Revolutionary leader surprises two presidents in Havana, and calls on US to pay compensation

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro celebrated his 89th birthday on Thursday with a surprise visit to Bolivian President Evo Morales, who was in Havana for the occasion.

Fidel, accompanied by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was also in Havana, "surprised" Morales "at the hotel where he is staying", the Bolivian News Agency reported.

Morales was expecting to visit Fidel at his home, so "the indigenous head of state was greatly surprised to see his revolutionary mentor, who is in good health despite his advanced years, arrive in a van", ABI said.

A photo accompanying the story showed Fidel, wearing a navy blue baseball cap and checkered shirt under a white-striped windbreaker, sitting in a van, with Morales and Maduro seated to his right.

A delegation from the 11 member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, a regional integration bloc spearheaded by Venezuela's socialist government, was to travel to Havana to take part in a series of commemorative events, including concerts and tributes, ABI said.

The celebrations come a day before US Secretary of State John Kerry officially inaugurates his country's embassy in Havana, cementing the restoration of Cuba-US ties after half a century.

The ever-outspoken Castro, who retired from power in 2006, published an editorial in state daily Granma on Thursday in which he called on the United States to compensate Cuba for the hundreds of millions of dollars in potential revenue lost over the decades because of the US-led trade embargo.

"Cuba is owed compensation equivalent to damages, which have reached many millions of dollars," wrote Castro, who led the 1959 Cuban Revolution that overthrew US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

That is one of several conditions Washington must meet to fully normalize relations between the two countries, Cuba has maintained. Others include lifting the trade embargo and withdrawing from Guantanamo Bay, where the US operates a naval base and notorious prison.

Castro, who has not opposed the restoration of ties but said early on that he did not trust the US, also asserted "we will never stop struggling for peace and the well-being of all human beings, for every inhabitant on the planet regardless of skin color or national origin, and for the full right of all to hold a religious belief or not".

He included a birthday wish. "The equal right of all citizens to health, education, work, food, security, culture, science, and well-being, that is, the same rights we proclaimed when we began our struggle ... is what I wish for all."

(China Daily 08/15/2015 page9)