HAVANA -- In a six-hour ``conversation'' with 32 American editors,
Cuban President Fidel Castro denounced the U.S. embargo, boasted of his
country's social programs and chastised the press for reporting that, he
said, was too often ``not objective.''
In turns jocular and scolding, whispering and shouting, the 72-year-old
self-described ``revolutionary'' seemed to revel in the opportunity to
address a delegation from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, an
organization before which he made his maiden speech to the American public
in 1959.
Dressed in crisply pressed green fatigues -- his ``working clothes'' --
and armed with a stack of reports and newspaper clippings, he launched
into long, detailed answers to 15 questions. The longest response was 55
minutes. Despite its length, it never addressed the question posed.
Castro's bearing is erect, his energy seemingly without limit. The only
signs of his advancing age are the liver spots on his hands and face, the
gray that flecks his hair and beard, and the obvious kinks he shook off as
he rose from his chair at one point, after four solid hours of talking.
He began the session with a warning.
``I have no time limits,'' the legendary marathon speaker said. ``You
can stay here as long as you want and until you get bored.''
Much of what the Cuban leader told the editors, he has said before. His
principal revelation was that Cuban officials have arrested a second
suspected hotel bomber, a Salvadoran he identified as Otto Rene Rodriguez
Llerna. He was dispatched to Cuba on a bombing mission, Castro said, at
the direction of Luis Posada Carriles, the accused terrorist who had
claimed responsibility for a spate of hotel bombings last summer.
The arrest was made after Posada admitted to a Herald reporter that he
had enlisted a Salvadoran mercenary in the earlier bombing plot, which
caused the death of an Italian tourist.
Posada, Castro said, was emboldened by the article. He said the
would-be bomber was intercepted by Cuban agents, who had Posada under
surveillance.
In trademark fashion, Castro answered no question directly and often
eluded a question in its entirety.
Asked why the Cuban people were not able to purchase or read foreign
newspapers or magazines -- something Castro does voraciously -- he talked
about the global economic crisis, the evolution of interest rates in the
Clinton administration, the International Monetary Fund and Playboy
magazine, which he briefly noted was ``pornography'' and not fit for Cuban
consumption.
Among the subjects he addressed:
Press coverage of Cuba: ``All reporters are not
exactly the same,'' he said. ``There are times when activities of
journalists have had nothing to do with journalism. If I were certain
objective reporters would come to Cuba and not be biased beforehand, we
would [allow U.S. news bureaus to be established].''
He complained about some of the unflattering coverage during Pope John
Paul II's visit to Cuba in January. He acknowledged that Cuba has problems
but said it also has ``good things to write about.''
Castro said he reads a daily digest of world press coverage. He pointed
to a Saturday report of 271 pages, 46 of them with news of Cuba.
The embargo: A familiar theme for Castro and most
Cuban officials. Castro was especially animated on the subject Saturday.
``Our conditions for ending the blockade are that it will end without
conditions or it will last forever,'' he said with rising voice and
pointed finger. The United States, he said, has ``assumed the role of
Goliath and we of David, and the world will always be in favor of
David.''
Castro said he is convinced that President Clinton personally opposes
the embargo but that he is bound by political considerations to maintain
it. Those considerations, he said, were driven by the Cuban American
National Foundation, which he repeatedly referred to as ``the mafia.''
With one of the many touches of defiance expressed during the long
afternoon, he said, ``Cuba is not losing the battle. Cuba is proving that
you can do much with very little.''
The pain of a two-currency economy -- dollars and
pesos: He called the situation ``very painful. We would have preferred
never to establish these differences.'' But he said permitting dollars --
and building a tourist industry -- was necessary after the Soviet Union
collapsed seven years ago, pulling $5 billion annually from the Cuban
economy. He said the crumbling buildings along Havana's waterfront Malecon
``make me so sad.'' But he said the nation badly needed hard currency.
``The tourists will not stay in these crumbling houses. They will not
come. We have no other alternative.''
The Pope's visit: He described the pontiff as
``sincere and impressive'' and recalled him ``walking with difficulty. I
saw a man fulfilling his duties with great personal sacrifice. The Pope
inspires affection and respect.''
``I am in favor of ecumenicism,'' Castro said. He spoke of growing up
in a ``religious home, although I regret that we were taught to hate other
than Catholics.'' He said he admired the Pope's ``outreach to the poor and
his criticism of the consumer society. We coincide on many things,'' but
not all, he said.
On baseball: Referring to Livan Hernandez of the
Florida Marlins and his brother Orlando ``El Duque'' Hernandez of the New
York Yankees, Castro said: ``We didn't send them; you stole them. If you
have to compete for $6 million versus 3,000 to 4,000 pesos [$150 to $200],
you cannot win.'' Maybe, he said, ``we can send a team to the major
leagues and demonstrate the quality of our players in Cuba.''
Thinking of retiring? ``Do you think one has the
right to retire in the midst of such a struggle? As long as I have the
necessary energy to be useful and I have the mental energy and they [other
leaders] ask me, I will be here,'' he said.
Power: ``I am not married to power. To me, power
is not money. I hate individualism and selfishness. I don't own any
property.'' Here he showed off his $30 Seiko watch. He spoke of giving
away -- anonymously -- gifts he had received, and keeping only his books.
``I will never lie to the people. I have never done this, and I never
will.'' Later he added: ``I have never been overtaken by vanity.''
His own integrity and that of his ministers: He
was clearly angered by a Forbes magazine list that indicated he was worth
$1.5 billion. ``What right do they have to write such slander?'' he said.
Not ``a single minister or high official'' has ever been proven to have
stolen anything. ``Not a single Cuban functionary has a bank account in
dollars. Whoever steals a dollar from the state would never last a single
minute in his position. We don't want to make ourselves rich; we want to
make our people rich.''
The Cuban exile community: He argued that most
South Florida Cuban Americans are ``immigrants'' not ``exiles.'' He said,
``Eighty-five percent of those who came to the United States did it not
for political reasons, but rather for economic reasons.'' He said the
first wave who left Cuba, beginning in 1959, included many in or allied
with the previous government of Fulgencio Batista. He spoke of ``war
criminals and torturers who left Cuba with their money.''
That was followed, he said, by ``another wave affected by the
revolutionary laws -- people who thought that the revolution wouldn't last
very long. Tens of thousands of these people.'' They included, he said,
many of the country's professional and managerial classes, noting, for
example, that half of Cuba's 6,000 doctors left in the early years of the
revolution. He said, ``Let us do our revolution with those who want to
stay in the country.''
If the revolution were to be ``destroyed,'' he said, ``90 percent of
those [Cubans] in the United States would stay there.'' Most in Miami
``would not abandon their businesses or wages.'' He used other countries
-- El Salvador and Nicaragua -- as examples where people stayed in the
United States after a war ended. ``Those from Vietnam do not return no
matter how sweet the relations with the United States might be.''
The Pedro Pan movement: When 14,000
unaccompanied children were sent to Miami in the early '60s, he said, ``we
never told even one parent that they could not take even one child.'' He
called the movement ``a crime against humanity'' and said the children
were ``practically kidnapped.'' He said parents expected to travel to
Miami shortly afterward, but the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis
intervened and flights were suspended for years.
The rafter crisis: He angrily chopped his right
hand and said it was ``unfair to blame Cuba. We are not the ones who
oppose people leaving the country.'' He decried the ``contraband in
persons organized in the United States. The United States should try them,
and they should abide by the laws of the United States.''
What happens after he's gone: ``The day I die
nothing is going to happen, and perhaps things will be even better.''