We don't need US goodies‚ says Fidel

28 March 2016 - 21:30 By TMG Digital
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Fidel Castro on Monday reminded the world of the United States's aggression towards Cuba‚ saying of the US: “We don’t need the empire to give us any presents.”

POWERFUL FRIENDS: Fidel Castro chats with Marquez at a Havana Festival celebrating Cuban cigars in March 2000
POWERFUL FRIENDS: Fidel Castro chats with Marquez at a Havana Festival celebrating Cuban cigars in March 2000
Image: REUTERS

In a three-page letter published on state media on Monday‚ the former president of the island responded to the speech made by US President Barack Obama when he visited the country last week.

In the letter‚ The Guardian reported: “Castro goes over crucial sections of Obama’s speech line by line‚ engaging in an ex post facto dialogue with the American president with pointed critiques of perceived slights and insults‚ including Obama’s failure to give credit to indigenous Cubans and Castro’s prohibition of racial segregation after coming to power in 1959.”

He says Obama’s “syrupy” speech would give listeners a heart attack.

He details 50 years of US aggression against Cuba‚ including episodes such as the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack and the 1976 bombing of a Cuban plane.

Castro‚ who nationalised US companies after taking power in 1959‚ was scornful of Obama’s plans for renewed business ties between their two countries.

“No one should pretend that the people of this noble and selfless country will renounce its glory and its rights‚” he wrote. “We are capable of producing the food and material wealth that we need with the work and intelligence of our people.”

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