Posted on 07/01/2002 4:35:33 AM PDT by kattracks
CNSNews.com) - Russia betrayed Cuba by forming an alliance with the United States, said Cuba's communist leader Fidel Castro.
In a speech reported by the official Communist Party newspaper "Granma," Castro said he didn't blame any one leader in particular.
The betrayal of Cuba "was the fruit of Russia's errors and the painful way in which it lost the ideological battle against the Western capitalist and imperialist bourgeoisie," he said on Sunday.
As Russia grew closer to the United States after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it broke all the accords it had made with Cuba "and betrayed Cuba," Castro said.
Castro was speaking at a ceremony celebrating the renovation of more than 100 state-run schools in Havana.
He said the schools fell into "disuse" because the United States government tightened trade sanctions against Cuba during the 1990s. He called it a "double blockade."
Wire service reports said many primary and secondary schools in Havana had classrooms without windows, bathrooms without doors, leaky roofs and antiquated plumbing.
Castro has not been happy with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Earlier this year, when the Russians shut down their spy base at Lourdes, Castro accused Russia of selling it out. Putin announced last year that the base would be closed because it was too expensive to maintain, given the state of the Russian economy.
Russia set up the base in 1964 after the Cuban missile crisis and used it to monitor American communications throughout the Cold War.
The Russians paid the Castro government around $200 million a year for the base.
At the time of the Lourdes closure, Granma said in an editorial that the Russian military base had collected 75 percent of the strategic information necessary to prevent U.S. "aggression" and was the principle instrument for monitoring compliance with disarmament accords.
"Russia will now be without vital defense information," the editorial said.
The newspaper called it "laughable" that "Russia now asks Washington to dismantle its similar electronic radar station in Norway, just 40 kilometers from Russian borders."
Granma also refuted Russia's economic arguments for closing the base, rejecting Russia's argument that it could launch 20 reconnaissance satellites with the $200 billion in savings.
"An abyss separates our thinking from the opportunism, the egoism, and the lack of ethics that today prevails in the decadent field of the imperialist and capitalist system, or of those that aspire to it," said Granma's editorial.
Granma said Cuba would incur "terrible damages" from Russia's "abrupt and total default" on all agreements that the former Soviet Union had signed with the island.
I guess its official now. Even Castro admits the cold war is over and WE WON.
Oh, bulls**t, Castro. You can trade with pretty much the rest of the world. Your country is a dump because of your failed economic system........Communism. It doesn't work, it never worked, it never will work, and you're just a tired old dinosaur who refuses to let go of your childish "Viva la Revolution!" mentality.
Face it, Castro; you're incompetent as a leader. Your people would FAR rather live as we do.........a mere 90 miles away. Keep blaming us, though. That hate will keep you warm on your deathbed.
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