Havana – Fidel Castro marked his 89th birthday with a newspaper column repeating assertions that the U.S. owes socialist Cuba “numerous millions of dollars” for damages caused by its decades-long embargo.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The brief essay came a day before an historic moment in U.S.-Cuba relations: Secretary of State John Kerry is to raise the Stars and Stripes over a restored American Embassy in Havana, though the economic embargo legally remains in effect.
The rapprochement after 54 years of formal diplomatic estrangement was engineered by Fidel’s brother Raul, who took over Cuba’s presidency after the elder Castro suffered a health crisis in 2006.
Fidel Castro did not directly mention the restored relations, though he made several critical references to the U.S.
He said Washington owes Cuba indemnifications “that rise to numerous millions of dollars” for damage caused by the embargo.
He also repeated his criticism of the U.S. decision to stop swapping dollars for gold in 1971, a stand shared with some conservative economists. Castro has said in the past that such a move left the dollar alone as the world’s measure of value for currencies.
Castro came to power in 1959 following a revolution. Relations with the United States were broken in 1961 as Castro led Cuba rapidly into a socialist model allied with the Soviet Union.
One of the things the Castro regime did after it took power was to “nationalize” a large number of businesses most of which were funded by American corporations and investors. In plain language, Castro stole from Americans (a late uncle of mine was one of those business owners).
His hypocritical claims about American debt sound particularly laughable.
This chutpah emerges after negotiating from a position of weakness…
Thank you, president Obama.
. . . . . and, of course, Obama will jump to pay them.
Comrade Obama absolutely agrees with him
His greatest admirer is about to write a check mark my words watch Obama!
We freed them from Spain! They are the ones who owe the United States a tremendous debt!
Until Joanne Chesamard is in shackles in the custody of US Federal Marshals’ on her way back to prison for killing a NJ police officer I am not interested in talking.