From: "Walter Lippmann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 08:18:17 -0700 To: "Change Links" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "CubaNews" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [CubaNews] Raul Castro says Cuba ready if US invades Raul Castro says Cuba ready if U.S. invades By Marc Frank Reuters April 16, 2001 HAVANA, Cuba -- In the latest example of Cuban anxiety over President George W. Bush's administration, Defense Minister Raul Castro said on Sunday Cuba was better prepared than ever to resist a U.S. invasion, and promised his troops would exact a bloody toll if the country were ever occupied. ``They are going to bomb us from above, and we are going to mine them from below,'' the younger brother of President Fidel Castro said as he described to reporters what would happen if the United States ever attempted to use military force to end decades of non-military confrontation. ``Land mines are the arms of the poor, and we have made every kind there is,'' he said. ``Sure they can invade. Sure they can occupy part of the country, and then what?'' Castro said in the latest example of the defensive military rhetoric Havana has used since Bush's election. Castro said war was ``the most terrible thing imaginable,'' something he said the United States learned in Vietnam when its soldiers began returning home in body bags, implying it could happen again in Cuba. Castro, speaking moments after seeing off Chinese President Jiang Zemin at the Varadero International Airport, 88 miles east of Havana, said entire cities and army divisions would fight from tunnels and shelters dug across the country over the last 20 years. ``Santiago, our second city, everything is ready so it can fit underground,'' he said in comments broadcast by the state media. President Castro, who remained by Jiang's side throughout his four-day stay, also bid farewell to the Chinese leader, but he did not speak to the press. Cuban officials and the state media have increasingly referred to a supposed U.S. military threat and the island's defense preparations since Bush won the U.S. presidential election late last year. RHETORIC MORE SHRILL While such shrill Cuban militaristic rhetoric was common in the 1980s, it all but disappeared during President Bill Clinton's administration. ``Since Bush won the U.S. presidency Raul's public presence has greatly increased and he's been signaling Washington not to use force to settle their differences,'' a diplomat said. ``They think Miami-based exiles want war and have a great deal of influence with the new president.'' But other diplomats were skeptical that the United States would use military force against Cuba, speculating the government was simply using the Republican administration to whip up nationalism and domestic support. Castro also lambasted the Bush administration's efforts to have the communist-run island's human rights record condemned. Cuba and the United States are currently confronting each other at the United Nations' annual human rights hearings in Geneva, where a vote on the situation in Cuba is expected later this week. Defense Minister Castro questioned the Bush administration's legitimacy after last year's controversial presidential vote, and charged it was supporting Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians and remaining mum over abuses in ``some Arab countries, where they cut off heads, including women's, for adultery.'' Asked about a January statement that the United States would be well advised to settle its differences with Cuba before Fidel Castro dies, Raul Castro, his brother's official number two, said, ``the authority Fidel has, no one else will have. That's why it will be easier to work things out with him.'' Copyright © 2001, South Florida Sun-Sentinel _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
