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

Nobel Peace Prize Us Presidents

PARIS — Citizens and world leaders urged US President Barack Obama to seize on his surprise Nobel Peace Prize win to forge peace in the globe’s trouble spots and rid the world of nuclear weapons.
From Tokyo to Cape Town, news that the 48-year-old had won the prestigious award just nine months into his presidency was met by a mixture of shock and appeals for Obama to solve a host of local and global issues.

A “surprised” and “deeply humbled” Obama said he doubted he deserved the honour, but vowed to wield it as a “call to action” to lead a united world against its greatest challenges.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the prize as “America’s return to the hearts of the world’s peoples” after disenchantment with the previous presidency of George W. Bush.

Former UN chief Kofi Annan called it “an unexpected but inspired choice.” But the announcement was not universally lauded.

“Who, Obama? So fast? Too fast — he hasn’t had the time to do anything yet,” was the incredulous response of Lech Walesa, Poland’s historic trade union leader and the 1983 laureate.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro called the award a “positive measure.”

In an article, Castro said the Nobel committee decision was designed to criticize “the politics of genocide” pursued by Obama’s predecessors.

“I don’t always agree with decisions by this institution,” Castro wrote. “But this time, I recognize that it was a positive step.”

For others, Obama’s promotion to the rank of global peacemaker was an opportunity to give him some new assignments.

The prize is in “good hands,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, expressing “hope that world peace is a reality and that we have no more nuclear bombs.”

The Dalai Lama, who won the prestigious award in 1989, called on Obama to champion “freedom and liberty.”

The exiled Tibetan leader wrote a letter to Obama congratulating him even though the president, in an apparent bid not to upset China, avoided meeting him during the Dalai Lama’s weeklong visit to Washington.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Obama’s win was an “incentive” for all to do more for peace, adding that his goal of a nuclear-free world is one “we must all try to achieve in the coming years.”

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, meanwhile, said he hoped it would be a “boost to our joint efforts in forming a new climate in international politics and promoting initiatives that are critically important for global security.”

The 2008 laureate, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, noted that as Middle East peace efforts remain stalled, “this time, it was very clear that they wanted to encourage Obama to move on these issues.”

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas said he hoped the prize would help bring about an independent Palestinian state, but the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, decried Obama’s win.

“He did not do anything for the Palestinians except make promises,” said Hamas spokesman Samir Abu Zuhri.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, said the award “expresses the hope that your presidency will usher in a new era of peace and reconciliation.”

In Afghanistan, where the United States is in the ninth year of a bloody conflict against Taliban extremists, President Hamid Karzai hailed Obama’s “hard work and new vision on global relations.”

But the decision was condemned by the Taliban, who said he had “not taken a single step toward peace in Afghanistan.”

On the streets of Kabul, Afghans said they did not believe Obama’s policies had improved the situation in their war-ravaged country.

“The situation is getting worse here,” said shopkeeper Ahmad Tawab.

“At least I can say that he is better than George Bush,” said tailor Abdul Hakeem, 18.

The Nobel committee acted “hastily,” said arch foe Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, arguing a “good timing” for the prize would have been after US troops pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq “and the United States is standing up for the rights of the Palestinian people.”

UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei — another former winner — said Obama had “reached out across divides and made clear that he sees the world as one human family, regardless of religion, race or ethnicity.”

In Iraq, 45-year-old bank security guard Abu Istabraq said that Obama “really deserved this prize more than anyone else.”

Obama “was able to calm the situation in Iraq and other countries, and he made America reach out to Islamic and Arabic countries,” he said.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama of Japan, the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack, said he saw “the world changing” since Obama entered the White House on January 20.

South African archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won the prize in 1984, saw Obama as a younger incarnation of Nelson Mandela, a 1993 co-laureate.

“It is a very imaginative and somewhat surprising choice. It is wonderful,” he said in Cape Town.

Obama’s Kenyan relatives reacted with delight.

“It is an honour to the family… we are very happy that one of us has been honoured. We congratulate Barack,” Said Obama, the president’s step-brother, told AFP. Obama’s father was Kenyan and the president is considered a favourite son of the east African country.
Source: google.com