Fri Dec 22, 6:54 PM ET
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - Costa Rica's president on Friday
compared Cuba's leader
Fidel Castro to the late Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet, an ideological foe, saying each was "savage, brutal
and bloody" in his own way.
President Oscar Arias, a Washington-friendly conservative who won the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for brokering deals to end Central America's
civil wars, has traded barbs with Cuban officials since his election in
February.
"Fidel Castro began with the (execution) wall, killing people those who
opposed him," Arias said in radio interview. "There is no difference.
The ideology is different but both were savage, brutal and bloody."
Nearly 3,200 people in Chile were killed in political violence and close
to 28,000 people were tortured during the 1973-1990 right-wing rule of
Pinochet, who died on December 10 at age 91.
Castro, one of the world's last communist leaders, overthrew Cuba's
government in 1959 and ruled uninterrupted until July this year, when he
temporarily handed power to his brother Raul following intestinal surgery.
Castro was last seen in public on July 26. Havana denies he is
terminally ill, but Cuban officials no longer insist he will return as
president of the country and leader of the party.
His prolonged absence has fueled uncertainty about the future of the
Western Hemisphere's only communist state.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061222/wl_nm/costarica_castro_dc_1
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