Castro protests his allies' 'fascism'-- Marches against top trade mates
The Miami Herald Posted on Fri, Jun. 13, 2003 From Herald Staff and Wire Reports
LEADING THE CROWD: Fidel Castro and supporters march Thursday past the Spanish embassy in Havana. JOSE GOITIA/AP
After comparing the leaders of Spain and Italy to Hitler and Mussolini, Cuban President Fidel Castro led a massive march Thursday in Havana against European Union criticisms of his government's crackdown on dissidents.
While an announcer chanted ''Down with Fascism,'' Castro marched past the Spanish Embassy as supporters carried signs referring to Prime Minister José María Aznar as the ''little Führer,'' a nickname Castro gave him in a televised speech late Wednesday.
Across town, Castro's brother and designated successor, Armed Forces chief Gen. Raúl Castro, led protesters past the Italian Embassy, where placards referred to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as ''Benito Berlusconi'' -- a reference to former fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
Castro's outburst of bitter invective showed his willingness to alienate the 15-member bloc that is Cuba's most important source of trade and tourism. Spain is Cuba's second largest trading partner after Venezuela, and the Spanish-owned Sol Melia chain controls 21 hotels around the island, Larry Luxner, a Washington-based journalist who publishes the monthly newsletter CubaNews, told The Herald.
Italian investors own half of the country's telephone company, and Spanish and Italian tourists are two of the most important sources of hard-currency revenues for the island, Luxner added.
''I don't know if the tourists themselves care, but the countries he's attacking might,'' he said. ``It might put some obstacles in the way of investment.''
Castro referred to Berlusconi in his televised address Wednesday as ''a fascist clown,'' the French Agence France-Presse news agency reported from Havana.
Castro also warned that if European ambassadors in Havana carry out an EU decision to invite more dissidents to receptions, Cuban officials will not attend, and his government will respond by isolating the diplomats. ''If they limit their activities to meeting with the dissidents, they are not needed here . . . Let no one say that I have not spoken clearly here,'' the AFP quoted Castro as saying.
Castro lost patience with his allies after the EU issued a statement last week that it was ``deeply concerned about the continuing flagrant violation of human rights and of fundamental freedoms of members of the Cuban opposition and of independent journalists.''
Earlier this year, the Cuban government jailed 75 dissidents, journalists and artists, all of whom Amnesty International later named prisoners of conscience. European officials also unanimously agreed to reduce visits to Cuba by high-level EU officials and to invite dissidents to holiday celebrations at their embassies in Havana as a sign of support.
Castro called the statement a ''stupidity'' that must have been written in an ''act of drunkenness'' and accused the Spanish and Italian leaders of being behind the statement.
In Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Thursday called Castro's words ''threatening.'' He said that he had summoned Cuba's ambassador, Angeles Flores Prida, ''to express the indignant protest of the Italian government over this behavior,'' The Associated Press reported. The march was ''a sad example of what a dictatorship is,'' Frattini was quoted as saying. ``In Cuba, demonstrations only take when they are called by the government.''
Herald staff writer Marika Lynch contributed to this report.