Posted on 08/03/2006 10:26:44 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Cuba's Communist Party tried to quell fears of chaos on Thursday following the temporary surrender of power by the ailing Fidel Castro but failed to clear up doubts over who is in charge of the island.
In a typically cryptic message, the main Communist Party newspaper Granma printed an old speech by Raul Castro, who took over island leadership on Monday, saying that his brother's only heir was the Communist Party itself.
While the front page publication of the speech was obviously designed to quell fears that Fidel's possible exit after 47 years of rule would unleash chaos, it could puzzle many Cubans who say they want to see Raul in public.
In the speech, delivered on June 14 to army officers and first printed in Granma the following day, Raul said: "Only the Communist Party .... can be the worthy heir of the trust Cubans have placed in their leader."
Fidel, a notorious workaholic whose 80th birthday is August 13, temporarily handed over power to Raul after undergoing surgery to stop intestinal bleeding. While his brother, regarded as competent but uncharismatic, has long been known to be his successor, he is no youngster at 75.
Fidel, who took power in 1959 when he led his ragged revolutionaries into Havana and has resisted almost permanent pressure for his overthrow from the United States, released a message on Tuesday saying he did not know if he would recover.
While close aide Ricardo Alarcon told a U.S. radio program on Wednesday that Castro, who had a stomach operation, was "very alert" and resting earlier in the week, Cubans are still desperate for information despite surface calm on the streets.
"Why hasn't Raul come out and spoken? That's what is needed," said a delivery man on Thursday, asking not to be identified. "There is a dreadful calm here."
People have gone about their normal business but there has been a small increase in police presence in poorer parts of the capital and communist neighborhood organizations said "rapid response groups" used to put down riots in the past had been activated.
Some Cubans with relatives in the security forces said military and other uniformed personnel had been mobilized in barracks and police stations as a precaution.
they just don't see it as marxism..
This anonymous statement is pretty bizarre and makes you wonder.
You should always listen to your "Granma"
Raul, keep the plane engines running on the tarmac. Be ready!
What? "Riots" in the workers paradise? Why would that be?
Isn't it odd how the Proletariat never seems to outgrow its need for a dictatorship?
At his age the most likely cause of intestinal bleeding is colon cancer (although you'd think he'd be one of the few in Cuba who got routine screening.)
The riots are (all together now) ALL BUSH'S FAULT!
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
Working at what, exactly? Writing his famous 6 hour speeches that he regularly forces the Cuban people to listen to under pain of imprisonment, death, or both?
Workaholic, my butt.
Fidel has always suffered from chronic craniorectal inversion.
liberalism(marxism) is just disguised these days and the people eat it up.
I believe the term is "nationalized the collective." I prefer "stopped wasting air" myself. Waste of carbon and water, he is.
so this is epistaxsis? :-)
Does this mean that once he's pushing up daisies, we can stop hearing about people's carbon scores? Surely this event will make a dent.
Bring him out! Let's see Fidel Castro, even in a hospital bed and then the world can decide if he's alive or dead.
I'm of the opinion that Fidel's been dead for days, and the equally rotten and corrupt Raul Castro doesn't have a plan to control the miserable people of Cuba once they know that they are free of this monster.
May Fidel Castro rot in hell for all eternity in the lowest pit of hell and God's blessing to those who have suffered because of him for so long!
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