[NYTr] Fidel pokes fun at George W. Bush
 
Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 15:49:48 -0500 (CDT)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Reuters via Yahoo - Oct 28, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071028/ts_nm/cuba_castro_dc

Fidel Castro pokes fun at George W. Bush
Sun Oct 28, 10:26 AM ET

HAVANA (Reuters) - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro poked fun at
President George W. Bush on Sunday for proclaiming "Long Live Free
Cuba," likening it to Spain's king saying the same during his colonial
rule over the island.

Bush said the transfer of power from the ailing Fidel Castro to his
brother Raul as of July 2006 was unacceptable, proclaiming liberty was
more important than stability and ending his comments in the speech to
the U.S. State Department on Wednesday with "Viva Cuba Libre."

The slogan was first used by Cuban independence fighters, known as
Mambisis, in 1868 as they began their decades-long war against Spain's
colonial rule. It was also the battle cry of Fidel Castro's guerrilla
fighters in the late 1950s.

Raul Castro often ends speeches with the slogan instead of Fidel
Castro's "Motherland or Death."

"I never imagined I would hear the words coming from the mouth of a
U.S. president 139 years later," Castro said in an essay titled "Bush,
Mambi?" carried by the official media.

"It's as if a king in those times, or his governor, proclaimed 'Viva
Cuba Libre,"' Castro said.

Castro, 81, has not appeared in public since undergoing a series of
abdominal surgeries and has looked frail in occasional video clips and
pictures, although he writes regularly and is said to participate in
government decisions.

Bush said on Wednesday he would maintain sanctions against Cuba and
called on the Cuban people, military and police to join efforts to open
Cuba to multi-party democracy.

Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque accused Bush of encouraging a
violent uprising against Cuba's Communist government.

Castro compared the Mambisis, who freed their slaves, with President
Abraham Lincoln's abolition of slavery, then quoted Lincoln's famous
words in reference to the Bush speech.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time or all of the people
part of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the
time," Castro said.

Cuba on Sunday marked the 48th anniversary of the death of
revolutionary hero Camilo Cienfuegos, who disappeared in a plane crash,
and earlier this month that of Guerrilla fighter Ernesto Che Guevara.

"For what their names symbolize, we respond to the false Mambi: Viva
Lincoln! Viva Che! Viva Camilo!" Castro concluded.

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