Raul Castro: Cuba willing to sit down with US

Posted on Thursday, 07.26.12

Raul Castro: Cuba willing to sit down with US
By PETER ORSI
Associated Press

HAVANA -- Cuban President Raul Castro said Thursday that his government is willing to mend fences with bitter Cold War foe the United States and sit down to discuss anything, as long as it is a conversation between equals.

At the end of a Revolution Day ceremony marking the 59th anniversary of a failed uprising against a military barracks, Castro grabbed the microphone for apparently impromptu remarks. He echoed previous statements that no topic is off-limits, including U.S. concerns about democracy, freedom of the press and human rights on the island, as long as it is a conversation between equals.

"Any day they want, the table is set. This has already been said through diplomatic channels," Castro said. "If they want to talk, we will talk."

"We are nobody's colony, nobody's puppet," Castro added.

Washington and Havana have not had diplomatic relations for five decades.

Castro also reminisced about the 1959 Revolution, promised that Cuba will complete a trans-island expressway halted years ago for lack of funds, empathized with islanders' complaints about meager salaries and said once again that his five-year plan to overhaul Cuba's socialist economy will not be done hastily.

"We must move ahead at the rhythm that we Cubans decide," Castro said.

The July 26 national holiday was often used to make major announcements when Castro's older brother Fidel was president, but there were none on Thursday.

The main celebration kicked off at sunrise with music and speeches at a plaza in the eastern province of Guantanamo, home to the U.S. naval base of the same name.

The American presence in Guantanamo is a sore point for Havana, which demands the base be shut down and accuses the U.S. of torturing terror suspects held in the military prison.

"We will continue to fight such a flagrant violation. ... We will never stop trying to recover that piece of ground," first Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura said in the keynote address.

Musicians sang the song "Guantanamera," and a young girl read a speech paying homage to the revolution and resistance to "Yankee" imperialism.

"We will be like 'Che,'" she said, repeating the mantra taught to schoolchildren across the island. Argentine-born guerrilla Ernesto "Che" Guevara is held up as a model of personal conduct in Cuba.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/26/2913296/cuba-marks-59th-anniversary-of.html