| In his own words: A defiant Castro assails U.S. embargo, scolds media
Author: Doug Clifton, Herald Executive Editor, and David Lawrence Jr., Herald Chairman
Published: November 04, 1998
Last Updated: August 19, 1999
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Cuba
and Castro -- six hours of 'showmanship'
HAVANA -- In a six-hour ``conversation'' with 32 American editors, Cuban
President Fidel Castro denounced the U.S. embargo, boasted of his country's
social programs and chastised the press for reporting that, he said, was
too often ``not objective.''
In turns jocular and scolding, whispering and shouting, the 72-year-old
self-described ``revolutionary'' seemed to revel in the opportunity to
address a delegation from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, an
organization before which he made his maiden speech to the American public
in 1959.
Dressed in crisply pressed green fatigues -- his ``working clothes''
-- and armed with a stack of reports and newspaper clippings, he launched
into long, detailed answers to 15 questions. The longest response was 55
minutes. Despite its length, it never addressed the question posed.
Castro's bearing is erect, his energy seemingly without limit.
The only signs of his advancing age are the liver spots on his hands and
face, the gray that flecks his hair and beard, and the obvious kinks he
shook off as he rose from his chair at one point, after four solid hours
of talking.
He began the session with a warning.
``I have no time limits,'' the legendary marathon speaker said.
``You can stay here as long as you want and until you get bored.''
Much of what the Cuban leader told the editors, he has said before.
His principal revelation was that Cuban officials have arrested a second
suspected hotel bomber, a Salvadoran he identified as Otto Rene Rodriguez
Llerna. He was dispatched to Cuba on a bombing mission, Castro said, at
the direction of Luis Posada Carriles, the accused terrorist who had claimed
responsibility for a spate of hotel bombings last summer.
The arrest was made after Posada admitted to a Herald reporter
that he had enlisted a Salvadoran mercenary in the earlier bombing plot,
which caused the death of an Italian tourist.
Posada, Castro said, was emboldened by the article. He said the
would-be bomber was intercepted by Cuban agents, who had Posada under surveillance.
In trademark fashion, Castro answered no question directly and
often eluded a question in its entirety.
Asked why the Cuban people were not able to purchase or read foreign
newspapers or magazines -- something Castro does voraciously -- he talked
about the global economic crisis, the evolution of interest rates in the
Clinton administration, the International Monetary Fund and Playboy magazine,
which he briefly noted was ``pornography'' and not fit for Cuban consumption.
Among the subjects he addressed:
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Press coverage of Cuba: ``All reporters are not exactly the same,''
he said. ``There are times when activities of journalists have had nothing
to do with journalism. If I were certain objective reporters would come
to Cuba and not be biased beforehand, we would [allow U.S. news bureaus
to be established].''
He complained about some of the unflattering coverage during Pope John
Paul II's visit to Cuba in January. He acknowledged that Cuba has problems
but said it also has ``good things to write about.''
Castro said he reads a daily digest of world press coverage. He pointed
to a Saturday report of 271 pages, 46 of them with news of Cuba.
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The embargo: A familiar theme for Castro and most Cuban officials.
Castro was especially animated on the subject Saturday. ``Our conditions
for ending the blockade are that it will end without conditions or it will
last forever,'' he said with rising voice and pointed finger. The United
States, he said, has ``assumed the role of Goliath and we of David, and
the world will always be in favor of David.''
Castro said he is convinced that President Clinton personally opposes
the embargo but that he is bound by political considerations to maintain
it. Those considerations, he said, were driven by the Cuban American National
Foundation, which he repeatedly referred to as ``the mafia.''
With one of the many touches of defiance expressed during the long afternoon,
he said, ``Cuba is not losing the battle. Cuba is proving that you can
do much with very little.''
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The pain of a two-currency economy -- dollars and pesos: He called
the situation ``very painful. We would have preferred never to establish
these differences.'' But he said permitting dollars -- and building a tourist
industry -- was necessary after the Soviet Union collapsed seven years
ago, pulling $5 billion annually from the Cuban economy. He said the crumbling
buildings along Havana's waterfront Malecon ``make me so sad.'' But he
said the nation badly needed hard currency. ``The tourists will not stay
in these crumbling houses. They will not come. We have no other alternative.''
