Fidel Castro hits at US aggression in letter to ‘Brother Obama’

Fidel Castro responded on Monday to US president Barack Obama’s historic trip to Cuba with a long, bristling letter recounting the history of US aggression against Cuba, writing: “We don’t need the empire to give us any presents.”

The 1,500-word letter in state media, titled ‘Brother Obama’, was Mr Castro’s first response to the US president’s three-day visit last week, in which Obama said he had come to bury the two countries’ history of Cold War hostility.

Mr Obama did not meet the 89-year-old Fidel Castro on the trip but met his 84-year-old brother Raul Castro, the current Cuban president, several times .

Mr Obama’s visit, with his wife and two daughters, was intended to build irreversible momentum behind his opening with Cuba and to convince the Cuban people and the Cuban government that a half-century of US attempts to overthrow the Communist government had ended, allowing Cuba to reform its economy and political system without the threat of US interference.

Fidel Castro wrote of Mr Obama: “My modest suggestion is that he reflects and doesn’t try to develop theories about Cuban politics.”

Mr Castro’s letter opens with descriptions of environmental abuse under the Spaniards and reviews the historical roles of Cuban independence heroes Jose Marti, Antonio Maceo and Maximo Gomez.

Mr Castro then goes over crucial sections of Mr Obama’s speech line by line, engaging in an ex-post-facto dialogue with the American president with pointed critiques of perceived slights and insults, including Mr Obama’s failure to give credit to indigenous Cubans and Mr Castro’s prohibition of racial segregation after coming to power in 1959.