Fidel Castro Lashes Out at Obama after Cuba Visit
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro slammed US President Barack Obama’s recent visit to the Caribbean island, warning his countrymen to beware of Washington’s sweet talk as both nations embark on a long and uncertain path toward improved relations.
In a long column published Monday in Granma, the newspaper of the Cuban communist party, the elder Mr. Castro decried Mr. Obama’s call to set aside the countries’ decades of animosity and look to a common future as neighbors.
“One assumes that each of us runs the risk of a heart attack hearing these words from a US president,” Mr. Castro wrote, outlining a long list of grievances including the failed US-backed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. “We don’t need the empire to gift us anything,” he added, touting his country’s independence from foreign powers, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Mr. Obama last week became the first US head of state to visit Cuba in 88 years as part of a broader detente between the former Cold War enemies. In a speech during the visit, Mr. Obama called for change to meet the aspirations of Cuba’s youth.
During the three-day trip, Obama pointedly didn’t meet with the ailing 89-year-old former president, who rarely appears in public. But Mr. Castro’s occasional columns in state media, called “Fidel’s Reflections,” offer insight into his thoughts on the changes sweeping Cuba under his brother, Raúl Castro.
The 1,500-word letter titled “Brother Obama” is laced with anecdotes from five decades of rocky bilateral relations that Mr. Castro suggests ought to make islanders skeptical of Washington’s olive branch. Mr. Castro recounted how his ragtag revolutionary forces in the 1950s fought against troops using American weaponry and how the US tried to overthrow his government just years after its 1959 takeover.
Mr. Castro took exception to some specific lines from Mr. Obama’s address. He slammed Mr. Obama for omitting the role of indigenous populations when the US leader lauded the contribution of African slaves to the development of both countries.
Mr. Castro also criticized Mr. Obama for failing to recognize the revolutionary government’s policies to eradicate racism. In Africa, Mr. Castro said, Cuba aided liberation movements in countries like Angola and Mozambique while the US backed the apartheid government of South Africa.
“I don’t know what Obama has to say about this history,” Mr. Castro says before offering a “modest suggestion” to the US president: “reflect and don’t try now to elaborate theories about Cuban politics.”
Mr. Castro’s critical tone in Monday’s letter is likely to bolster Raúl Castro’s reputation as the pragmatic reformer taking Cuba onto a new path.
