Is Castro-Chavez Video a Fake?

TRANSLATION:

Contrary to what’s being said, the media do not have any proof that Fidel Castro is alive.

On Tuesday January 30, 2007, Cuban television showed was it claimed to be new video of Fidel Castro.
Several Western television channels broadcast it.

Did they analyze it?

The reporter on the Wednesday January 31, 2007 France 3 evening newscast remarked that “the jogging suit was the same as the one he wore on his last appearance on Cuban television last October.”

“But” he should have added, “this time there were no little gymnastics, no show of physical strength. It was a simple meeting, a simple conversation with the attentive and omnipresent Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. As, as proof that the video was filmed recently, the timely showing of a date (Saturday January 27, 2007) on a document the two men exchanged.”

This is how TF1 showed Castro’s reappearance in the media.

We invite you to discover the Associated Press report that lasted over three minutes. One can see more clearly the setting in which the document that Castro read changes direction (the fasteners are first on the left side, and later on the right side).

Media-Rating took the time to examine the video.

It you watched the Wednesday January 31, 3007 JT de France 3 15 minute broadcast, you can indeed see Castro and Chavez talking, the latter holding a book on his hand. Immediately you see a close-up of a document dated January 27, 2007.
But that proves nothing.
In fact, the picture of the dated document doesn’t appear in the continuity of the report and it’s not an picture that could not be edited into the video to make it look as if the interview had taken place after a certain date. Ini addition, the document that supposedly proves the date doesn’t appear be the same document that Chavez was holding in the previous picture. To complete our analysis, there’s n o continued shot allowing us to see the signed document, dated January 27, 2007, change hands from Chavez to Castro.

Are we then facing another instance of planet-sized media manipulation?
It seems that the written media has allowed itself to be manipulated by the Cuban statements. Le Monde of January 31, 2007, wrote that Fidel Castro “is visibly better than he was in his pictures of three months ago”, and the daily added that Fidel Castro had “gained a few kilos, compared to his pictures of October 28.”

Looking at the caption of the Reuters photo that was in the same Le Monde article, “Contrary to the alarmist rumors regarding his health, Fidel Castro, recovering for six months, appeared this Tuesday on Cuban television, on the occasion of Monday’s visit of his ally Hugo Chavez.”

You can compare Castro’s purported physical appearance at the end of January 2007 with what he looked like in late October by clicking here. The resemblances are striking but not so the weight gain.

Also, allow us to point out that, in the pictures supposedly taken at at the end of January 2007, Hugo Chavez wore the same red shirt he was wearing over the the red tee-shirt that he had on his bedside visit.

It therefore appears that, as was in the case of old Communist dictators of the USSR, Castro’s inner circle decided to put up a show at the end of his lifetime, with, if needed be, the complicity of foreign heads of state and the naivety of the Western media whose critical abilities appear to be in need of sharpening.

As a final note, let us add that a Colombian graphologist interviewed by the newspaper El Nuevo Dia asserted that the signature on the document that Chavez shows as being signed by Castro, is a fake signature.

TRANSCRIPT OF THE VIDEO

F: Adelante
H ”
H: (holding F) De millones, tu sabes que es de millones. Este abrazo es de millones, no es mio, y este sentimiento es de millones que te admiramos, te queremos, te necesitamos,te seguimos paso a paso. (turns to face camera) Como estan companeros?
F: Companero…
(man in white shirt) Pedro
H el ministro de educacion
F ”
P y oye que te parece?
F Viniste al encuentro
H ahora tiene dos (,,,,) pendientes
F unos cinco miles
P venezolanos unos mil doscientos
H Pero tu estas hablando mas fuerte que have cuarenata y ocho anos que fuiste a Caracas. Te estoy calibrando la voz, los decibels
F no habia aprendido Jorge
H; (laugh)
Narrator: Durante dos horas conversaron en la tarde de este lunes en un emotivo encuentro donde se hablo de los derroteros de Venezuela y Cuba, de los nuevos acuerdos recien firmados, del alba que se fortalece, de la revolucion energetica y del cambio climatico, de America Latina y el mundo convulso en que vivimos, lleno de guerras y amenazasa la existencia misma de la especie humana. Chavez trajo el abrazo y los sentimientos de todos los que quieren a Fidel. El comandante le recibio con todo el carino y la solidaridad que alberga para el pueblo bolivariano y su lider. Al amparo de Bolivar y Marti volvieron a juntarse dos pueblos, dos hermanos.

