forward" to a post Fidel Castro-era Thursday, October 21, after the Cuban president tripped on a step and tumbled to the ground as he left the stage at a graduation ceremony.
He reportedly fractured a knee and arm but quickly returned to say that he was "all in one piece." In Washington however State Department officials said the latest incident showed the regime itself may be in its final days.
"We’ve been looking forward to Castro’s fall for years but this isn’t what we had in mind," one State Department official was quoted as saying by the French News Agency (AFP) when asked what Washington thought of Castro’s fall.
"It’s a sign of a falling regime," joked another official, who, like the first, spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.
REPORTED FRAIL HEALTH
Castro’s fall after a Wednesday night speech in the central city of Santa Clara came amid a growing number of reports about the apparent frail health of the 78-year-old communist leader’s health and the eventual succession after his 45 years of rule.
His designated successor has long been his younger brother, 73-year-old Defense Minister Raul Castro, who fought with him in the Cuban revolution that overthrew President Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959, news reports said. It is not clear if that will improve the situation of dissidents.
Since last year more than 70 political opponents are known to have been arrested by Castro’s authorities. Several of them have been put in isolation prisons and are cut off from their families, BosNewsLife learned in letters obtained from prisoners this summer.
DISSIDENT BEATEN
At least one of them, imprisoned Cuban human rights advocate Luis Enrique Ferrer Garcia, was recently stripped and beaten by State Security and prison officials in the Youth Prison of Santa Clara, dissident sources said Thursday, October 21. Human Rights First, a human rights watchdog, described the advocate as "the youngest of 75 Cuban human rights defenders imprisoned since March 2003."
Ferrer is 28 and also serving the longest sentence, 28 years in prison, "for his nonviolent advocacy of basic rights", the group said.
The Cuban government has justified the crackdown, saying it has the right to defend the nation from foreign attempts to change its socialist system and protect it against those who it calls "mercenaries" and "anti-revolutionaries" among other terms.
NOT FIRST TUMBLE
Thursday’s reported fall was not the first tumble of Castro. A similar incident reportedly occurred on June 23, 2001, when he collapsed behind the podium during his speech. Castro returned minutes later to assure people in the audience — and millions more watching it live on television — that he was fine.
The incident prompted average Cubans to reflect for the first time on their leader’s mortality and the future of their country after he dies, news media said.
BLAMING THE MEDIA
Castro on Wednesday asked Cubans to forgive him for "any suffering this may have caused," and reportedly noted the presence of international photographers and television camera crews at the event.
"The international press has captured it and surely tomorrow it will be on the front pages of the newspapers," added Castro. He then encouraged those at the event to continue with their televised musical program, which they did.
The Jesuit-educated lawyer, who came to power in 1959 at age 32, has been "a perpetual thorn in the side of the United States," AFP commented. The U.S. was alarmed and embarrassed by Castro’s establishment of a communist-bloc nation in the Americas, just 144 kilometers (90 miles) off its southeast flank.
