Thousands of Argentines turned out late last night to hear a long farewell speech by visiting Cuban resident Fidel Castro, who attended the inauguration of Nestor Kirchner on his first day as president of Argentina.
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Cuban President Fidel Castro covers his eyes from spotlights as hespeaks to thousands of Argentine college students, gathered on thesteps of the Buenos Aires University Law School, in Buenos Aires.
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"I will never forget what you have done for me tonight, allowing me to leave happy and forever thankful," Castro told a multitude of 15,000 mostly young admirers from the steps of the Buenos Aires University Law Faculty.
His strongly anti-US speech was originally intended for some2,000 people inside a lecture hall, but was moved outside where allthe unexpectedly large gathering could see him under a chilly,starlight night.
Castro, 76, was among 13 heads of state who attended Sunday'sinauguration of Kirchner, 53, who spent most of Monday meeting themand promising to "work with everyone" to bring Argentina out of itsworst-ever economic crisis.
The Cuban leader called the US government "a specialist in lies"bent on "imposing its universal neofascist theory" on the world, andvowed that the Cuban revolution he heads would "never surrender,never stop fighting."
"I'm not exaggerating or overdoing it," he said, "when I tellyou that one day I heard that 60 or more countries could become thetarget of surprise or preventive attacks," by the United States,Castro said referring to the much criticized new US policy ofpreemptive attack on rogue nations such as Iraq.
He thanked Argentina for "taking a hard swipe at neoliberalglobalization" by electing a forward-thinking politician likeKirchner to office.
A progressive member of the Peronist party, Kirchner becamepresident-elect May 14 when former president Carlos Menem, a staunchfree-marketeer trailing in the polls, dropped out of the country'sfirst presidential runoff.
Kirchner, meeting with reporters on Monday, defended the use ofpublic works projects to drive the economy and rejected Argentina'sneoliberal experiment through the 1990s under Menem, which led tothe South American country's economic meltdown.
The crisis has left half of Argentina's 36 million people nowliving below the poverty line, and has sent unemployment soaring tonear 25 percent.
Kirchner, a little-known governor of Santa Cruz province untilthe elections, also confirmed his strategy of strengtheningMercosur, a South American free trade area consisting of Argentina,Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Kirchner also held meetings with Spain's Prince Felipe,followed by Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle. He also met presidentsLucio Gutierrez of Ecuador, Alejandro Toledo of Peru, GonzaloSanchez de Lozada of Bolivia and Alvaro Uribe of Colombia.
All of them had attended the inauguration along with Hugo Chavezof Venezuela, Alfonso Portillo of Guatemala, Castro and Brazil'sLuiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Kirchner's first official trips abroad are expected to take himto Brazil to meet with Lula and, within the next three months, toWashington to meet with US President George W. Bush, Kirchner'sforeign minister said Monday.
In an earlier speech Monday, Castro justified the recentexecutions in Cuba of three hijackers who had seized a ferry in anattempt to flee the island, saying they were players in an effort tospark war between the United States and Cuba.
"It is the enemy's plan to bring about war between the UnitedStates and Cuba," the Cuban leader told reporters. "When it comes todefending the lives of 11 million Cubans, you cannot hesitate."
AFP