Latin American Network Information Center - LANIC

-DATE-
19840406
-YEAR-
1984
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
INTERVIEW
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
CASTRO COMMENTS ON FRENCH TELEVISION
-PLACE-
CUBA
-SOURCE-
MANAGUA DOMESTIC SVC
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19840410
-TEXT-
FIDEL CASTRO COMMENTS ON FRENCH TELEVISION CITED

PA061729 Managua Domestic Service in Spanish 1544 GMT 6 Apr 84

[Text] Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruiz today said in Paris that the
Nicaraguan ports are being mined with highly sophisticated weapons through
the direct utilization of specialized CIA ships and equipment.

In an interview for Channel 1 of French television, reproduced by
INTERPRESS SERVICE and AFP, Commander Fidel Castro Ruiz said that the
counterrevolutionary bands are the screen for a major U.S. Government plan
to destabilize the Nicaraguan Government.

The mining of ports is inconceivable in times of peace and adds up to the
escalation of attacks by the Reagan administration to destroy Nicaraguan
economic resources, particularly agriculture, which has virtually resulted
in a blockade of the country, Commander Fidel Castro added. Castro urged
the international community to react in the face of U.S. policy in Central
America, particularly by encouraging the desire for a peaceful solution to
the crisis in the region, as expressed by the Nicaraguan Government and the
Salvadoran revolutionary movement.

Nicaragua is being attacked from Honduras on the northern borden and from
Costa Rica in the south by the bands armed, financed, and organized by the
United States, Castro asserted. I know the Nicaraguan people very well, I
know of their traditional fighting spirit and their strong nationalistic
feeling, and I'm sure that they will defeat the aggressor in the long run,
Fidel Castro pointed out.

He also noted that if Reagan is reelected, the Cuban and Central American
peoples should expect no improvement in their relations with the United
States. He added that relations between Havana and Washington were bad
before the invasion of Grenada but that the criminal intervention and
surprise attack -- following the Pearl Harbor and Nazi styles -- against
this small Caribbean island further aggravated them. He recalled that
several Cubans died during the invasion of Grenada. There's always danger
of a U.S. attack against Cuba, and therefore we have never and will never
lower our guard, as all our people are determined to make the aggressor pay
a high price, and if they dare attack us, they will lose here, as they did
in Vietnam, Fidel Castro concluded.
-END-


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