Fidel Castro Dead

Fidel Castro Dead: On July 27, 2006, Fidel Castro nearly died during emergency intestinal surgery to stem internal bleeding caused by chronic diverticulitis. Since then, Cuba-watchers and obituary writers have been on high alert awaiting his demise.
Fidel Castro DeadYet, more than three years later, Castro soldiers on, approaching his mortal end with the same zeal he lavished on his life. The 83-year-old appears to have adjusted to his medically mandated retirement, enduring various surgeries and their attendant complications. A state-of-the art convalescent suite has been installed in his principal residence, Punto Cero, where he is surrounded by family and Cuba’s finest doctors. On his good days, he entertains well-wishers — among them, Harry Belafonte and Oliver Stone. And he continues to intervene in the thorny politics of Cuba.

In 2007, while still hospitalised, Castro began a transition from being Cuba’s commander in chief to its pundit in chief, penning columns he calls ‘Reflections’ in the state-run newspaper, Granma. Late last year, he offered some personal introspection. “I have had the rare privilege of observing events for a very long time,” he wrote. He then acknowledged the gravity of his illness. “I do not expect I shall enjoy such a privilege four years from now — when President [Barack] Obama’s first term has concluded.”

But until Castro is in the grave, we will be hearing from him. While his brother Raul and the Cuban army are running the day-to-day affairs of the country, Castro retains and exercises veto power. And Cubans continue to feel the strongman’s sting.

In March, more than a dozen of the most senior members of the Cuban regime were purged from the government. While Raul Castro had initiated the internal coup, Fidel was quick to weigh in and assail its casualties, all former members of his inner circle. The men had succumbed to “the honey of power,” he wrote in his column.

Castro’s reluctant leave-taking — with its periodic near-finales — fits into a long tradition of Hispanic caudillos or dictators. Consider, for example, the life — and death — of Francisco Franco, Spain’s dictator of almost 40 years. Both Castro’s father and Franco hailed from the rugged northern countryside of Spain, a region renowned for its fierce and stubborn citizenry. And notwithstanding divergent political ideologies — Franco was a zealous anti-communist — the two men had a good deal in common. Both were willing to forge unpalatable and unpopular alliances with totalitarian states to shore up their power — Franco with Nazi Germany and Castro with the Soviet Union.

And Franco’s shrouded last days neatly foreshadowed Castro’s. Franco became grievously ill in 1974 and was forced to turn over his rule — “temporarily,” he insisted — to Prince Juan Carlos. Castro also initially ceded control to his brother only “temporarily”. Like Castro, Franco had an unexpected recovery, although his lasted only a year before he died at 82.

Although it is generally believed that Franco died days earlier, his death was announced on November 20, 1975, the same day on which Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of Franco’s fascist Falange party, died 40 years earlier.

Some people assert doctors kept Franco alive under orders from the dictator that he would live until the ordained date.

Castro’s untidy leaving has kept the news media in an indefinite state of high alert, as they formulate and reformulate coverage and obituaries. The veteran Spanish Civil War reporter Martha Gellhorn found herself in a similar pickle three decades ago. In 1975, she accepted an assignment from New York magazine to write about post-Franco Spain. “This thrills me, the sort of journalism I love,” she wrote her son. “I am waiting for the old swine to die; but obviously he is being kept breathing [no more] while the right tightens its hold on the country.”

When I asked Castro in a 1994 interview when he would retire, he snapped: “My vocation is the revolution. I am a revolutionary, and revolutionaries do not retire.”

Bardach is the author of Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana, and Washington and serves on the Brookings Institution’s Cuba Study Project. Thanks to gulfnews.com

El Salvador Floods, Mudslides kill 124

SAN SALVADOR: El Salvador floods, mudslides kill 124, the end of the hurricane season devastated parts of Central America on Sunday as floods and landslides killed at least 124 in El Salvador, where the president declared a state of emergency, and thousands left homeless in Nicaragua.

Hurricane Ida, which grew to a Category Two hurricane on Sunday, was moving into the southern Gulf of Mexico, but local officials said they had caused casualties or infrastructure damage in the popular resort town of Cancun.

Forecasters headquarters in Miami, USA National Hurricane Center said Ida had strengthened packing maximum wind speeds of 100 mph (160 kph) as it moved over Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

The tail of Ida, with a low pressure system in the Pacific caused extensive flooding in El Salvador that left 124 people dead, civil defense officials said. Mauricio Funes President declared a state of emergency.

Civil Defense chief Jorge Melendez added that “there could be more fatalities” in the eastern regions of Verapaz and Tepetitan.

