Fidel Castro's first no-show in 48 years in Cuba's national holiday fanned doubts he will ever retake the helm from his brother Raul Castro, who has renewed his offer of talks with the US.
"It's over for Fidel Castro as president and commander in chief," said the "Iron Lady" of dissidents Martha Beatriz Roque, who was jailed in 2003 along with 75 other prominent dissidents, but freed a year later for health reasons.
"He's there, but that's it," she said, referring to Fidel's appearances in television videos that leave questions about his political future unanswered.
PHOTO: EPA
Castro, who turns 81 on Aug. 13, missed National Rebellion Day celebrations on Thursday for the first time since the revolution he headed brought him to power in 1959.
He barely made an appearance at last year's national holiday; a day later he went under the knife for gastrointestinal surgery and has since undergone several more operations while recovering slowly at an undisclosed location.
All the while, Cubans wonder if he will ever recover leadership of the Cuban Revolution.
Officially, mum's the word.
"His activity is growing in intensity and is highly valued ... although even in the worst moments of his illness he never stopped giving his wisdom and experience on every crucial problem," Raul Castro said in his keynote speech at National Rebellion Day festivities in Camaguey, which celebrates a failed 1953 assault that was the opening salvo in toppling dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Some analysts said Thursday's no-show at a politically charged event was a sign Fidel is either unready to make a comeback, or has unofficially bowed out.
As if confirming this view, Raul, 76, on Thursday made new overtures to the US, offering to hold talks not with the virulently anti-Cuban administration of US President George W. Bush, but its successor after next year's November elections.
"If the new US administration once and for all can set aside its overbearing nature and talk in a civilized fashion, that will be most welcome," Castro told an estimated crowd of 100,000, in a speech broadcast nationwide.
As expected, the Bush administration quickly rejected Raul's offer.
"The only real dialogue he needs is with the Cuban people," said US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
The US and Cuba do not have full diplomatic relations. The US has had a trade embargo clamped on Havana for 45 years.
A more discrete leader than his flamboyant brother, Raul has shown little inclination for change since taking power, although officially he is in power "temporarily."
He has kept the Americas' only one-party communist system intact, crushing hopes among Cuban exiles in Miami that the government would collapse without the elder sibling at the helm.
Some analysts believe Raul could open the economy, but so far no meaningful reform has been undertaken. Dissidents say that repression has even increased in the "political limbo."
Some ordinary Cubans took Fidel's absence from Thursday's celebrations as a sign he would not be coming back.
"He is old and his health is failing. He must leave it to others to carry on the revolution," 21-year-old Jose Gutierrez said on the square in Camaguey.
"Fidel was not there, but Raul was, which is just the same as if Fidel had been," said homemaker Lidia Pedroso, 60.
For Cuba's dissidents, Fidel's absence on National Rebellion Day was one more nail in his coffin.
"I think this is one more step in the institutional cementing of the succession from Fidel Castro to Raul Castro a year ago," said Manuel Cuesta.
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