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This is an archive article published on September 1, 2010

Castro details illness,says was near death

Fidel Castro has given new details of just how sick he was when he was forced to give up power four years ago

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Fidel Castro has given new details of just how sick he was when he was forced to give up power four years ago,saying in a rare interview that he was weak,thin and thought at times he could not go on.

“I was at death’s door,but I came back,” the former Cuban leader told the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada in an interview published Monday — one of the most extensive he’s granted since stepping down four years ago. His younger brother Raul now leads the country,though Fidel remains head of the Communist Party.

The elder Castro burst back on the scene in July after nearly four years in the shadows.

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“I couldn’t aspire to live any longer,much less anything else,” Castro said. “I asked myself several times if these people (the doctors) would let me live under these conditions or whether they would allow me to die.”

The government has never said officially what Castro was suffering from when he fell ill in July 2006,though it was reported to have been complications involving diverticulitis,an intestinal ailment common in older people.

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