Castro offers Cuba personal account of 'prolonged recovery'

Cuba's most famous convalescent, Fidel Castro, has revealed personal and previously undisclosed details about his medical tribulations, offering reassurance to his compatriots that he has reached the point where he is taking food by mouth and his weight has finally stabilised.

The unusual first-person update came in a column for publication in state newspapers yesterday.

They suggest more clearly than before that the revolutionary leader who shocked Cubans 10 months ago, ceding power to his brother Raul because of serious illness, may at last be on the way to recovery.

"For many months I depended on I/Vs and catheters through which I received an important part of my nourishment," he wrote. "Today I receive orally everything my recovery requires." He added: "I tell everyone simply that I am getting better and maintain a stable weight of about 80 kg (176lb)."

But he also hinted at the precariousness of his condition at the start, saying that the first of many operations did not go well. While the precise nature of his sickness remains a state secret, it is thought he was struck with diverticulitis, a dangerous inflammation and bulging of the large intestine's wall.

"It wasn't just one operation, but various," he wrote. "Initially there was no success and this led to a prolonged recuperation."

Indeed, Castro, who turned 80 last year, has still not been seen in public since the beginning of his illness at the end of last July. He disappointed many loyalists on the island when he failed to show up at the annual workers' parade in Havana on 1 May.

Instead, the world has been given only second-hand glimpses of the revolutionary leader through still photographs and video clips released by the state. While early images showed a clearly frail patient who had lost significant weight, the most recent, taken during a meeting with Chinese dignitaries, revealed a track-suited man apparently in much more robust health, although it was still shot in a hospital setting.

In January, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that the Cuban leader remained in "very grave" condition and that he had suffered through three botched operations. The report was denied by Cuban officials but rekindled speculation around the world that Castro was on the point of death.

If that was so at the time, apparently things have improved. There has been no word from officials about him resuming power, but in recent weeks he has tried to reassert his influence by writing a series of newspaper columns.

He has used them repeatedly to assail the United States, accusing Washington of damaging the world through its free trade policies and seeking to encourage defections from Cuba. Emphasising that he has at least resumed pondering in columns the direction of the revolution that he began in 1959, he wrote: "For now, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, reflecting and writing about questions that I judge of certain importance and transcendence. I have a lot more material to go."

In one of his most recent articles, Castro took aim at the British Government, severely criticising its decision to invest in new nuclear submarines.