Raul Castro: Cuba willing to sit down with US

The Jakarta Post, Peter Orsi, Associated Press, Havana,  July 26 2012

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.

The 50-year-old U.S. embargo outlaws nearly all trade and travel to the island, and Washington insists Cuba must institute democratic reforms and improve human rights before it can be lifted.

Days after prominent dissident Oswalo Paya died in a car crash, Castro had harsh words for the island's opposition, accusing them of plotting to topple the government.

"Some small factions are doing nothing less than trying to set the stage and hoping that one day what happened in Libya will happen here," Castro said.

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.

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. ... Never, under any circumstance, will we 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.

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Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuba's President Raul Castro, speaks during a
 press conference in Havana, Monday, May 3, 2010. Headed by Mariela Castro,
 Cuba will hold events next week on the rights of homosexuals and transvestites
in support of the International Day against Homophobia. (AP Photo/Franklin Reyes).

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