.c The Associated Press
HAVANA (AP) - In rare comments about Cuba's leadership after he dies, President Fidel Castro has endorsed his brother Raul as successor and urged the party to be unified in maintaining communism.
"We have to guarantee the revolution,'' Castro said in a four-hour speech at the close of the Fifth Communist Party Congress. The Friday speech was broadcast Sunday by Cuban state television.
Castro said the party was fortunate that his 66-year-old brother was the No. 2 man.
"Raul is younger than I, more energetic than I,'' said the 71-year-old Cuban leader. "He can count on much more time.''
Castro made it clear his brother was his choice in an unusually explicit discussion of Cuban succession, one that seem aimed at rumors Castro suffers from ill health, though he made no direct reference to that and Cuban officials have denied it.
Raul Castro is also vice president of the government and head of the armed forces. He accompanied his older brother in the revolution that brought Castro to power, and was more closely allied with communists than was his brother at the start of the revolt.
Castro also demanded the party exercise collective leadership and maintain unity, citing the examples of other revolutions that had failed due to divisions.
It is essential, he said, "that this revolution never can be corrupted by anybody ... that it can never be destroyed by ourselves.''
He said that the party should be demanding of its leaders and warned younger communists against vanity or "any ambition of a personal kind.''
Castro said the position of second secretary was created early in the revolution at a time the United States was trying to have him killed.
"Many times they had us in the sights of their weapons,'' he said. "We have had to call it luck.''
"Clearly the enemies, the Yankees would celebrate a lot if the party could not count on me, for example, even if it were just a pretext to drink a bottle of liquor,'' he joked.
"That does not matter so much to me,'' Castro added.
He urged the party to defend the ideals of the revolution. "We know that those ideas have a very long life, and I understand the relative role of men,'' he said.
He looked back on his life, saying it had given him "much satisfaction.''
"It is difficult to think that anybody could have received so many honors from this people.''
Castro also stressed Marxism-Leninism, several times referring to the party's heritage and to the experience of Lenin, Mao and other communist leaders.
AP-NY-10-12-97 2011EDT