July 23, 2007
HAVANA (Reuters) - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro deplored the
defection of three athletes and a coach during the Panamerican Games in
Brazil, saying on Monday they had betrayed Cuba for dollars.
Cuba's Olympic and world amateur boxing champion Guillermo Rigondeaux
and teammate Erislandy Lara failed to appear for their scheduled bouts
in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.
A member of the Cuban handball team, Rafael Dacosta, and gym trainer
Lazaro Lamelas defected earlier, Castro lamented, accusing the United
States of luring Cuba's best athletes.
"Betrayal for money is one of the favorite weapons of the United States
to destroy Cuba's resistance," Castro wrote in his latest column
e-mailed to journalists in Havana.
The 80-year-old leader, who has not appeared in public since undergoing
intestinal surgery a year ago, has taken to writing to reassert his
presence in Cuba and does not miss an opportunity to blast his
ideological foe the United States.
For years, some of Cuba's top baseball players -- such as Jose Contreras
and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez -- have defected to the United States,
drawn by million-dollar deals in the major leagues.
Castro, who took power in a 1959 revolution, also attacked what he
called a "Mafia" in Germany that has signed up recently defecting Cuban
boxers with contracts for professional fights.
"It uses refined psychological methods and millions of dollars," he wrote.
In December, Cuban boxers Yan Barthelemy, Yuriolkis Gamboa and Odlanier
Solis deserted while training in Caracas for the Panam Games. They
traveled to Colombia, where they were denied U.S. visas and are now in
Germany, their lawyer Antonio Gonzalez said in February.
The three boxers signed three-year contracts with a German company that
would pay them at least $1 million each and require them to live and
train in Germany, he said.
Castro said 19-year-old handball striker Dacosta had appeared in the
uniform of a professional team from Sao Paulo.
At the 1999 Panam Games in Winnipeg, 13 Cubans defected.
Bantamweight Rigondeaux, Olympic gold medalist in 2000 and 2004, and
welterweight Lara, were the latest to follow.
"They were simply knocked out with a blow to the jaw, paid for with
North American dollars," Castro wrote. "There was no need for a count."
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