Cuban President Fidel Castro has denied CIA reports that he is stricken with Parkinson's disease in a five-hour long speech in which he also vowed to keep the revolution alive and rid the island of corruption.| Five hours? Oh, the pain, the pain ... |
Cuba-watchers point out the once-brilliant orator at times slurs his words or loses the thread of his speeches. In 2001 Castro fainted during a speech in Havana, and last year, he fractured a knee and an arm when he tumbled off a stage.
Castro, who has ruled Cuba with an iron fist since 1959, warned Cuban youths in his speech that Cuba's destruction, if it should ever come about, lay at the hands of its own people, not the United States. He railed against the growing corruption in Cuba that has created a class of "nouveau riche" through the plundering of state resources and negligence of government officials.
"The revolution is going to fix this, and how," he warned referring to a recently launched government drive to stamp out price gouging at petrol pumps, supermarkets and other commercial establishments.