Raging Castro blasts EU as hypocritical, under US thumb

Tuesday,  November 1, 2005

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): President Fidel Castro Friday blasted EU nations as "hypocrites" after the European Parliament this week granted a group of wives, mothers and sisters of jailed Cuban dissidents, its top annual human rights prize, the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought.

The Cuban leader, 79, lashed out at the EU saying Cuba "can look at you in the eye, keep on staring and accuse you: you are corrupt, immoral, exploitative hypocrites.

"You are the ones who created modern slavery in recent centuries, after what was called the discovery of America," Castro said. "You created colonialism, and keep it in place even today, you created unfair trade, you steal riches."

"They are so low, as they always have been," Castro charged at an art teachers' graduation ceremony.

Castro said "that is the conduct, the lack of ethics, the shamelessness of the imperial (US) system," complaining that EU nations were in Washington's pocket, and not duly concerned about five Cubans whose espionage convictions in the United States had been revoked by a US federal appeals court in August.

"We do not see anyone in Europe tearing at their shirts seeking freedom for these five patriots who are still in prison despite the fact a (US) judge or court said... their trial was illegal and unfair," Castro went on.

Cuba's relations with the European Union have been strained since June 2003 when the bloc slapped sanctions on Cuba after its worst crackdown on dissidents in years during which Havana rounded up 75 opposition members.

The European Union in January opted to lift those sanctions and try to promote dialogue with Castro's government, the only one-party communist regime in the Americas.

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