Castro says Bush aims to kill him

By The Associated Press and Reuters

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"I don't care how I die," Castro said at the end of a 5½-hour speech that began Thursday night and continued into early yesterday. "But rest assured, if they invade us, I'll die in combat."

The Cuban president didn't back up his accusations with details. He spoke at a conference of activists who oppose the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Castro has insisted over the past year that hard-line Cuban exiles in Miami have been pressuring the Bush administration to invade the island, a charge U.S. officials deny.

Castro, who said he would die "with a gun in my hand," said Cuba was prepared to resist invasion, with "hundreds of thousands" of soldiers ready to defend the island with guerrilla tactics he used in the Sierra Maestra mountains to seize power in 1959.

He said instructions have been given in case he's killed.

"This nation will never surrender. ... We have taken all the measures. Everyone knows what to do," Castro said.

"We know that Mr. Bush has committed himself to the mafia ... to assassinate me," the Cuban president said, using the term commonly employed here to describe anti-Castro Cuban Americans. "I said it once before and today I'll say it clearer: I accuse him!"

In Miami, a senior U.S. official dismissed Castro's comments.

"It's an absurd declaration, as usual. According to Fidel Castro, he's going to die fighting; probably he's going to die talking," said Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Castro has accused past U.S. administrations of seeking to assassinate him, and during his early years in power there were numerous documented cases of U.S.-sponsored attempts.

The assassination of foreign leaders as U.S. policy was banned in 1976 by an executive order signed by President Gerald Ford and reinforced by presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Castro also criticized the Bush administration's Commission for a Free Cuba, a panel set up in October and headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell. When the United States announced creation of the commission, Powell suggested that the goal is not to ease Castro out but to plan a strategy for Cuba once the 77-year-old leader is no longer in power.

Castro called on the more than 1,000 activists gathered here from across the Americas to work against the U.S.-backed free-trade pact, which he said will only further impoverish their nations.

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