Castro: New president won't bring change to US
Fidel Castro said today that the election of a new president would not bring change to the US.
In an essay posted on a government-controlled website in which he did not mention Barack Obama by name, the ailing 82-year-old former president scoffed at any notion communist Cuba would “transition” towards capitalist reforms.
He also chided US president George Bush for suggesting the weekend’s G20 summit would be able to accomplish a “new financial world order”.
Before the US election, Castro wrote that Mr Obama was smarter and less of a war hawk than Republican John McCain, but also suggested that American racism would keep the Democrat from winning the White House.
The election’s results were reported in state-controlled Cuban media, but Castro has yet to comment directly on Mr Obama.
His silence is thought to be a key reason why Cuba’s government has said little about the US president-elect.
Without mentioning Mr Obama by name, Castro wrote that “many say that with the simple change in head of the empire, it will be more tolerant and less bellicose”. Cuban officials routinely refer to the US as “the empire”.
He then paid a backhanded compliment to Mr Obama, saying: “It would be extremely naive to believe that the good intentions of an intelligent person could change centuries of interests and selfishness already created.”
Suffering from an undisclosed illness, Castro has not been seen in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006. His younger brother Raul succeeded him in February but the former president has continued to release essays on a variety of mostly international topics every few days.
