Fidel Castro Criticizes Barack Obama’s Cuba Visit

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has broken his silence over President Barack Obama’s Cuba visit in a damning letter published in state-run newspaper Granma.

Fidel Castro, who handed power to his brother Raul a decade ago, said Cuba didn’t need any gifts from the “empire”.

He described Barack Obama’s words of reconciliation as “syrupy” and warned they could give Cubans a heart attack.

President Barack Obama had suggested that it was time to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas.

In his 1,500-word letter, Fidel Castro also reminded readers of the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, in which a CIA-sponsored paramilitary force of Cuban exiles attempted to take over the island.

However, Fidel Castro also said his “modest suggestion” was that Barack Obama “reflects and doesn’t try to develop theories about Cuban politics”.

During his visit, Barack Obama invoked “a future of hope” for Cuba in an unprecedented live TV address delivered from the Grand Theater in Havana.

Barack Obama told Cuban President Raul Castro that he did not need to fear a threat from the US nor from “the voice of the Cuban people”.

The US president also called for the lifting of the 54-year old US trade embargo against Cuba, a remark which was met by loud applause.

The embargo remains one of the main sticking points in US-Cuban relations but can only be lifted by the US Congress.

Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba was the first by a president since the Communist revolution in 1959.