U.S. Told To Keep Hands Off Cuba

Cuba's allies urged the United States not to interfere with the communist country during Fidel Castro's absence from power, while the U.S. beefed up its television transmissions to the island and President Bush encouraged anti-Castro activists to push for change.

Cuban Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon warned that the United States would face "hell" if it meddled with the Caribbean island.

"We demand that the government of the United States respects Cuba's sovereignty," said a letter released Monday at a news conference in Havana by 400 leftist intellectuals and human rights activists. "We must prevent a new aggression at all costs."

U.S. officials have repeatedly said they will not invade Cuba, and only wish to see democracy on the island. "Our desire is for the Cuban people to choose their own form of government," Mr. Bush said from his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Yet many of those fearing an attack point to the examples of Iraq and Afghanistan — and the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.

Any invasion now would "become a hell for them from the first day," Alarcon said Monday.

"We will guarantee them total failure once again," he added in an interview from Havana with the Venezuela-based television station Telesur, in an apparent reference to the Bay of Pigs attack.

Castro, who turns 80 on Sunday, is said to be recovering from intestinal bleeding that forced him to temporarily cede power a week ago to his younger brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro.

Neither of the brothers have made any public appearances since.

No details on Castro's specific condition or what surgical procedure he underwent have been provided.

Cuban media Tuesday morning reported statements by Vice President Carlos Lage to the effect that Castro continues his recovery and is on the path back to work, CBS News producer Portia Siegelbaum said.

Castro "continues to be coming along favorably" and will be back at work again "in a few weeks," said Lage, who was in Bogota for the inauguration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Earlier Lage visited Bolivia where he also announced Castro was recovering satisfactorily from his surgery and denied reports in a Brazilian newspaper that claimed Castro had stomach cancer.

That optimistic assessment has been reinforced by a flurry of statements from Castro's inner circle and Latin American allies.

"In a few months we'll have him back with us," leading Cuban writer Roberto Fernandez Retamar said at the conference to announce Monday's letter, which was signed by Latin American leftists and numerous Nobel Peace laureates, including former Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and activist Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala.

Mr. Bush said the United States was in the dark about Castro's true health condition.

"The only thing I know is what has been speculated, and this is that, on the one hand, he is very ill and, on the other hand, he is going to be coming out of hospital," Mr. Bush said.

The United States planned to increase its television transmissions to Cuba from one afternoon a week to six through its Miami-based TV Marti station.

Congress approved $10 million in its 2006 budget to develop airborne TV broadcasting to counter the Cuban government's mostly successful efforts to jam the transmission. A new privately owned plane to be used for the transmissions was unveiled on Saturday.