Cuban President Fidel Castro turned 75 on Monday while staying as a guest of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a leader with whom he has developed a special relationship.
Castro is scheduled to fly back later in the day to Cuba, where the state controlled media over the weekend lauded his three-quarters of a century, 45 years of which have been spent at the helm of a single-party state.
"I will turn 75 in the land of (19th century independence leader Simon) Bolivar: It is like being born again," blared the front page of Havana's Juventud Rebelde newspaper, which on Sunday dedicated seven of its 16 pages to Castro.
Chavez -- for whom Bolivar continues as a hero and a role-model in his goal of Latin American integration -- is set to meet Monday with his Brazilian counterpart, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
The two will inaugurate a high-voltage electrical transmission line which will bring electricity to power-starved Brazil.
A reticent Castro told reporters Sunday that his schedule for the following day was "a secret" and that "for security reasons" he could not say whether he would accompany his host to the meeting with Cardoso.
In an indication that age was taking its toll on the Cuban leader, organizers struck out of Castro's Sunday's schedule a visit to an ecological museum. The Cuban leader had felt tired, according to diplomatic sources.
This is the Cuban president's sixth visit to Venezuela. The growing rapprochement by the two leaders has been watched with interest by Washington, which still maintains economic sanctions against Cuba.
Prophetically, while leading Cuba's fight against former dictator Fulgencio Batista, Castro in 1958 opined that "once this war is over, a much longer, more difficult battle will begin for me -- the fight against the Americans."
Venezuela is one of the leading suppliers of crude oil to US refineries, and Chavez has his own revolutionary pedigree -- CARACAS (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
