Castro hardens rhetoric, warns Cubans to be alert to US intentions

HAVANA (Reuters) – President Raul Castro warned Cubans yesterday that the United States was determined to end Cuba’s socialist revolution despite restoring relations and a visit by US President Barack Obama, saying one-party Communism was essential to defend the system.

“We must be alert, today more than ever,” Castro said, speaking in front of a giant portrait of his brother Fidel Castro at the inauguration of the Communist Party’s first congress in five years.

Speaking for over two hours, Castro used a defiant tone that belied the breakthrough between the Cold War enemies. He said Obama’s desire to end US sanctions was welcome but just a change of “method”, in reference to efforts by Washington to bring political change to Cuba ever since the Castro brothers toppled a pro-American government in 1959.

Obama and Castro announced in December 2014 they would end decades of hostility and normalize relations. But on a historic trip to the island last month, Obama angered the government with a speech broadcast directly into Cubans’ homes calling for more political freedom and democracy in the one-party state.

Castro and his lieutenants, many of them in their 70s and 80s, faced some discontent ahead of the congress among younger members who are critical of their slow delivery on promised economic reforms in the past five years and a lack of transparency on discussions.

“The key function of the congress is a message that the Obama visit has not changed anything. To reduce expectations,” said Bert Hoffman, a Latin American expert at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies.

Castro reiterated the party’s commitment to the reforms which he said should be implemented faster. But he said Cuba was not moving towards capitalism, citing China and Vietnam as models, while emphasizing that social ownership and cooperatives were mostly preferable to private property.

He celebrated Cuba’s growing number of self-employed people but cautioned that the United States was seeking to turn them into an opposition force. Obama spent hours talking to small business people and entrepreneurs during his Havana visit.

“We are not naive, and we are aware of powerful external forces that aspire to, as they say, ‘empower’ non-state actors to generate agents of change and finish off the revolution by other means,” he said.

Castro did not detail which reforms would be implemented next, although he singled out Cuba’s complex dual currency system as a major economic distortion that needed to be rectified and emphasized the need for foreign investment.

He said he remained convinced of the benefits of improved relations with the United States and said Cuba was committed to the diplomatic thaw. But he did not believe Obama’s promise that the United States would not impose political or economic change on Cuba.

“The goals are the same, only the methods have changed,” Castro said, adding that US migration policies that encourage Cubans to defect were “a weapon against the revolution.”