While delivering a speech to fellow Latin American leaders at the ALBA Summit in Havana, Raul Castro echoed his brother’s denunciations of the United States in a demonstration that little, if nothing, has changed in the relationship between the small island nation and its large northern neighbor. ALBA — a Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America — is an international cooperation organization based on the idea of social, political, and economic integration between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Raul Castro’s speech was published today in the online edition of the Cuban regime’s paper, Granma.

The establishment of military bases in the region is an expression of the hegemonic offensive that the U.S. government is deploying and constitutes an act of aggression against all of Latin America and the Caribbean. There is an evident intention to make concrete its political-military doctrine of occupying and dominating at any price the territory that it has always considered its “natural backyard.”

The reactivation of the 4th Fleet, with announced operative-strategic maneuver capacities even within the interior waters of the countries of the region, demonstrates that there will be no limits in order to achieve its plans, apart from the imposition of the resistance that we are capable of offering.

Earlier in the week, according to reports from Iran’s Press TV, Fidel Castro addressed similar issues in a letter to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Fidel Castro has criticized the US empire for launching an offensive, this time with the help of a “friendly smile and African-American face.”

In a letter to visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the 83-year-old former leader warned Latin America that the empire is on the offensive again.

He blamed the US for the Honduran military coup that overthrew deposed president Manuel Zelaya and condemned Washington’s latest military accord with Colombia, which allows US forces to use seven Colombian military bases for the next ten years.

Castro’s letter was read by Chavez at an ALBA summit in Havana on Monday.

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