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| Latin America |
| Only The Good Die Young |
| 2003-08-13 |
| Fidel Castro, the world’s longest ruling leader, turns 77 Wednesday after a year that saw his communist-run island grow even more isolated as he lashed out at his European allies and jailed some of his most vocal critics. But despite rumors that he was in poor health, the bearded revolutionary has shown in recent weeks he still has the energy to give his traditional hours-long speeches and keep up a work schedule that would exhaust a much younger man. When Cuba’s rubber-stamp parliament confirmed him in March to a sixth term as the island’s maximum leader in March, Castro acknowledged he won’t be around forever. His current five-year term would have him governing until he is 81. "I promise that I will be with you, if you so wish, for as long as I feel that I can be useful - and if it is not decided by nature before," Castro said at the time in a rare reference to his advancing age and mortality. "Not a minute less and not a second more. Now I understand that it was not my destiny to rest at the end of my life," he added. Other long lived assholes, Stalin - 73, Kim II Sung - 82, Pol Pot - 72. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 "... that I can be useful" You stopped being useful in 1959, Fidel. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-8-13 2:03:17 PM |