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The Pope's visit: He described the pontiff as ``sincere and impressive''
and recalled him ``walking with difficulty. I saw a man fulfilling his
duties with great personal sacrifice. The Pope inspires affection and respect.''
``I am in favor of ecumenicism,'' Castro said. He spoke of growing up
in a ``religious home, although I regret that we were taught to hate other
than Catholics.'' He said he admired the Pope's ``outreach to the poor
and his criticism of the consumer society. We coincide on many things,''
but not all, he said.
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On baseball: Referring to Livan Hernandez of the Florida Marlins
and his brother Orlando ``El Duque'' Hernandez of the New York Yankees,
Castro said: ``We didn't send them; you stole them. If you have to compete
for $6 million versus 3,000 to 4,000 pesos [$150 to $200], you cannot win.''
Maybe, he said, ``we can send a team to the major leagues and demonstrate
the quality of our players in Cuba.''
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Thinking of retiring? ``Do you think one has the right to retire
in the midst of such a struggle? As long as I have the necessary energy
to be useful and I have the mental energy and they [other leaders] ask
me, I will be here,'' he said.
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Power: ``I am not married to power. To me, power is not money. I
hate individualism and selfishness. I don't own any property.'' Here he
showed off his $30 Seiko watch. He spoke of giving away -- anonymously
-- gifts he had received, and keeping only his books. ``I will never lie
to the people. I have never done this, and I never will.'' Later he added:
``I have never been overtaken by vanity.''
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His own integrity and that of his ministers: He was clearly angered
by a Forbes magazine list that indicated he was worth $1.5 billion. ``What
right do they have to write such slander?'' he said. Not ``a single minister
or high official'' has ever been proven to have stolen anything. ``Not
a single Cuban functionary has a bank account in dollars. Whoever steals
a dollar from the state would never last a single minute in his position.
We don't want to make ourselves rich; we want to make our people rich.''
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The Cuban exile community: He argued that most South Florida Cuban
Americans are ``immigrants'' not ``exiles.'' He said, ``Eighty-five percent
of those who came to the United States did it not for political reasons,
but rather for economic reasons.'' He said the first wave who left Cuba,
beginning in 1959, included many in or allied with the previous government
of Fulgencio Batista. He spoke of ``war criminals and torturers who left
Cuba with their money.''
That was followed, he said, by ``another wave affected by the revolutionary
laws -- people who thought that the revolution wouldn't last very long.
Tens of thousands of these people.'' They included, he said, many of the
country's professional and managerial classes, noting, for example, that
half of Cuba's 6,000 doctors left in the early years of the revolution.
He said, ``Let us do our revolution with those who want to stay in the
country.''
If the revolution were to be ``destroyed,'' he said, ``90 percent of
those [Cubans] in the United States would stay there.'' Most in Miami ``would
not abandon their businesses or wages.'' He used other countries -- El
Salvador and Nicaragua -- as examples where people stayed in the United
States after a war ended. ``Those from Vietnam do not return no matter
how sweet the relations with the United States might be.''
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The Pedro Pan movement: When 14,000 unaccompanied children were
sent to Miami in the early '60s, he said, ``we never told even one parent
that they could not take even one child.'' He called the movement ``a crime
against humanity'' and said the children were ``practically kidnapped.''
He said parents expected to travel to Miami shortly afterward, but the
October 1962 Cuban missile crisis intervened and flights were suspended
for years.
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The rafter crisis: He angrily chopped his right hand and said it
was ``unfair to blame Cuba. We are not the ones who oppose people leaving
the country.'' He decried the ``contraband in persons organized in the
United States. The United States should try them, and they should abide
by the laws of the United States.''
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What happens after he's gone: ``The day I die nothing is going to
happen, and perhaps things will be even better.''
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