Fidel Castro: Obama's Kindly Smile Could Not be Trusted

Tehran, Dec. 15, 09 (Hamsayeh.Net) - Cuba’s leader Raul Castro lashed out at the US over planning to use military bases in Colombia near the Venezuelan border and close to its capital city Caracas. He called the military base contract ‘an act of aggression’ against all of Latin America.

’The deployment of [U.S.] military bases in the region is...an act of aggression against Latin America and the Caribbean,’ Castro made the comments at the summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America, ALBA on Sunday. Castro emphasized that the U.S. was seeking to ‘suppress by all means the territory that they always considered their backyard.’

 

The Obama administration has struck a deal with the Colombian government on October 30 for a 10-year contract that would deploy 800 U.S. military personnel and 600 civilian contractors at seven military bases inside Colombia near the border with Venezuela.

 

Both Washington and Bogota had initially claimed the purpose behind the deal would be to combat drug related activities in that region, a claim which was rejected by Caracas as a veil to hide the real intentions behind Washington’s ‘imperial drive’ into South America. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez citing increasing tensions near its border regions with Colombia has called on his country to prepare for a possible war.

ALBA, or the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, was founded by former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez in 2005 as a key economic and security pact for Latin Americans that would confront Western and particularly American influence in the region. Today, the ALBA comprises nine members - Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda.

Also on Monday, Cuba’s Legendary Leader Fidel Castro warned that the US President’s ‘kindly smile’ could not be trusted through a letter read by the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the ALABA Summit in Havana.

‘The empire's real intentions are obvious, this time beneath the kindly smile and African American face of Barack Obama…. the empire is mobilizing behind rightist forces in Latin America to strike Venezuela and, in doing so, strike other states’ Castro's letter said.