Fidel Castro rails at Western "imperialism"

Fidel Castro on Monday attacked the alleged imperialism of the United States and its allies, accusing them of promoting conflicts in third countries and comparing the style of recent statements by NATO spokespeople with those of the Nazis.

"Hitler's empire, inspired by greed, passed into history without any more glory than the vapor contributed by the bourgeois and aggressive governments of NATO, which makes them the laughingstock of Europe," Cuba's former leader wrote in an essay published in Communist Party daily Granma.

The 88-year-old Castro asks if, instead of promoting conflicts, "it would not be preferable to fight to introduce more food, build hospitals and schools for the billions of human beings who desperately need them."

"We have a rather powerful adversary as our closest neighbor: the United States. We warn him that we would resist the embargo, although it means a very high cost for our country. There is no worse price than capitulating before an enemy who attacks you without any right to do so," Castro said.

"When the USSR disintegrated and disappeared from the socialist landscape, we continued resisting and together, the state and the revolutionary people, we're continuing our independent march," said Castro, who handed over power to younger brother Raul in July 2006 after falling gravely ill.

The leader of the Cuban revolution also discussed the role of the Soviet Union in the world historical context.

The Soviet state, Fidel said, was "a union capable of gathering its resources and sharing its technology with a large number of weak and less developed nations, the inevitable victims of colonial exploitation."