By Jim Burns. CNS Senior Staff Writer.
CNS News. April 27, 2001
(CNSNews.com) - Cuban leader Fidel Castro has "done some good things
for his people," said Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday. "He
is no longer the threat he was," Powell said in response to a question at a
House Appropriations subcommittee hearing.
However, the Cuban Communist Leader doesn't have a very high opinion of
America's secretary of state.
Radio Havana reported Thursday that Castro during an unexpected nationwide
television appearance called Powell, "the commander in chief of Latin
America's lackeys."
What Castro was upset about, according to the broadcast, was the recent
United Nations Human Rights Commission resolution condemning Cuba's human rights
record. The resolution was narrowly approved.
Castro said the most appropriate place for that resolution was, in his
words, "the toilet."
He accused several Latin American nations of lacking dignity, a sense of
independence and honesty in their vote against Cuba on that U.N resolution.
Castro was particularly angry at Argentina.
Castro said, "Argentine Foreign Minister Rodriguez Giavarini closely
cooperated in lobbying against Cuba with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell,
the commander in chief of Latin America's lackeys."
A State Department official reacted Friday, "That is absolute
poppycock. It's extraordinary that Castro continues to use this outmoded Marxist
idiom."
Castro thanked Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Brazil for abstaining from voting
on that resolution, and he praised Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for
Venezuela's vote against the resolution.
Some members of Congress find it hypocritical that the United States
continues to enforce a forty-year-old economic embargo against communist Cuba,
while actively courting trade agreements with communist China.
At Thursday's hearing, Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) said the U.S. policy
toward Cuba makes no sense. "It is bad for them and it is bad for us,"
Serrano said.
President Bush has said unequivocally that he supports the U.S. embargo
against Cuba, and at Thursday's hearing, Powell gave no indication that the
long-standing policy is about to change.
Powell said, in China, Russia and Vietnam "you can see leaders who the
world is changing. But in Cuba, Castro is a leader trapped in the past. He
hasn't changed his views in any way."
Powell told the committee, "For most of those 42 years and the part of
my career when I was in the military, he was fomenting revolution, he was
fomenting insurgencies, he was trying to impose a system that was not a system
of freedom, a system that would have been disastrous for many of the nations in
the region. And we had to meet him; we had to respond to that. He's no longer
the threat he was. But 12 years ago, he was a real threat trying to destabilize
the region."
But Powell's comment praising Castro didn't please the Cuban American
National Foundation. It's director, Jose Cardenas said in Washington that what
Powell said is "profoundly regrettable."
"The death and misery that Fidel Castro has caused trumps a thousand
times over any good he has done for the Cuban people," Cardenas said.
Powell also described Castro as an "aging starlet" and has said on
several occasions he still supports the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba.
President Bush said the embargo and overall anti-Cuba policy will not change
as long as Fidel Castro remains in power. | 