AFP/Havana

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has broken his silence on a historic rapprochement between Washington and Havana, implicitly endorsing it even as he expressed an abiding distrust of his old foe.
The 88-year-old revolutionary icon had said nothing since last month’s surprise agreement, raising questions not only about where he stood on mending relations with Washington, but also about his health and political status.
But late Monday, Castro appeared to answer some of those questions with a letter read out on state television that reflected both his skepticism and tacit support for the decision by his brother Raul to normalise ties.
“I don’t trust in the policy of the United States, nor have I exchanged one word with them, without this representing—far from it—rejection of a peaceful solution to conflicts,” he said.
He refrained from criticising the agreement, and said Raul Castro had acted in keeping with his powers as president.
“We will always defend cooperation and friendship with all the peoples of the world, among them our political adversaries. It’s what we are calling for on everyone’s part,” he said.
The text of the letter, which was addressed to the Federation of University Students, was published yesterday in the official Communist Party newspaper Granma and other state publications, under headlines that did not highlight his comments on the US-Cuba rapprochement.
In his typically loquacious manner, Castro covered a range of topics in the letter, touching on Ancient Greece and Cuba’s military campaigns in Africa in the 1970s and 1980s before coming around to his comments on the rapprochement with the United States.
The agreement to begin normalising ties after more than 50 years of enmity stunned the world when it was announced December 17 by US President Barack Obama and Raul Castro, who succeeded an ailing Fidel as Cuba’s president in 2006.
Last week, the highest-ranking US delegation in 35 years began negotiations with Cuban officials in Havana on reopening embassies in their respective capitals.
The agreement will ease trade and travel restrictions to open the flow of contacts between the two countries separated by 145km of water but an enormous political gulf.
It has been criticised by some US lawmakers and Cuban Americans for not gaining concessions on human rights and democratic reforms.
But Latin American leaders across the political spectrum have hailed it as a long-overdue end to the US-imposed isolation of Havana.
What has been missing was word from Fidel who—though retired—remains the embodiment of the one-party communist state he erected in defiance of Washington after Cuba’s 1959 revolution.
His silence had raised doubts about whether he was even alive, until visiting Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona made public a letter he had received from Fidel.
The latest letter from “El comandante” including the comments on Washington was read by student federation leader Randy Perdomo, on the eve of an annual march by thousands of university students.
This year’s march will commemorate the 70th anniversary of Castro’s matriculation in the University of Havana, from which he graduated as a lawyer in 1950, three years before launching his revolutionary movement with a failed assault on an army barracks.
Castro, who did not comment on the rumours about his health in the letter, was last seen in public more than a year ago, when he attended a friend’s art gallery opening on January 6, 2014.
Fidel had been a frequent contributor to Cuba’s state-run newspapers, but published his last column in mid-October, when he proposed that Cuba and the United States co-operate in fighting the Ebola epidemic in west Africa.
His absence was especially noted on the return of three Cuban spies, celebrated as heroes in Havana, as part of the agreement with Washington. They were swapped for a Cuban imprisoned as a US spy. Jailed US contractor Alan Gross also was freed at the same time.