Chavez tells Obama to give Guantanamo back to Cuba

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Panama comes to mind...Is the Left in bed with the Axis?!
Can't wait to see what Vladimir does with the island.

Chavez tells Obama to give Guantanamo back to Cuba

Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:27pm EST









BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday urged U.S. President Barack Obama to return the military base of Guantanamo to Cuba after applauding his decision to close the prison for terrorism suspects there.

The anti-U.S. Cuba ally has tense relations with the United States and was been one of the most outspoken critics of former President George W. Bush, though he has kept open the possibility of improving ties with Obama.

"Now he should return Guantanamo and Guantanamo Bay to the Cubans because that is Cuban territory," he said in a speech at the World Social Forum in Brazil, a gathering of activists billed as an alternative to the Economic Forum of business leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

Shortly after taking over last week, Obama ordered that the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects be closed within a year, showing a clear break from Bush's policies.

The United States took possession of the land around Guantanamo Bay in southeastern Cuba under a lease established after the 1898 Spanish-American War. In a 1903 agreement, Washington rented the land in perpetuity and pays a yearly fee. Since 1960 Cuba's communist government has refused to cash the checks.

The prison was set up to hold foreign terrorism suspects captured after U.S.-led forces invaded Afghanistan to root out al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Chavez said he wants to improve relations with the United States but is waiting for further signs Obama will move away from U.S. "imperialism."

"Let's wait and see, I don't have many illusions, the empire is intact," he said. "In Venezuela we are prepared to resist 10 more years, 20 more years, 100 more years of imperialist aggression."

(Additional reporting by Fabian Cambero in Caracas; Editing by David Storey)

(Reporting by Stuart Grudgings, Writing by Brian Ellsworth)

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In praising Obama, Castro hints his health may be failing

Fidel Castro has praised President Obama and his decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison.





But the ailing 82-year-old Cuban leader suggested tonight that he might not be around by the end of Obama's first term, The Associated Press says.

In an online column called "Reflections of Comrade Fidel," Castro told Cuban officials they "shouldn't feel bound by my occasional Reflections, my state of health or my death."

"I have had the rare privilege of observing events over such a long time. I receive information and meditate calmly on those events," he wrote. "I expect I won't enjoy that privilege in four years, when Obama's first presidential term has ended."

Castro underwent emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006 and has been out of sight since. After nearly 50 years as Cuba's leader, he made his younger brother Raul president last February.

Raul Castro dismissed speculation his brother's health had worsened, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"Now you know that Fidel is fine," he said, adding that his brother spends days "exercising, thinking and reading a lot, advising me, helping me."

"You think if he were gravely ill that I'd be smiling here?" Castro told reporters. "Soon I'm going to take a trip to Europe. You think I would leave here if Fidel were really in grave condition?"
Also, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said yesterday during a visit to Havana that Fidel looks healthy.

Here's what Fidel said about Obama, the 11th U.S. president Castro has seen:
"The intelligent and noble face of the first black president of the United States ... had transformed itself under the inspiration of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King into a living symbol of the American dream," he wrote.

But he suggested Obama would soon fall victim to the U.S. system: "What will he do soon, when the immense power that he has taken in his hands is absolutely useless to overcome the unsolvable, antagonistic contradictions of the (American) system?"

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Fidel Castro Tells Obama To Give Back Guantanamo

Friday, January 30, 2009 8:03 AM

HAVANA -- Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro demanded on Thursday that President Barack Obama return the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo to Cuba without conditions, and he accused the new U.S. leader of supporting "Israeli genocide" against Palestinians.

Castro, who had recently praised Obama as "honest" and "noble", lashed out at his administration for stating that Washington will not return Guantanamo if it has any military use for the United States and without concessions in return.

"Maintaining a military base in Cuba against the will of the people violates the most elemental principles of international law," Castro wrote in a column posted on the government-run website www.cubadebate.cu.

"Not respecting Cuba's will is an arrogant act and an abuse of immense power against a little country," Castro said, resorting to a charge he has leveled against the 10 previous U.S. presidents since he came to power in a 1959 revolution.

Cuba indefinitely leased Guantanamo to the United States in 1903 after the United States occupied the country during the 1898 Spanish-American War. Castro charges that the base at the south-eastern tip of Cuba was taken over illegally.

Earlier on Thursday, Washington's loudest critic in Latin America, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, also urged Obama to return the Guantanamo base, after applauding his decision to close the prison camp for terrorism suspects there.

"Now he should return Guantanamo and Guantanamo Bay to the Cubans because that is Cuban territory," Chavez, Cuba's closest ally, said in a speech in Brazil.

Fidel Castro has been seen only in a few videos and photos since undergoing intestinal surgery in July 2006 from which he never fully recovered.

But he has maintained a public profile through his writings and meetings with visiting foreign leaders, and he is believed to retain an important political role behind the scenes.

His brother Raul Castro provisionally took power after the surgery, then officially became president in February.

Obama has said he wants to move toward normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations but would not eliminate the 46-year-old U.S. trade embargo against the communist-led island without political reforms.

Until Thursday's column, the Castro brothers had praised Obama and held back direct criticism of his administration.

Fidel Castro on Thursday also attacked Obama for supporting Israel's invasion of Gaza.

"It is the way our friend Obama has fallen into sharing Israel's genocide against Palestinians," Castro wrote in his column called "Deciphering the thought of the new U.S. president."