Castro Touts Rosy Economic Outlook in Cuba

Castro Touts Rosy Economic Outlook in Cuba

Castro Offers Rosy Economic Outlook for Cuba, Credits Resilience in Face
of U.S. Trade Embargo
By VANESSA ARRINGTON
The Associated Press

HAVANA - President Fidel Castro said on Monday that Cuba's economy grew
at a rate of more than 12.5 percent in the past month, crediting the
country's resilience in the face of the U.S. government's long-standing
trade embargo.

"Thank you, Yankee empire, because you've made us grow, you've made us
reach new heights," he said in a May Day speech of more than three
hours. Those gathered in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution chanted
"Fidel!" in response, and waved small paper Cuban flags.

Castro said the economy grew 11.8 percent in the first quarter of this
year as compared to the same period in 2005. The current rate of growth
has since surged to more than 12.5 percent, he said.

Cuba uses its own method to calculating economic growth that takes into
account the country's vast social safety net and subsidized services.

That makes Cuba's growth figures difficult to compare with those of
other countries, prompting the United Nation's Economic Commission for
Latin America and the Caribbean to leave the island's numbers out of its
report last year.

Castro chastised the Bush administration for creating a transition plan
for a post-Castro Cuba and accused the administration of threatening his
country and its ally Venezuela with U.S. military exercises under way in
the Caribbean. U.S. officials say the exercises have nothing to do with
Cuba or Venezuela.

"I am curious to see what comes of their famous transition period, with
war boats, aircraft carriers and submarines and ... assassination
plans," he said.

Castro said that a Cuban-born California man accused of selling guns
illegally from his home told the Los Angeles Times in a jailhouse
interview last week that the weapons were supposed to be used in an
attempt to oust the Cuban president in concert with the U.S. naval
exercises.

A Pentagon spokesman and other military officials have denied the claims
by 61-year-old Robert Ferro, who had stashed 1,571 firearms and some
hand grenades in hidden rooms and compartments at his home in Upland, Calif.

Ferro "had as many arms as the mercenaries brought with them to Giron,"
Castro said, referring to the disastrous invasion of Cuba 45 years ago
by a U.S.-trained exile army at the Bay of Pigs.

Ferro has claimed to be a member of Alpha 66, a violent anti-Castro
group. A spokesman at the group's Miami headquarters has denied that
Ferro was a member.

Castro also accused the American government of protecting Luis Posada
Carriles, a Cuban-born militant he characterizes as the Western
Hemisphere's worst terrorist.

Posada Carriles is being held in the United States on immigration
charges. Cuba and Venezuela accuse him of masterminding the 1976 bombing
of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Posada Carriles has denied
involvement in that crime.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

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