“I saw death face to face”, says Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Cuban leader, Fidel Castro
Former Cuban leader, Fidel Castro claimed he resurrected after smelling death as he took ill four years ago and was forced to relinquish his position as Cuban president.
He claimed he was “at death’s door” when he was forced to give up power four years ago, describing his state of health as hopeless, feeling so weak, dangerously thin and thought at times he could not go on for long.
The elder Castro returned to the public eye in July after nearly four years in the shadows, using frequent appearances to warn that a conflict pitting the United States and Israel against Iran has taken the world to the brink of nuclear war.
The 84-year-old has spoken to journalists with the heavily controlled Cubanstate media, but only once before sat down with foreign reporters
In the five-hour interview with Mexico’s La Jornada, Castro said that during the illness his weight fell to 10st 5lb – extremely thin for a man thought to be about 6ft3 and known for his large frame – but that he is now back up to more than 13st
“I couldn’t aspire to live any longer, much less anything else,” Castro said. “I asked myself several times if these people (the doctors) would let me live under these conditions or whether they would allow me to die.”
The government has never said officially what Castro was suffering from when he fell ill in July 2006, though it was widely reported to have been complications involving diverticulitis, an intestinal ailment common in older people. He has said in the past that he underwent several surgeries and mentioned that again in the La Jornada interview.
Castro, who has relinquished power to his younger brother Raul, was treated in an undisclosed location and vanished from public view, though he has kept up a steady stream of opinion columns throughout. Since his re-emergence last month, Castro has looked healthy if sometimes frail. His voice seems to gain strength as he talks.
In the interview, Castro described lying in a hospital room during the illness, hooked up to machines, and wondering how long it would be before his suffering would be over.
“Laid out in that bed, I could only see what was around me, machines I did not understand,” Castro said. “I didn’t know how long this torment would continue. The only thing I could hope for was that the world would stop.”
“But I recovered,” he added, proudly.
Source: Telegraph.
Related Posts
Short URL: http://www.emnnews.com/?p=5853
Posted by admin
on 10:12 am. Filed under Breaking News, Editorial.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
It is certainly the strong will power of Castro that has brought him back to life, and I too wish this strong man of the world politics to live longer.
However, the English poet and dramatist, John Dryden [1631–1700], in a mock heroic satirical verse, ‘MacFlecknoe’, composed in the year 1678, had described the power of death as follows :
ALL HUMAN THINGS ARE SUBJECT TO DECAY,
AND WHEN FATE SUMMONS, EVEN MONARCHS MUST OBEY.
Another English poet and dramatist, John Gay [1685–1732], in ‘Fables’ had described the supreme power of death through these lines :
THE PRINCE, WHO KEPT THE WORLD IN AWE,
THE JUDGE,WHOSE DICTAT FIXED THE LAW,
THE RICH, THE POOR, THE GREAT, THE SMALL,
ARE LEVELLED : DEATH CONFOUNDS THEM ALL.
In a poetry titled ‘The New England Primer” composed by an Unknown poet, it is written ( about the great king of Persia—Xerxes) :
THE ‘XERXES THE GREAT’ DID DIE ;
AND SO MUST YOU AND I.