Former Cuban President Fidel Castro said in an article published on Saturday that the government will reject "another time" supply "pious help" their enemy the United States, while the island prepares to receive the brunt of powerful Hurricane Paloma.
The Cuban government has rejected at least three offers of aid from the U.S. government after passage of devastating hurricanes and Ike Gustav two months ago, considering it "an operation of political propaganda."
Ike and Gustav entire crops destroyed, seriously affecting agriculture, causing food shortages in the country, and causing losses of more than 8,000 million dollars, according to official figures.
"Again it would be necessary if the Conduct dignified head of the empire (United States), which has been the greatest promoter of the genocidal blockade against our homeland, offering again pious aid," Castro wrote in an article reprinted by the official press Saturday.
"For sure it will be rejected," added the Cuban leader, who is kept away from public life since he became ill in July 2006 and was replaced as president by his younger brother, General Raúl Castro, in February.
Fidel Castro is consulted on major decisions of the Cuban state.
Cuba and the United States are at loggerheads since the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959. Washington applied since 46 years ago a trade embargo against the island.
In late October, the island won an overwhelming endorsement of the embargo against the United States in the UN General Assembly, where a record number of 185 countries condemned the economic sanctions.
Castro warned in his article that Paloma will miss Earth by emergency programs to alleviate food shortages left by Ike and Gustav.
"Many crops whose results were expected soon, countless hours of human labor, fuel, seed, fertilizer (...) will miss," Castro wrote.
On Friday, the island left the recovery to begin evacuating people, the protection of stored foods and the rapid harvesting of crops.
Cuba, whose system of the Civil Defense has been praised for its effectiveness in dealing with the weather, said Saturday the stage cyclone warning for the provinces of central and eastern Colombia, after Hurricane Paloma be strengthened to category 4.
At least 150,000 students in internal centers of eastern and central parts of the country have already been evacuated and hundreds of thousands of people from areas prone to flooding were moved to safe places, told state television.
This article can be found at Reuters