In Tepetitan, landslides and overflowing rivers carrying about 30 homes, authorities said. Some residents had agreed to evacuate the area, but a number “refused to leave their homes”, said Mayor Ana Jovel.

In Verapaz, 71 miles (114 km) southeast of the capital San Salvador, officials reported a flood of mud, rocks and tree trunks, ripping through an entire section of the city, burying cars and homes.

A dozen bodies of the victims were removed from the devastation of a local chapel and covered with white sheets, covered with mud, while awaiting identification by relatives.

El Salvador has been in a state of alert since Thursday by heavy rains associated with Ida began to affect the region, destroying an estimated 930 homes and leaving around 13,000 people homeless in Nicaragua.

On Saturday, the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega said his government hopes to make available 4.4 million dollars in aid for those affected by the storm.

At 0001 GMT on Monday, the National Hurricane Center said Ida was about 140 miles (225 km) west-northwest of the western tip of Cuba, moving about 12 miles (19 kilometers) per hour.

He said the center of the storm, currently a category two on the Saffir-Simpson scale with sustained winds of nearly 105 building mph (165 kph), but was forecast to weaken on Monday, the NHC said.

A hurricane watch was issued for parts of the Yucatan Peninsula and to the east of the Mississippi, Alabama, through the border area of northwest Florida.

The NHC said hurricane warning does not cover the city of New Orleans, which was devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina.

Forecasters warned Ida could download three to five inches of rain in the Yucatan and western Cuba, with up to eight inches in some places, as well as storm surges and “large and destructive waves.

This year, El Nino Pacific Ocean warming phenomenon has resulted in an Atlantic hurricane season, especially in calm – a welcome respite for the Caribbean and southeastern U.S. residents still smarting from a 2008 pace.

There have been only two other hurricanes in the Atlantic 2009 season, which runs from June 1 through November 30.

Floods, Landslides Kill 124 in El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR: A late season hurricane ravaged parts of Central America on Sunday as floods and landslides killed at least 124 in El Salvador, where the president declared a state of emergency, and thousands left homeless in Nicaragua.
Hurricane Ida, which grew to a Category Two hurricane on Sunday, was moving into the southern Gulf of Mexico, but local officials said they had caused casualties or infrastructure damage in the popular resort town of Cancun.

Forecasters headquarters in Miami, USA National Hurricane Center said Ida had strengthened packing maximum wind speeds of 100 mph (160 kph) as it moved over Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

The tail of Ida, with a low pressure system in the Pacific caused extensive flooding in El Salvador that left 124 people dead, civil defense officials said. Mauricio Funes President declared a state of emergency.

Civil Defense chief Jorge Melendez added that “there could be more fatalities” in the eastern regions of Verapaz and Tepetitan.

In Tepetitan, landslides and overflowing rivers carrying about 30 homes, authorities said. Some residents had agreed to evacuate the area, but a number “refused to leave their homes”, said Mayor Ana Jovel.

In Verapaz, 71 miles (114 km) southeast of the capital San Salvador, officials reported a flood of mud, rocks and tree trunks, ripping through an entire section of the city, burying cars and homes.

A dozen bodies of the victims were removed from the devastation of a local chapel and covered with white sheets, covered with mud, while awaiting identification by relatives.

El Salvador has been in a state of alert since Thursday by heavy rains associated with Ida began to affect the region, destroying an estimated 930 homes and leaving around 13,000 people homeless in Nicaragua.

On Saturday, the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega said his government hopes to make available 4.4 million dollars in aid for those affected by the storm.

At 0001 GMT on Monday, the National Hurricane Center said Ida was about 140 miles (225 km) west-northwest of the western tip of Cuba, moving about 12 miles (19 kilometers) per hour.

He said the center of the storm, currently a category two on the Saffir-Simpson scale with sustained winds of nearly 105 building mph (165 kph), but was forecast to weaken on Monday, the NHC said.

A hurricane watch was issued for parts of the Yucatan Peninsula and to the east of the Mississippi, Alabama, through the border area of northwest Florida.

The NHC said hurricane warning does not cover the city of New Orleans, which was devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina.

Forecasters warned Ida could download three to five inches of rain in the Yucatan and western Cuba, with up to eight inches in some places, as well as storm surges and “large and destructive waves.

This year, El Nino Pacific Ocean warming phenomenon has resulted in an Atlantic hurricane season, especially in calm – a welcome respite for the Caribbean and southeastern U.S. residents still smarting from a 2008 pace.

There have been only two other hurricanes in the Atlantic 2009 season, which runs from June 1 through November 30.