US is a loser, says Castro
2008-03-08 14:14
Anthony Boadle
Havana - Cuba's ailing Fidel Castro
praised Latin American presidents for putting their differences
aside on Friday and avoiding an outbreak of war he said had
been fostered by "Yankee plotting" in the region.
"(US)imperialism was by all means the only loser,"
Castro, who retired last week after almost half a century at
Cuba's helm, wrote in a column distributed to the press by
e-mail in Havana.
The presidents of Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia, the
United States' top ally in South America, shook hands at a
regional summit and ended a border dispute that erupted with a
Colombian raid into Ecuador to kill a guerrilla leader.
The handshake at a Rio Group meeting in Santo Domingo
prevented the weeklong diplomatic crisis from escalating into
the first war between Latin American countries in more than a
decade.
'Tool of US power'
Castro highlighted that the meeting took place outside the
Organization of American States, the hemispheric forum often
seen as a tool of US power in Latin America.
"The essential thing is that no US diplomats were
present," said Castro, 81, whose country was suspended from the
OAS in 1962, three years after he took power in a revolution.
Since dropping out of sight due to illness in 2006, the
revolutionary firebrand has dedicated himself to writing
articles, mainly attacking his arch enemy, the United States,
and backing his main ally, Venezuela's populist President Hugo
Chavez.
Chavez had blamed the United States for the border crisis
between Colombia and Ecuador, and sent tanks to the Venezuelan
border with Colombia.
- Reuters