HAVANA, Cuba (AP) -- Fidel Castro called in to the Venezuelan president
during a television and radio broadcast on Sunday, the first time the
ailing Cuban leader has made a live media appearance since February.
art.castro.chavez.ap.jpg
Fidel Castro greets Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in a photo released by
Cuba's Juventud Rebelde newspaper.
The telephone call came minutes after visiting Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez aired a new videotape of their weekend meeting in which he sang
revolutionary hymns to Castro and called him "father of all
revolutionaries."
Castro said he was moved by Chavez's singing and went on to praise
Ernesto "Che" Guevara as a "sower of the conscience."
"I am very touched when you sing about Che," Castro told Chavez during
his call to Chavez's "Alo, Presidente!" program -- referring to
revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara, to whom the program was dedicated.
"There is electricity in the air," Chavez said, obviously pleased with
Castro's call.
On the videotape, reportedly made during a meeting of more than four
hours Saturday afternoon, Chavez also gave Castro a painting he said he
made while imprisoned in the early 1990s after leading a failed coup.
The dark-colored painting showed the bars of his cell and a night scene
beyond, with a full red moon and a guard tower in the distance.
Castro told him he needed to sign his work. "No one knows the merit that
this has, that you did this."
Cuban state television was broadcasting Chavez's program live from Santa
Clara, where the communist government last week commemorated the 40th
anniversary of Guevara's death.
Chavez toured the museum below the towering statue of Guevara, which
also contains a mausoleum housing Guevara's remains. Chavez arrived in
Cuba late Friday.
Earlier Sunday, Cuban state media released two new official photos of
the men together but provided no details about the ailing 81-year-old
Cuban leader's health.
Wearing the red, white and blue track suit that has become his typical
dress during his convalescence, Castro looks pale and serious in one
photograph published on the Web site of the Communist Youth newspaper
Juventud Rebelde as he stands and shakes the hand of Chavez.
But Castro looks more animated in a second photograph as the pair sit in
bamboo chairs at an undisclosed location. He appears to read from a book
with a picture of Guevara on the cover while Chavez looks on. In both,
Castro's already sparse gray beard seems to have thinned considerably.
The last official image of Castro was a photograph released late last
month, showing him looking more robust than in some past pictures as he
met Angolan President Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos.
Chavez has come to visit Castro several times since the Cuban leader
underwent emergency intestinal surgery in late July 2006 and ceded
authority to his younger brother, Raul.
Castro has not appeared in public in the 14 months since he fell ill. He
called into one of Chavez's programs broadcast from Venezuela in
February, and the pair chatted for more than a half-hour.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/10/14/castro.chavez.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest
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