Clicking glasses
Fidel: a lo tucame??
(H salud)
F el hizo una caida recordandome
H y te acurdas de eso
F [slurring speech] que estuve enla Guerra y no habia terminado de rehabilitarme . lo viene en la otra, y entonce no, eso debe de estar lejos, eso es una batalla perdida
H; no es una batalla perdida ni sera perdida
F perdon, una destras del otra
Close up of Clarin.com printout dated Saturday January 27, 2007
F (reading in clear loud voice) advierten que el cambio climatico tambien pone en riesgo a la salud
H de lo mas de lo mas importante es la salud
F eso conversaremos – que fuieste el primero que advertiste que el derroche de consumeranburan (??) va a poner en peligro la vida de la especie
H El primero despues de ti. Te mando muchos saludos mucha gente, uno de ellos niamello
F que lo racion en cato
H Si, yo le pedi que me hiciera
F cien metro al turco
H yo le pedi que me hiciera un boceto y ya lo hizo. Lo hizo en dos dias imaginate y esta bastante bien porque el se habia caido, se habia fracturado, pero se ha recuperado.

TRANSLATION OF VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

There are three parts in this:
The first part is where Chavez and Castro purportedly meet after Chavez’s arrival. Note how the conversation does not flow. It’s not just a matter of Castro being senile, but of things edited willy-nilly.

F Come in
H Come in
H (holding F) From millions, you know it’s from millions. This hug is from millions, it’s not mine, and this feeling is from millions that admire you, we love you, we need you, we follow you step by step (turns to face the camera). How are you comrades?
F: (tries to introduce a guy off camera) Comrade…
(guy in white shirt) Pedro
H: (explains) The minister for education
F: The minister for education
Pedro: And what do you think?
F You came to the meeting
H : Now he’s got two {something I couldn’t make out} pending.
FSome five thousand.
P: There are some twelve hundred Venezuelans.
H But you’re sounding stronger than you did forty-eight years ago when you were in Caracas. I’m staring you voice, your decibels.
F: Jorge hadn’t learned.
H: Laughs
Narrator: They conversed for two hours on Monday afternoon, in a moving meeting where they talked about the defeatists of Cuba and Venezuela, about the new agreements they just signed, of the new dawn rising, of the energy revolution and climate change, of Latin America and the convulsed world we live in, full of war and threats to the very existence to humanity. Chavez brought the embrace and the feelings of those who love Fidel. The Comandante received him with all the love and solidarity he holds for the Bolivarian people and its leader. Under the aegis of Bolivar and Marti, the brother countries came together.

[After the narration comes the second part
NOTE: I am showing Castro’s words in (Spanish) and in English because they do not make sense at all]
{Clicking glasses of orange juice}
Fidel: a lo tucame??
[NOTE: I have no idea what he said. He probably tried to ask Hugo to touch drinking glasses but what came out is not a real word)
H: Salud
F (el hizo una caida recordandome) He made a fall remembering me.
H And you remember that.
F [slurring speech, very weak-voiced, mispronouncing] (que estuve en la guerra y no habia terminado de rehabilitarme . lo viene en la otra, y entonce no, eso debe de estar lejos, eso es una batalla perdida) That I was in the war and I hadn’t finished recovering, then came the other, and then no, that can’t be far away, it’s a lost battle.
H: No, it’s not a lost battle and it won’t be lost.
F (Perdon, una destras del otra) Pardon, one ‘fter the other
[Third part:
Close up of Clarin.com printout dated Saturday January 27, 2007]
F (reading in clear loud voice with much better enunciation) They warn that climate change is also a health hazard
H Health is the most important thing
F (back to slurring speech and weak-voiced ) That’s we’ll talk. That you were the first that noticed that the wasteful consumeranburan (??) is going to endanger the life of the species.
H The first one after you. I bring you greetings from many, among them Niamello.
F (que lo racion en cato) [translated word by word: that the ration in cato]
H Yes, I asked him to make me….
F (cien metro al turco) [ word by word: hundred meter to the turk)
H I asked him to make me a sketch, and he already did. He did it in two days, imagine that, and he’s doing well considering that he had a fall, and had a fracture, but he’s recovered.

END TRANSLATION: