his first comments since his brother assumed the Presidency last weekend, Mr. Castro was apparently trying to quash speculation he would continue directing Mr. Raul Castro — and the nation’s affairs — from his sickbed.

In an essay published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, Mr. Castro described his role in selecting the governing body his brother now heads as President. But he did not mention involvement in any decision-making since Mr. Raul Castro assumed power.

Mr. Raul Castro has “all legal and constitutional faculties and prerogatives” to lead Cuba,” Mr. Castro wrote. “The dreams of Cuban exiles and others who hoped that Cuba’s Communist state would collapse have been frustrated,” Mr. Castro wrote. “For many, our country was a steam-filled cauldron about to burst.”

Mr. Raul Castro (76), already had been ruling provisionally for 19 months, taking over when Mr. Castro announced he had undergone intestinal surgery and was temporarily stepping aside. But even during that period, Mr. Castro remained Cuba’s uncontested leader.

In his comments, Mr. Castro also dismissed concerns about the advanced age of many of the members of the new Council of State, Cuba’s supreme governing authority, who were elected by Parliament.

He noted that two key generals, Leopoldo Cintra Frias and Alvaro Lopez Miera, are both younger than U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who is 71. The two generals are “much younger than McCain and have much more experience as military chiefs,” Mr. Castro said.

In his Friday essay, Mr. Castro also referred to Parliament’s selection of Communist Party ideologue Jose Ramon Machado Ventura as First Vice-President. “You can now hear the howls of the wolves trapped by their tails,” Mr. Castro wrote. Mr. Castro has not been seen in public since falling ill in July 2006, but he had regularly published columns under the title “Reflections of the Commander-in-Chief.”

He wrote Friday’s column under the title, “Reflections of Comrade Fidel,” as he had promised in his resignation letter last week. — AP

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