Castro: Cuba will resist hunger strike 'blackmail'
By WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press Writer
HAVANA -- Raul Castro called mounting international pressure over Cuba's
human rights record one of the strongest assaults its communist
government has ever faced and vowed not to yield to the "blackmail" of a
high-profile hunger striker.
In a 45-minute nationally televised speech, Cuba's president said his
government has the right to beat back any efforts to destabilize it.
"We will never yield to the blackmail of any country or group of
countries, no matter how powerful they may be, whatever happens," said
Castro, who replaced his older brother Fidel - first temporarily, then
permanently - following his emergency intestinal surgery in 2006. "Let
them know that if they try to corner us, we will defend ourselves, first
of all with truth and principles."
Cuba's human rights situation has become increasingly tense since the
Feb. 23 death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a long hunger strike in
jail. Another man, freelance opposition journalist Guillermo Farinas,
has refused to eat or drink since shortly after Zapata Tamayo's death -
though he is allowing himself to be fed intravenously periodically at a
hospital near his home in Santa Clara, a city in central Cuba.
Castro did not mention either by name, but clearly referred to them,
saying Farinas' efforts were sponsored by forces in the United States
and Europe out to topple Cuba's government, and that they had been
glorified by "Western media."
He noted that Farinas is not behind bars, saying "he is a free person
who has already served his sentence for common crimes." Castro said
those included assaulting and threatening to kill the director of a
hospital, but did not elaborate.
He said Cuba would do all it could to care for Farinas and that the
island's government did not want him to die - but added that could be
what happens if Farinas continues his "self-destructive" behavior.
It was not the smoothest of speeches for Castro, who spoke slowly and
stumbled over his prepared text a number of times. His comments at
Havana's convention center concluded the congress of the Young Communist
Union, where a new generation of party leaders and community officials
gathered to discuss a future without the president and his older brother
Fidel.
Some of the island's best-known "youth" leaders are well over 30, but
Fidel Castro turns 84 in August and Raul is close to 79. The president's
hand-picked No. 2, communist hard-liner Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, is a
year older than Raul.
Zapata Tamayo had been imprisoned since 2003 on charges including
disrespecting authority. He became the first Cuban imprisoned opposition
figure to die after a hunger strike in nearly four decades.
Castro said previously that his government very much regretted what
happened but denied that Zapata Tamayo was tortured and blamed problems
on the island on Washington's 48-year trade embargo.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the European
Parliament condemned Cuba for Zapata Tamayo's death, and a group of
artists and intellectuals including Spanish film director Pedro
Almodovar have circulated a petition criticizing the Cuban government.
Amnesty International has called for the release of all Cuban political
prisoners.
Cuba brands all dissidents, Zapata Tamayo, Farinas and any other
political activists who openly oppose its single-party system, as common
criminals who are paid by the United States to destabilize the political
system. It says every country should have the right to jail traitors.
Also Sunday, Castro repeated what has become a common refrain in recent
speeches, saying that unless the government reduces wasteful spending,
it will have to make cuts to the free education and health care it
provides all islanders.
"Without a sound and dynamic economy and the removal of superfluous
expenses and waste, it will neither be possible to improve the living
standard of the population nor to preserve and improve the high levels
of education and healthcare ensured to every citizen free of charge," he
said.
He also chided the Obama administration for doing little to thaw nearly
half a century of ice-cold U.S.-Cuba relations.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/04/1563391/castro-cuba-will-resist-hunger.html
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