HAVANA – Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has told an interviewer there were times during his long illness when he was at death’s door but now he is mostly recovered and is trying to avert nuclear war.
Dr Castro (84) told Mexico's La Jornadain an interview published on Monday that he was in such bad shape after falling ill four years ago that he no longer "aspired to live, much less anything else". He asked himself "if those people [doctors] were going to let me live in those conditions or if they were going to let me die.
“Then I survived but in very bad physical condition,” said Dr Castro, who underwent emergency surgery in July 2006 for a still undisclosed intestinal illness.
“I didn’t know how long that torment was going to last and the only thing I hoped for was the world to stop,” he said in what the newspaper described as a five-hour conversation in Havana.
“But I revived,” Dr Castro said in the second interview he has given since reappearing in July after four years out of public view.
Earlier this month, he spoke to reporters from Venezuela.
Dr Castro said he regretted Cuba’s treatment of homosexuals, who were marginalised or sent to agrarian reform camps as punishment.
“It was us that did it, us,” he said. “I am trying to work out to what extent my responsibility extends because, since then, personally, I don’t have that sort of prejudice.” – (Reuters, Bloomberg)