CUBA: Cuba's President of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, says the Cuban revolution will go on, despite the illness of President Fidel Castro

Raul Castro, defense minister since Cuba's 1959 revolution, has swapped his military uniform for a business suit to stand in as official host of the 14th at Havana's airport to receive the 50-odd heads of state and government expected for the summit. Ailing Fidel Castro is no longer bed-ridden and is working the telephone giving orders as world leaders gather in Havana for the summit of the Non- Aligned movement. "Don't think he is lying back in bed ... he has a telephone!" his brother and acting president Raul Castro told Cuban reporters. As ministers debated denouncing the United States for its role as global policeman and Israel for bombing Lebanon, delegates talked in the corridors about Castro, wondering whether the iconic revolutionary would open the presidential segment of the Non-Aligned Movement summit on Friday (September 15) morning. Castro was forced to hand over the running of Cuba to his brother on July 31 after undergoing emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding caused by an undisclosed illness. Delegates said they expect Castro, who has championed the cause of Third World countries for four decades, to speak to the summit at least in a brief televised address. At a news conference, President of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, insisted the revolution would go on whatever the state of Fidel's health. "That's the way it's been, a little bit in the style of the revolutionary institution, the Cuban revolution, so in this sense, the answer is yes, it will continue in this style because this revolution will continue," said Alarcon. Alarcon slammed the U.S. for recommending the release of exile Luis Posada Carriles. A U.S. magistrate on Monday said exile Luis Posada Carriles, 79, must be freed because the government was unable to find, within the time allowed, a country willing to give him asylum if he were deported. The naturalized Venezuelan and former CIA operative is held on immigration charges for illegally entering the United States. He is also accused by Venezuela and Cuba of violent acts against Fidel Castro's government, including a 1976 airliner bombing that killed 73 people. "Bush supports terrorism, Bush is as guilty as Posada Carriles, he wants to engage him in terrorist activities, but at least he has to respect the borders of the United States," said Alarcon. Visitors to the summit are greeted with a billboard of U.S. President George W. Bush with vampire-like fangs dripping with blood. Some 50 heads of state are expected to attend the summit, with Cuba hoping to reinvigorate the movement.

ITN Source | September 15, 2006

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