-DATE- 19850218 -YEAR- 1985 -DOCUMENT_TYPE- INTERVIEW -AUTHOR- F. CASTRO -HEADLINE- CASTRO DISCUSSES CENTRAL AMERICA, DISARMAMENT -PLACE- HAVANA -SOURCE- MADRID EFE -REPORT_NBR- FBIS -REPORT_DATE- 19850219 -TEXT- CASTRO DISCUSSES CENTRAL AMERICA, DISARMAMENT PA181638 Madrid EFE in Spanish 1535 GMT 18 Feb 85 [Text] Havana, 18 Feb (EFE) -- Today, Cuban President-Fidel Castro -issued a dramatic warning to the industrialized countries about the threat that Latin America's "unpayable" foreign debt poses for world peace. In an exclusive interview granted to EFE, Castro said that unless this situation is made more bearable soon, with a 10 to 20-year grace period for payment of the capital ($360 billion) and the interest ($40 billion a year), the danger is not that the military will return to power, but that there will be "total political destabilization" and a "social explosion" of unforeseeable consequences. "There is no need for a flame," he said. "There can be just internal combustion and then there will not be enough water in the world to put it out." For the Cuban leader, the only real solution that would prevent the bankruptcy of the international financial system would be a pure and simple cancellation of Latin America's debt accompanied by measures for a new international economic order. However, the above-mentioned grace period and the industrialized countries' direct assumption of the debt, contracted mostly with private banks, would be an essential first step for temporarily deactivating what he described as the Latin American "powder keg." During a 6-hour interview granted to Ricardo Utrilla, president and general director of EFE, who was accompanied by Marisol Marin, the agency's representative in Havana, Castro somberly described the Latin American situation as an "insoluble crisis of the system." This situation, he said, has even led the United States to try to get rid of General Pinochet in Chile, where the first "social explosion" might occur, something like a southern cone Nicaragua. In answer to several questions, he suggested that, to the extent that that process threatens world peace, it does not favor Cuba's revolutionary aspirations in the region. "It might be better," he asserted, "if the changes were to come about in the most orderly, least traumatic, bloody way possible...that would be preferable." "Preventing a war," he further asserted, "is as necessary as social change." To this regard, he expressed his willingness to contribute to the area peace process by abstaining from intervening in other countries. "I think," he said, "that the problems posed by development can be confronted only with the cooperation of the entire international community, socialist and capitalist countries alike. Underdevelopment is no, resolved simply by having peace. Its solution falls within the framework of a peace perspective for the entire world, a peace which does not consist only of the discontinued manufacture or reduction of nuclear weapons, or abstaining from a space war program, but entails true willingness to get billions of human beings out of poverty by using the resources which today are so absurdly dedicated to military expenses." "As for our region," he added, "the principle of nonintervention in the domestic affairs other countries could be strictly enforced. We are 100 percent willing to comply with this: No Cuban interference even if we sympathize with the revolutionary movements; neither Cuba nor the United States would interfere. Let each country decide responsibly what political and economic system it must follow. "No one should try from abroad to promote a new social system or to maintain an unjust social order." Although he admitted that Cuba is currently supporting the Sandinist revolution in Nicaragua both economically and militarily, he avoided direct answers about possible military aid to the Salvadoran guerrillas or the number of Cuban soldiers on Nicaraguan territory. After flatly denying that the revolutionaries in Managua or those in El Salvador are trying to establish in their respective countries a Cuban-style political and economic system, Castro explained that Havana's military contribution in Nicaragua is strictly of an organizational nature involving instructors. He added that providing military aid to the Salvadoran guerrillas is "almost impossible." "A discussion of this subject is almost a metaphysical endeavor," he added. In this regard, he referred to Cuba's "moral right" to support both Nicaragua and the Salvadoran guerrillas in the face of U.S. intervention, which is intended to destroy the Nicaraguan revolution from within and prevent the victory of the Salvadoran revolutionaries in the face of a "genocidal regime." According to Castro, the possibility that the united States might stage a military intervention in Nicaragua "unfortunately exists." He added, however, that such an action "would truly be very foolish," but that under such circumstances, it would be "materially impossible" for Cuba to do anything. However, he stressed, "there is no military solution" for the United States in Latin America. "Graphically," he went on, "we say that intervening in Nicaragua is to play with fire beside a powder keg since, in my opinion, Latin America's political and social situation can be described as a powder keg. Intervention would truly be a very foolish act on tile part of the United States." He added: "It has been demonstrated that no technology is capable of destroying the popular resistance movements of peoples who are motivated by patriotic and revolutionary ideas. It would be useless, there would be such a high price to pay, politically and in human factors, that, as I have already told the Americans, I consider it inconceivable that the United States will invade Nicaragua." "My opinion, naturally, is that, although there is a solution, the United States will not negotiate seriously and will not support Contadora or its efforts as long as it has the hope of eliminating the Sandinist revolution from within.... However, if the United States wants to negotiate seriously, there will undoubtedly be a solution, and solutions that will satisfy Nicaragua and [the other] Central American nations as well as the United States itself," he added. According to Castro, the plan followed by the Nicaraguans is "perfect": Without giving up being revolutionaries, they postpone the construction of socialism until it becomes possible and limit themselves for the time being to structural reforms, the most important of which is agrarian reform. It is a scheme that the Cuban leader sees as an example for the rest of Latin America, if one wishes to prevent an explosion, and in which he finds a certain parallel with the plan being implemented by the Socialist Party in Spain. After stating that Latin America has two essential problems that it must solve, independence and development, he expressed his conviction that "to a greater or lesser degree, other Latin American countries will follow Nicaragua's scheme" because the ghost of a military coup is vanishing. He said: "The military understand that the situation of these countries is unmanageable and they are withdrawing from the government, transferring the governments to civilians after having thoroughly failed in the management of the state, after having ruined the countries to a greater or lesser degree...all of them know that their countries have become unmanageable and they are turning power over to the civilians. That is, the crisis is so deep, that they no longer consider themselves capable of ruling." However, he explained that in countries like Peru and Panama, the military played a progressive role arid that in Brazil they followed "a different policy" from their Argentine, Chilean and Uruguayan colleagues. The political change that occurred in Brazil was not violent, but it was thorough. That is, the opening is serious, it is solid," he said. -END-