ALTERNATIVE CROP OF HAV101.- A visitor looks at a painting depicting Cuba's leader Fidel Castro, by late Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamin in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Aug. 12, 2011. Artists and admirers of ailing Fidel Castro celebrate his 85th birthday starting today with different events. Castro will turn 85 Saturday. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano)
ALTERNATIVE CROP OF HAV101.- A visitor looks at a painting depicting Cuba's leader Fidel Castro, by late Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamin in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Aug. 12, 2011. Artists and admirers of ailing Fidel Castro celebrate his 85th birthday starting today with different events. Castro will turn 85 Saturday. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano)
A car drives past a billboard showing Cuban leader Fidel Castro with the words reading in Spanish 'Socialism or death', in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Aug.12, 2011. Artists and admirers of ailing Fidel Castro celebrate his 85th birthday starting today with different events. Castro will turn 85 Saturday. (AP Photo/Franklin Reyes)
A painting depicting Cuba's leader Fidel Castro, by late Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamin, is seen during an exhibit in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Aug. 12, 2011. Artists and admirers of ailing Fidel Castro celebrate his 85th birthday starting today with different events. Castro will turn 85 Saturday. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano)
A visitor looks at a painting depicting Cuba's leader Fidel Castro, by late Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamin in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Aug. 12, 2011. Artists and admirers of ailing Fidel Castro celebrate his 85th birthday starting today with different events. Castro will turn 85 Saturday. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano)
A woman attends an exhibit of paintings depicting Cuba's leader Fidel Castro by late Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamin in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Aug. 12, 2011. Artists and admirers of ailing Fidel Castro celebrate his 85th birthday starting today with different events. Castro will turn 85 Saturday. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano)
HAVANA (AP) ? Nearly two dozen singers and musicians from nine Latin American nations were honoring Fidel Castro with a happy-birthday concert Friday on the eve of the former leader's 85th.
Dubbed the "Serenade to Fidelity," the spectacle was planned as an "homage to the life of a man, of a people, of a nation and of a revolution," the Communist Party newspaper Granma said.
Dignitaries from other countries were expected and the event's planner promised there would be surprise visitors, but it was not known whether Castro himself would attend.
He has been out of power since 2006, when he was stricken with a nearly fatal intestinal illness and temporarily ceded the presidency to his brother Raul. The elder Castro permanently renounced the presidency in 2008.
Castro is rarely seen in public these days, and he seemed unsteady on his feet when he made a showing at a Communist Party Congress in April, walking to his seat with the help of an aide. At that same gathering, the party named a leadership council without him on it for the first time in five decades, leaving Fidel Castro with no official position.
Yet even in retirement, Castro casts a long shadow. Raul has said he consults with his older brother, and some Cuba-watchers say his presence has acted as a brake on reforms that Raul is betting will save the island's economy by loosening some state control.
"I think the issue is how long (Fidel) is going to linger on and how long he's going to meddle in the government," said Ann Louise Bardach, a longtime Cuba watcher and author of "Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington."
"As long as he is alive and he is compos mentis, he's not going to change his thinking," Bardach said. "He's not going to have an epiphany about economic policy. He's going to do what he always did, which is the preservation of the revolution at all costs."
Castro has been a prolific writer of newspaper columns and books in recent years, including autobiographical accounts of the events that led him to take power in a 1959 revolution.
Castro has published just one opinion column since late May, though it's not unusual or unprecedented for his pen to go silent for extended periods.
Omara Portuondo, the Grammy-winning singer of Buena Vista Social Club fame, was the big draw for the show at Havana's 5,000-seat Karl Marx Theater.
The playbill also included regionally known performers such as Venezuela's Cecilia Todd, Uruguay's Daniel Viglietti, Chile's Pancho Villa and Argentina's Liliana Herrero.
But the night's real star was undoubtedly Fidel, whose defiance of the United Sates continues to inspire leftist activists around the world.
"It's a feeling of love. The serenade is a genre that is born out of love," Viglietti said at a news conference earlier this week.
"The political map has changed in Latin America," he added, "and Fidel is not innocent of responsibility for that."
___
Associated Press writer Andrea Rodriguez contributed to this report.
Associated Presscontact celebrity news brian jones amy lee black widow black widow rip
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.