Castro begins Caribbean tour
Jamaicans welcome him with pomp,
ceremony
Lightning flashed overhead and thunder rolled as Castro, wearing his signature olive drab fatigues and bill cap, marched past an honor guard at the Montego Bay airport, then proceeded to a public rally in Montego Bay.
``We need to put up a fight for the Caribbean nations and for all the peoples of the Third World region. Our strength united cannot be ignored,'' Castro told a crowd of several thousand people.
Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson condemned the U.S. embargo and the Helms-Burton Law designed to discourage foreign investment in Cuba.
``We are implacably opposed to the economic blockade against Cuba, which is morally wrong and contravenes the right to sovereignty,'' Patterson said.
The first stop on Castro's three-island tour, Jamaica has led a Caribbean movement to reestablish diplomatic and trade links with communist Cuba and has urged Washington to increase its contacts with Havana.
Castro will spend six days in Jamaica, Barbados and Grenada. In August, he will join other Caribbean leaders at a summit in the Dominican Republic, which this year restored the diplomatic relations it severed 37 years ago.
The most visible opposition to Castro's trip has come from Grenada, where some politicians call his visit an insult to the United States, which invaded Grenada in 1983 and ousted a Marxist regime friendly to Havana.
Jamaica's conservative opposition leader Edward Seaga, a former prime minister, said he still blames Castro for Jamaica's 1970s experiment in socialism that bankrupted the country. After his 1980 election, Seaga closed the Cuban Embassy.
Yet Seaga, who plans to meet with the 71-year-old Cuban leader today, said the end of the Cold War has neutralized Cuba as a threat.
``I don't think we need to fight yesterday's war today,'' he said.
Copyright © 1998 The Miami Herald