Castro Attacks China On Trade

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30979, 8 February 1966, Page 17

Castro Attacks China On Trade

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) HAVANA, Feb. 7. Diplomats, stunned by the vehemence of Premier Fidel Castro’s attack on China yesterday, are still weighing the implications it may have for already-strained relations between Havana and Peking.

Dr. Castro, who compared China’s activities -in Cuba to those of the United States "when it tried to interfere in our international affairs and in one way or another to impose its will on the nation,” was replying to Peking’s decision to reduce rice shipments to Cuba. He accused the Chinese of trying to subvert the Cuban Army and of joining the United States blockade against Cuba. He said China decided to cut its rice shipments not for economic reasons, but because Cuba had refused to permit the distribution of anti-Soviet propaganda.

He charged China of “exerting blackmail, extortion, pressure, aggression and strangulation . . . and ... the worst methods of piracy, oppression and fillibustering.” Chinese officials spread propaganda among top Cuban

officers and, ignoring Cuban protests “with the insolence of the omnipotent . . . continued to distribute in Cuba more than 800 mailbags of propaganda material,” the Cuban Premier said. Yesterday’s unprecedented attack took place in a trade war which opened last month when Dr. Castro revealed that China would supply Cuba with only 135,000 tons of rice this year, instead of a requested 280,000 tons.