By IANS
Manaus/Havana : A healthier looking Fidel Castro made a surprise appearance in a pre-recorded interview aired by a television channel in Havana, incidentally at a time when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dispelled health speculations about the Cuban leader saying he “is alive because he’s Fidel”.
The interview, telecast Friday, showed the first images of the Cuban leader since his last appearance on Cuban television on June 5, Xinhua reported.
Castro’s appearance on TV is unusual because he has been out of the public eye since he underwent emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006, when he handed power to Raul Castro, his brother and Cuba’s long-term defence minister.
Television officials said the one-hour interview of Fidel Castro with “Informative Round Table” was recorded earlier Friday.
Appearing on television, a seated Castro looked thinner and still fragile, but alert.
The TV appearance restarted speculation on the state of Castro’s health.
While away from the public eye, Castro has written regularly on current affairs in the country’s official newspapers.
In his interview Castro spoke about an essay he wrote earlier this week accusing the US of threatening the global economy. In that column, Castro advanced an extremist theory that a US conspiracy was concealing the truth behind the Sep 11 attacks, including the presence of gold bars in the basement of the World Trade Centre.
In the essay, which served as the basis for Friday’s interview, Castro acknowledged that controversy in the first sentence but then went on to write more than 5,300 words about how “the world is threatened by devastating economic crisis”, for which the US is to blame.
Castro wore a red Adidas athletic jacket, trimmed with blue and white, with “Castro” written over the left breast.
He also spoke of how US’ atomic bomb during World War II caused hundreds of thousands of deaths of defenceless Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, another theme he had addressed in his latest column.
“It was an act of terror,” Castro said.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is visiting Brazil on an energy partnership, said Friday that Castro was in good health although he had undergone a blood transfusion and three delicate surgeries.
Before leaving the Amazon city of Manaus, where he met the heads of state of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Ecuador, Rafael Correa, Chavez told reporters that despite health problems and the fact that he is 81, “Fidel could live 100 more years”.
Fidel Castro “is alive because he’s Fidel”, the Spanish news agency EFE quoted Chavez as saying.
Doctors have changed nearly all his blood in “I don’t know how many transfusions”, he said.
Chavez said he last spoke “two or three weeks ago” with Castro, who has been convalescing since he suffered from a very serious intestinal ailment.
The Venezuelan leader said Fidel told him then that “he needed an illness to have time to watch television, write, think”.
“What problem does Fidel Castro have? Well, one operation, two operations, three operations, 81 years. He almost died,” Chavez said.
“He is writing. He looks like a journalist,” Chavez said.
Chavez said he also tried to encourage Castro to take over his positions in the Cuban government again.
Chavez, Castro’s close friend, often criticised news reports which speculated on Castro’s health.