Saturday August 15, 2009

Chavez visits Fidel Castro for 83rd birthday

Patricia Rondon

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez flew to Cuba this week to celebrate Fidel Castro's 83rd birthday and said his close friend had recovered from a long illness.

The former Cuban leader is in "total control of his mental and physical faculties. (He is) well, considering his age and the illness he suffered, from which he has now recovered," Chavez said late on Friday on his return to Caracas.

Speaking at a university graduation, Chavez said he turned up as a surprise for Castro's birthday on Thursday and spent five hours with the aging revolutionary, his wife, children and grandchildren, and Cuban President Raul Castro.

Castro, the leader of Cuba's 1959 revolution that brought communism to the Caribbean island, has remained out of public view for three years because of health problems and was succeeded as president by his younger brother, Raul Castro, in 2008.

Chavez, a staunch socialist, is Fidel Castro's heir apparent as Washington's most vociferous critic in Latin America and helped prop up Cuba's economy with oil sold under favorable terms from OPEC-member Venezuela.

Cuba confirmed Chavez's visit in the Communist Party newspaper Granma on Saturday.

No major events were held in Cuba to commemorate Fidel Castro's birthday but he published a column in Granma gloomily mulling the global economic crisis that is hitting his country hard, and vowing to "carry on."

On Wednesday, an exhibit of 83 photographs of the former leader opened at the Hotel Nacional in Havana.

The most recent, said to have been taken about two weeks ago by his son Alex Castro, showed him wearing a blue baseball cap and appearing healthy.

Although he has handed over the reins to Raul Castro, who is 78, Fidel Castro has stayed defiant against what he portrays as continuing U.S. efforts to end the socialist system in Cuba he led and defended for nearly half a century.

He leaves day-to-day running of the government to Raul Castro, but he remains influential behind the scenes and writes regular commentaries for state-run media.

Chavez, 55, visits Fidel Castro several times a year, and frequently consults him by telephone and through letters for political advice. He has been accurate about his mentor's health in the past.

During a decade in power Chavez has led Venezuela toward what he calls 21st Century Socialism, opposed to U.S. "imperialism" and influenced by Cuba's system.

Thousands of Cuban doctors, teachers and agricultural advisers rotate through Venezuela in return for 93,000 barrels of oil a day and billions of dollars in infrastructure investment.

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