Fidel Castro calls Obama U.N. speech "gibberish"
Fidel Castro calls Obama U.N. speech "gibberish"
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuelan television journalist
Mario Silva talk during an interview in Havana. (Ho New / Reuters)
Jeff Franks Reuters
12:27 a.m. PDT, September 26, 2011
HAVANA (Reuters) – Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro accused President
Barack Obama of speaking "gibberish" in his recent address to the United
Nations and called NATO's actions in Libya a "monstrous crime" on Monday
in his first opinion column since early July.
Castro, 85, has been mostly out of sight the past few months, which
combined with the absence of his usual steady flow of columns, had
prompted rumors his health was worsening.
He wrote he was involved in work that occupied all his time and
therefore he had not been writing what he calls his "reflections." But
he said he wanted to comment on the U.N. General Assembly in New York
and in particular Obama's speech last week.
The reflection was published on Cuban government website
http://www.cubadebate.cu.
Castro was his vintage self in his latest piece, blasting Obama and the
United States, his ideological foes and favorite rhetorical targets, for
what he views as bellicose and hypocritical behavior. He called Obama
the "yankee president."
Castro, who led Cuba for 49 years before health and age forced him to
cede power to younger brotherRaul Castro in 2008, quoted extensively
from Obama's General Assembly speech, inserting paragraphs of his
opinions of the U.S. leader's words.
"In spite of the shameful monopoly of the mass information media and the
fascist methods of the United States and its allies to confuse and
deceive world opinion, the resistance of the people grows, and that can
be appreciated in the debates being produced in the United Nations," he
wrote.
Castro called into question many points in Obama's speech, accusing him
of misrepresenting the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. policy
on Israel and Palestine and the uprisings this year in several Arab nations.
"Who understands this gibberish of the President of the United States in
front of the General Assembly?" he asked.
He said the General Assembly presented political difficulties for many
countries trying to decide the positions they should take on numerous
issues.
"For example, what position to adopt about the genocide of NATO in
Libya?" Castro wrote. "Does anyone wish it recorded that under their
direction, the government of their country supported the monstrous
crimes by the United States and its NATO allies?"
Castro did not describe the project that had taken him away from his
column writing, but his allies PresidentHugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo
Morales of Bolivia said recently he was working on something to do with
agriculture.
He promised another column on the U.N. General Assembly would be
forthcoming.
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