Cuba left guessing on Revolution Day as Fidel Castro misses big parade | The Guardian

The Guardian, by Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent, 26/07/2010, excerpt/extracto.-

Not since the heyday of Kremlinology has so much been read into the presence, or absence, of a communist leader.

Would Fidel Castro show up at today's Revolution Day celebrations in central Cuba? If so, what would it mean? And if he didn't, what would that mean?

The answer to the first question came when President Raúl Castro and other communist party leaders took their seats for the speeches in Santa Clara – but there was no Fidel. Anticlimax turned to bafflement among the 90,000-strong crowd when Raúl, who was expected to be the main speaker, stayed mute while lesser luminaries took the lectern, making it the first Revolution Day in living memory when neither Castro spoke.