Fidel Castro missed the start of his own birthday party yesterday, sending thousands of waiting guests a sick note and intensifying speculation that he has terminal cancer.

The 80-year-old Cuban President admitted that he was under doctors’ orders not to attend the festivities, which had been postponed from August.

The problem, he said, was that so many friends had turned up to wish him well that the upheaval would be too great a risk to his health. State media reported that 1,800 “prominent individuals and friends” from 80 countries had arrived in Havana to join hundreds of thousands of Cubans.

“I direct myself to you, intellectuals and prestigious personalities of the world, with a dilemma,” he stated in a letter read out at a gala at the Karl Marx Theatre in Havana. It was the first of several events being staged over five days to mark his birthday and the 50th anniversary of the start of his rebel takeover of Cuba.

“I sign off with the great pain of not having been able to personally give thanks and hugs to each and every one of you,” he added.

Rumours continued to circulate that the ailing statesman could be saving his strength for a “last hurrah” appearance on Saturday, when 300,000 people are expected to watch a military parade involving thousands of troops and tanks to commemorate his revolution.

MiG fighter jets and Soviet-era helicopters soared over Havana yersterday and antiaircraft missile batteries were being rolled into the streets in his honour.

President Castro was rushed into surgery in July after suffering from abdominal bleeding, handing over power to his brother Raúl, 75. He insisted that the move would be be a temporary one.

The no-shows

Billie Piper, 2004, upset about split from husband

Jacques Villeneuve,1999, upset about his car’s performance that day

Fidel Castro, 1997, upset about rumours of his death

Mars Global Surveyor, 2006, suddenly stopped sending signal after ten years in orbit

Source: WENN, Times archives

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