Fidel Castro Refuses To Rise Above Communist Rhetoric

Fidel Castro, the great revolutionary and former president of Cuba, has criticised US President Barack Obama’s recent visit to his country.

In a long and often offensive toned letter titled “Brother Obama” the elder Castro struck a discordant note with the country’s political class, including his younger brother Raúl Castro, the current president.

Obama did not meet Fidel Castro during his three-day visit to Cuba last week. The historcal visit was meant to bury hostilities between the two countries, and to encourage the reform of Cuba’s flagging economy.

Castro senior’s letter is typical of Communist leaders - do something and talk something else.  With a population of a little over 11 million people, Cuba imports 70 to 80 percent of its domestic food requirements. Its annual bill is $ 2 billion.  But Castro, still languishing in history, decried Obama’s call to set aside the countries’ decades of animosity and look to a common future as neighbours.

In his nearly 1,600-word missive, Castro recounted the history of United States aggression against his country, including the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the decades-long economic embargo of the island, which is still in effect.
The letter urged Obama not to jump to conclusions about the Cuban system, or assume that the past could be so easily forgotten.

“My modest suggestion is that he reflects and doesn’t try to develop theories about Cuban politics,” Castro wrote, citing Obama’s own words during the trip, including a request to leave the past behind and embark on a future of hope and togetherness. “I suppose all of us were at risk of a heart attack upon hearing these words from the president of the United States.”

“Nobody should be under the illusion that the people of this dignified and selfless country will renounce the glory, the rights or the spiritual wealth they have gained with the development of education, science and culture,” Castro wrote.

“We don’t need the empire to gift us anything,”  Castro’s letter says.

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, a move US officials hope will help spark social and economic reform in the communist country.

Since 2008, Raúl Castro has flirted with liberalization—allowing Cubans to open businesses, own property and go on the Internet—moves that would have been unimaginable under the elder Castro, whose political career centred around his personal enmity with the US.