Fidel Castro: Reality Will Overpower Obama’s “Sincere Intentions”

Fidel Castro: Reality Will Overpower Obama’s “Sincere Intentions”













http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=331479&CategoryId=14510

HAVANA – Fidel Castro said he believes that President Barack Obama truly wants to improve relations between the United States and Cuba, but that the U.S. political reality will make that impossible.

The former leader commented in an article recounting his meeting on Tuesday with three members of a U.S. congressional delegation.

Castro said that when one of the lawmakers, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), told him Obama would need help from Cuba to end the five-decade chill in U.S.-Cuban ties, he replied by observing “that the objective realities” of the United States are “stronger than Obama’s sincere intentions.”

Castro, who formally stepped down as head of state early last year due to health reasons, also told Rush that Cuba has not been the aggressor between the two nations nor posed any threat to the United States.

Both Fidel Castro and his successor, younger brother Raul, said during the visit by the seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus that Havana is willing to enter into a dialogue with Washington, while insisting that that has been the communist-ruled island’s position for the past 50 years.

Fidel, 82, described as “wonderful” his almost two-hour meeting with Rush and California Democrats Barbara Lee and Laura Richardson.

“I didn’t try to meet with all of them because I don’t have enough space for all seven ... I asked (Lee) to visit me with two other lawmakers designated by the group. That way I could meet with her once again,” Castro said of his first meeting with U.S. public officials since he underwent surgery for a serious gastro-intestinal ailment in July 2006 and delegated power to his brother.

Castro praised Lee – the Black Caucus chairwoman and leader of the congressional delegation – and her colleagues and said he told them about “his experiences during two years and seven months of hospital confinement,” as well as his current activities.

“I explained what I had learned during that time of obligatory reclusion, above all my keen interest in what’s happening in the world and especially the United States,” Castro wrote.

He added that “the three came across as sincere, proud of their work, their organization, their struggle and their country. It’s apparent that they know Obama and showed their trust, confidence and sympathy toward him.”

The lawmakers who met with Castro said he appeared to be in good health.

“Very healthy, very energetic, very clear thinking,” was how Lee described Fidel at a press conference in Washington after the delegation got back from Cuba.

“We believe it is time to open dialogue and discussion with Cuba,” she told reporters. “Cubans do want dialogue. They do want talks. They do want normal relations.”

The legislators’ trip to Cuba came as the U.S. press reported that Obama plans to lift restrictions on Cuban-Americans’ travel and remittances to the communist-ruled island, in what could be a first step toward better ties with Havana.

Obama, however, has made it clear that he has no plans to immediately end the economic embargo that Washington imposed on Cuba in 1962. EFE