By Jim Burns. CNS News.com
Senior Staff Writer. June 05, 2001
(CNSNews.com) - Cuban Leader Fidel Castro said Cuba can serve as a "model
of justice, culture, education and spiritual richness" for the rest of the
world -- including industrialized nations.
Radio Havana reported Monday that Castro, speaking at a government workshop
on higher education, held up Cuba as an example of a better society, one that
has proved it is capable of resisting any challenge to communism.
Castro said Cuba managed to resist the collapse of socialism and communism
in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe because the Cuban Revolution of
the 1950s contributed to "widespread social justice."
Castro believes the revolution that brought him to power made possible the "subjective
and cultural conditions" to resist any change to Cuba's communist form of
government. He said Cuba now has a major role to play for humanity and has the
duty to do so.
Castro also said Cuba has much to do for other countries, and those favors
include "working against the Free Trade Area of the Americas." The
agreement, recently signed in Canada, would link all of North America, except
for Cuba, in one free-trade zone.
Cuba could also help the world, according to Castro, with "medial
assistance, fighting AIDS, and defending just causes at international forums."
Castro concluded, "Above all, Cuba's contribution will be to show that
a model (society), different from the one advanced by consumer societies, is
possible."
He also believes that visitors to Cuba "will not only find natural
tourist attractions but also an impressive cultural life in a country that is
doing wonders with very little."
Meanwhile, reports out of Havana said Cuban schoolchildren on Monday
delivered about 10,000 letters to the American special interests office in
Havana, all addressed to President Bush, telling him about Jose Marti, a Cuban
revolutionary who died many years ago.
Marti is considered a hero both by Castro and by the Cuban exile community.
Castro said President Bush misquoted Marti during the recent free trade
summit in Canada, when he quoted Marti as saying, "Liberty is not
negotiable." Castro says Marti never said any such thing.
The national letter-writing effort was announced in late May by Juventud
Rebelde, the Communist Youth newspaper. The newspaper said a total of 150,000
letters were being written to President Bush.
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