WikiLeaks is beginning to churn out classified cables discussing Fidel Castro, his health, his brother, and relations with the European Union.
They are interesting dispatches from our man in Havana, at the time, Michael Parmly.
Many of the cables suggest that Castro did not have long to live because of an intestinal perforation of the large intestine. Cables discussed the story that Castro would not permit a colostomy.
"The Interest Section said that Fidel has intestinal problems, that he had a cyst. The information we received from Spain was it was cancer and he was operated. I do not know the truth," says Jaime Suchlicki from the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami.
Suchlicki is plugged into the information flow out of Cuba and is well versed on how government cables flow into Washington.
He makes it clear that the individual cables do not paint the broad or complete picture of what's going down on the island and as such sometimes the analysis is just wrong.
"We should not accept what the cables are saying as the absolute truth. The Interest Section in Havana talks to people and they get the information and send a cable," says the long time Cuba expert.
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Recent WikiLeaks releases suggest that Raul Castro was depressed after the loss of his wife in 2007 and that Spanish officials reported that then Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque was willing to talk and seemed amiable to smoothing things with the European Union.
Roque was tossed out of power soon thereafter.
Suchlicki says that the Interest section personal are limited in their travel and contacts on the island.
"We are getting only what the Interest Section is sending from Havana. We are not getting the whole picture."
