Acting president Raul Castro is the"guardian" of Cuba's communist government in the absence of his brother Fidel Castro and in the face of U.S. threats, a hard-line member of the Cuban leadership said on Thursday.

"We recognize Raul as the steadfast guardian of the Cuban Revolution," Information Minister Ramiro Valdes, a former security chief, said in a speech to 200,000 people at a military-civilian rally in the eastern city of Santiago. His words added to the growing perception among Cubans that their ailing leader Fidel Castro, last seen in pictures on October 28 looking gaunt and frail, may be too ill to resume governing.