CastroHAVANA, Reuters
PRESIDENT FIDEL Castro told his countrymen in a letter published yesterday that he remained fully in command of Cuba, even while undergoing surgery to rebuild his knee, shattered in a fall.
The Cuban leader refused tranquillisers and general anaesthetic during the three-hour surgery to rebuild his broken left kneecap. He told doctors only to apply anaesthetic from the waist down, so he would "be able to attend to many important matters," during the procedure.
"Since the moment I fell, I have not stopped attending to the important tasks that I am responsible for, in co-ordination with the other comrades," Castro wrote in a letter printed on the front-page of Granma, the ruling Communist Party newspaper.
Castro, 78, tripped on a step and fell to the ground after a speech on Wednesday night in central Cuba, breaking the knee in eight places and suffering a hairline fracture in the right arm.
He quickly called for a microphone to reassure the stunned crowd and Cubans who saw the tumble live on television that he was "intact" and could continue governing in a plaster cast.
Using a cellular phone from the ambulance, he first called his office to find out what the international reaction to his fall had been, Castro said in the letter. The fall was shown repeatedly on United States television newscasts, but brought him no get well wishes from the Bush administration.
Castro's lengthy letter was read out repeatedly on television newscasts in an effort to dispel doubts about his ability to continue at Cuba's helm. It brought to mind the ageing Chinese Communist chairman Mao Zedong's swim of the Yangtze River in 1966 designed to showcase his robust health.
During 45 years in power, Castro has built a system of government centred on his leadership as the indefatigable revolutionary who is on top of all state decisions. Many Cubans worry about the vacuum he will leave when he is gone.
