MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Castro back on stage to call for changeâ€Â¦in the US

"I agree, change, but in the US" Fidel said ironically

Fidel Castro strongly criticized United States calls for change in Cuba, following his resignation earlier this week as president more than 49 years after seizing power. In a column published Friday Castro rejects US President Bush's assertion that the resignation could put Cuba on the path to democracy.

In the piece in the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma, the Cuban leader says what Mr. Bush really seeks is the "annexation" of Cuba. Castro added that US presidential candidates are making immediate demands for change in Cuba to avoid losing votes. He dismisses their comments as "embarrassing" and says the real change must come from the United States. "I agree, change, but in the US" he said. "Cuba changed a while ago and will continue on its dialectic path". Castro said he decided to take aim at the US after seeing footage of US bombers on television and a US warship shooting down a satellite. Cuban independence leader Jose Marti denounced the US as a "voracious and expansionist empire" he wrote. It remains "the adversary", he underlined. Castro also had harsh words for the European countries that welcomed his resignation: "dwindling European powers" haven't known freedom and democracy since the 15th-century Spanish inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada Castro argued. European countries are haunted by the "shadow" of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence was a "nightmare" for Europe, insisted Castro. The Cuban leader who ceded control to his 76-year-old brother, Raul in July 2006 following intestinal surgery, announced his formal resignation as president and commander-in-chief in a statement on Feb. 19. Castro said in the statement he would write articles under the banner "Reflections of Comrade Fidel", adding that "my only desire is to fight as a soldier of ideas". In the Granma piece, the Cuban president says he intended to take a break from writing regular newspaper columns, but that the U.S. reaction to his resignation forced him to "open fire" again on his ideological foe. Cuba's parliament is expected to confirm Raul as the new leader Sunday. In related news Republican presidential front-runner John McCain suggested on Friday that he hoped Cuban leader Fidel Castro would die soon and said Castro's brother will be a worse leader. "I hope he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon," McCain told a town-hall meeting of about 150 people during the campaign trail, referring to German communist theoretician Marx. "Apparently he is trying to groom his brother Raul", McCain said, but "Raul is worse in many respects than Fidel was". Meantime Brazilian Foreign Affairs minister Celso Amorim flatly denied that Raul Castro had asked for help from President Lula da Silva with the transition process in the pos-Fidel era. President Lula da Silva recently visited Cuba, hosted by Raul and also a long talk with Fidel Castro. "I was present at all meetings and heard nothing about that" said Amorim.