Sunday, February 24, 2008

Fidel Castro rebuts U.S. candidates

swiss.info.ch, Feb. 22, 2008

By Anthony Boadle

HAVANA (Reuters) - Three days after stepping down as Cuban leader, Fidel Castro was back in the fray on Friday rebutting U.S. presidential hopefuls who called for political change in Cuba.

Castro said he was "exhausted" by the "days of tension" leading up to his retirement after 49 years in power and needed a holiday, but could not keep silent over the reactions in the United States to his departure announcement on Tuesday.

Castro said in a newspaper article that the reactions to his retirement, including calls for "liberty" in Cuba, forced him to "open fire" again on his ideological enemies.

"I enjoyed seeing the embarrassing position of all the presidential candidates in the United States," he wrote in a column published by the Communist Party daily Granma.

"One by one, they felt obliged to proclaim their immediate demands of Cuba so as not to risking losing a single vote," Castro said.

"'Change, change, change!'" they cried in chorus. I agree, 'change!' but in the United States," he wrote.

Continued . . .

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