US has no plans to repair relations with Cuba [video report]

WASHINGTON - The United States has no plans for a thaw in US-Cuba relations after President Fidel Castro temporarily handed over power to his brother Raul because of serious illness, the White House said today.

"Raul Castro's attempt to impose himself on the Cuban people is just much the same" as his brother, said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "There are no plans to reach out."

"We don't know what the condition is of Fidel Castro," he said, but added that he did not believe the 79-year-old leader was dead.

Stunned Cubans nervously contemplated a future without Castro after the ailing US foe who has dominated the communist nation for nearly 50 years announced he was stepping down temporarily.

The departure of Castro from power in communist Cuba has long been a goal of US policy, but US officials were not getting their hopes up after state television reported that he had stepped down temporarily following intestinal surgery.

"The one thing we want to do is continue to assure the people of Cuba we stand ready to help," Snow said.

Cuba's ally Venezuela said the 79-year-old president was recovering after surgery to stop bleeding in his intestines, but there was no word from Cuba on his condition since news yesterday that he was handing power for now to his brother Raul.

It was the first time Castro, who will be 80 on Aug. 13, had stood aside since he took power in 1959, prompting speculation that he was gravely ill or could already be dead.

The news sparked street dancing in the Cuban exile district of Miami where Castro's enemies, backed by the United States, yearn for the demise of the West's only communist government.

In Cuba, where Castro's guerrillas once swept down from the Sierra Maestra hills to overthrow a US-backed dictator, word of his illness brought apprehension over the future of the island nation of 11 million.

Castro, who last appeared in public giving a July 26 speech, said in a "proclamation" read out by an aide on television that he overexerted himself last month, partly due to a trip to a summit of South American leaders in Argentina.

"This caused an acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding that obliged me to face a complicated surgical operation," he said in the statement read out on Monday night by his personal aide, Carlos Valenciaga.

"The operation obliges me to remain for several weeks resting, away from my responsibilities and duties," it said.

Castro, whose health has been an issue since he fainted during a speech in 2001, gave the reins of the ruling Communist Party, the post of commander in chief of the armed forces and president of the executive council of state to Raul Castro, 75, his brother and constitutional successor.

He said he was delegating power to his brother, who firmly commands Cuba's 50,000-member armed forces which in turn control the police, because Cuba was "under threat from the US government."

Cubans went about their lives calmly on Tuesday with no signs in Havana of an increased police presence.

"Fidel must be in very bad shape to have handed over all powers. I pray that God helps him recover," said Carmen Vallejo, a dissident in Havana whose father was Castro's friend and doctor in the early days of the revolution.

Venezuela, whose leftist President Hugo Chavez has become a close ally of Castro, said in a statement from its foreign relations ministry that Castro's recovery was "advancing positively," citing information from the Cuban government.

But medical experts said surgery for major bleeding in a elderly man is risky and could require several months of rest.

The news sparked wild celebrations in Miami, where many exiles view Castro as a brutal dictator whose demise could usher in a new democratic era for their homeland.

"I think there's a possibility that he may be very, very ill or dead," Cuba-born senator Mel Martinez told a news conference. "I don't think there would be an announcement such as this unless it was pretty clear that he was incapacitated beyond recovery in the short term."


A US government report by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba recommended a month ago that the United States act fast to boost a transitional government in Cuba when Castro's rule ends and get advisers on the ground within weeks.

But a senior State Department official, who asked not to be named because he was discussing internal administration decisions, said Castro's illness had not prompted the United States to activate the plan.

"We have not opened it yet," he said.

A US official who asked not to be identified said the handover appeared to be a "dress rehearsal" for succession, but speculated that the reference to a "complicated" surgery suggested the operation may not have gone smoothly.

President George W Bush, seeking to undermine a succession, has tightened enforcement of sanctions on Cuba and increased funding of its small, repressed dissident movement.

The four-decade-old US embargo against Cuba is widely seen to have failed to undermine Castro, but a State Department official said there would be no change in policy because of laws restricting US dealings with the communist government.

Concerns over Castro's increasing frailty have led the leadership to build up Raul Castro's public profile. Castro's pace has slowed since he stumbled after a speech in 2004, fracturing a knee and an arm.

Raul Castro, who took over the reins of power in Cuba from his ailing brother Fidel, at least provisionally, has long lived under the shadow of his towering sibling and little is known about his plans for Cuba.

But analysts say the younger Castro, the world's longest serving defence minister, is no obsequious subordinate.

Rather, he appears to be a savvy organiser who has helped keep the leftist firebrand Fidel Castro in power with the backing of an efficient military, and now finds himself flung into a perhaps unwelcome public limelight after his brother underwent an intestinal operation.

Raul Castro, once a communist hardliner, is seen as more pragmatic now than his brother when it comes to plotting the future of Cuban communism, and could lead Cuba to follow China's model of one-party politics and free market economics.

"Beans are more important that cannons," Raul said in the early 1990s, when Cuba was plunged into severe economic crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the military was forced to park jet fighters with the help of horses for lack of fuel.

Fidel Castro, the world's third-longest serving head of state, asked the country to postpone celebrations of his 80th birthday until December. He also said plans were unchanged for the Nonaligned Movement summit from September 11-16, when some 50 heads of state of developing countries are expected in Havana.

"I don't have the slightest doubt that our people and our Revolution will fight until the last drop of blood to defend these and other ideas and measures that may be necessary, to safeguard this historic process," Castro's statement said.

"Imperialism will never be able to crush Cuba," it said.

- REUTERS