Cuba says Fidel Castro sent message to med grads

Posted on Thursday, 10.18.12

Cuba says Fidel Castro sent message to med grads

After a week of rumors saying that Fidel Castro had died or was on life
support, the Cuban government releases a message from Castro to medical
school graduates.
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Wednesday sent congratulations to a
medical school graduation, his first reported but unconfirmed sign of
life since widespread rumors last week that he was on his deathbed, in a
coma or already dead.

Cuba's official Prensa Latina news agency reported that Public Health
Minister Roberto Morales had read Castro's message during the graduation
ceremony Friday at the Victoria de Girón Institute for Basic and
Pre-Clinical Sciences in Havana.

The dispatch said diplomas signed by Castro and coins commemorating the
school's 50th anniversary were handed out at the event, but provided no
direct quotes from his message. The Castro photo published on the Prensa
Latina web page seemed to have come from archives.

Indeed, the report seemed intended more than anything else to put to
rest the rumors that the 86-year-old Castro, Cuba's ruler from 1959 to
2006, had suffered a severe health emergency in recent days.

Castro has not been seen in public since he met in March with visiting
Pope Benedict XVI, and has not written one of his opinion columns, known
as "reflections from Fidel," since June 19.

Several bouts of rumors about his ill health made the rounds during the
summer, but they made headlines last week, when there was no word of a
message from Castro congratulating Hugo Chávez, a key Havana ally, on
his reelection to the Venezuelan presidency on Oct. 7.

One Venezuelan journalist critical of Chávez reported Thursday that
Castro's death would be announced within 72 hours, and there were other
claims that the Cuban had suffered a stroke or was on life support.

Castro claims to have survived more than 600 efforts to assassinate him,
and after each of the dozens of rumors about his death from natural
causes, he has made public appearances to prove that he remained alive.

Castro underwent emergency surgery in 2006 for an undisclosed ailment
that he later acknowledged had nearly killed him. His brother Raúl
succeeded him, at first temporarily and then officially in 2008.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/18/3054818/cuba-says-fidel-castro-sent-message.html