[NYTr] In Reuters Interview, Cuba's FM Says Don't Expect a Radical Change after Fidel

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Reuters - Oct 30, 2007 4:30 PM EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN3020945320071030


Minister says Cuba will stick to path after Castro

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque,
dispelling expectations of change in a post-Castro Cuba, promised "more
revolution and more socialism" when the ailing Cuban leader is no
longer around.

"What I can predict is more revolution and more socialism in Cuba,"
Perez Roque told CNN in an interview on Tuesday at the United Nations,
where Cuba won a victory against the United States with a 184-4
nonbinding vote urging the lifting of U.S. sanctions against it.

Nevertheless, Perez Roque said the 81-year-old Fidel Castro, who has
not appeared in public since intestinal surgery forced him to hand over
power to his brother 15 months ago, remains engaged.

"Fidel Castro is entirely dedicated to the process of recovery of his
health, which advances satisfactorily," he said.

The man who has led Cuba since a leftist revolution in 1959 is going
through a "fertile" period of his life dedicated to reading and
writing, said Perez Roque, a protegee and former personal secretary of
the Cuban leader.

Castro has appeared healthier though still frail in video footage
released this year. His illness is a state secret, and so are his
whereabouts.

Asked whether he was recovering at home or in a hospital, Perez Roque
refused to say. "For obvious reasons ... I cannot provide information
to those who have organized and executed more than 600 assassinations
plots against him," he said in reference to plans by the CIA in the
1960s and Cuban exiles.

U.S. President George W. Bush has stepped up pressure for political
change in the one-party state and denounced the transfer of power from
Fidel Castro to brother Raul as "a succession from one dictator to
another." Last week, Bush called on other countries to push for a
democratic transition.

But U.S. efforts to isolate Cuba have proven futile at the United
Nations, where an overwhelming majority of countries urged Washington
on Tuesday to lift its four-decades-old embargo against Havana for the
16th consecutive year.

Castro is not expected to resume running Cuba's government, which by
all accounts is firmly in the hands of his younger brother.

But Perez Roque said Castro has returned to a daily routine and is
frequently consulted by other members of the Communist Party leadership.

"I saw him on Friday. I showed him my speech (to the U.N. General
Assembly) and he made some suggestions," he said.

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved.