Castro plans holiday after retirement
A newly retired Fidel Castro said today he is relieved to be stepping down and overdue a holiday.
But after nearly a half-century in power, the ailing 81-year-old could not leave without a parting shot at US President George Bush.
Mr Castro issued a resignation letter to the Cuban people on Tuesday, saying he would not accept another term as president when parliament convenes to select a new government this weekend.
But he was writing again just three days later, penning an essay titled 'What I Wrote On Tuesday The 19th', in which he called the run-up to the parliament’s vote on Sunday “days of tension” that “had left me exhausted.”
The announcement he was stepping aside for good brought relief, he wrote.
“The night before, I slept better than ever. My conscience was clear and I promised myself a holiday,” Mr Castro wrote, later adding that “I thought I’d stop writing these reflections for at least 10 days, but I didn’t have the right to keep silent for so long. You have to open ideological fire on them.”
The column focused on the US, with Castro poking fun at presidential candidates there. He said word of his retirement forced them to talk about Cuba.
“I enjoyed observing the embarrassing position of all the presidential candidates in the US,” he wrote. “One by one, they could be seen forced to proclaim their immediate demands to Cuba so as not to alienate a single voter.”
He criticised demands by the candidates and by President Bush for political change on the island and said Washington should scrap its nearly 50-year-old trade embargo against Cuba.
“Change, change, change! they shouted in unison. I agree. Change!’ But in the US,” he wrote. “Cuba changed a while ago and will continue on its dialectical course.”
He added of Bush: “Annexation, annexation, annexation!’ the adversary responds. That’s what he thinks, deep inside, when he talks about change.”
Mr Castro still remains head of the Communist Party, the only one tolerated in Cuba. He did not name a presidential successor, though politicians are expected to tap his 76-year-old brother Raul as head of Cuba’s supreme governing body, the 31-member Council of State.
The younger Castro has been running the island’s government for nearly 19 months in Fidel’s absence, though daily life has remained little-changed.
Neither brother has appeared in public or even on official photographs or video since the resignation letter on Tuesday.
The column was labelled 'Reflections Of Comrade Fidel', rather than 'Reflections Of The Commander In Chief', which Castro had used earlier.
State websites that ran it changed the logo as well, replacing an image of Castro in olive-green fatigues with one of him in a business suit, half-smiling, his hand thrust high in a wave.
