Castro: 'Don't be foolish, Mr. W'

Castro, speaking in the rain at Saturday's rally, criticized President Bush's recent remarks on Cuba.

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- Referring to U.S. President George W. Bush as "Mr. W.," Cuban President Fidel Castro lashed out at Bush's recent Cuba policy speeches at an enormous government-sponsored rally.

Speaking in pouring rain in the eastern Holguin province, Castro said, "Don't be foolish, Mr. W. Respect the intelligence of people capable of thinking. Don't insult [Cuban independence hero Jose] Marti. Show respect and respect yourself."

The Cuban leader was referring to Bush's May 20 policy speeches, including his demands for Cuba to become a democracy. "W" is often a nickname for the president, whose middle name is Walker.

CNN NewsPass VIDEO CNN's Lucia Newman has more on the first public reaction by Cuban President Fidel Castro to U.S. President Bush's Cuban policy speeches (June 1) Play video

Castro elaborated on Cuba's health and education system and low infant mortality rate and said: "That is not tyranny, as Mr. W. calls it. It is justice and real equality among human beings."

Refuting Bush's demands that Cuba be a country that allows for private enterprise and private property, Castro said the Cuban Revolution has turned the Cuban people into the true proprietors of their own country.

He said that before the revolution, international companies, such as United Fruit, were the ones that ruled Cuba, along the local oligarchy.

"Today, not a single cent has landed in the pockets of Castro and his followers. Not a single high-level Cuban revolutionary leader has a single dollar in a bank account in or outside of Cuba," Castro said. "No high-level Cuban leader can be bribed.

"None of them are millionaires, as is the president of the United States, whose monthly salary is nearly double that of all the members of the State Council and the Council of Ministers of Cuba for a whole year," Castro said.

"None of them can be included in the long list of neo-liberal friends of Mr. W. in Latin America who are Olympic champions of embezzlement and robbery."

The mass meeting, which brought 400,000 people from the eastern region of the country, was the first direct reference by Castro to Bush's May 20 speeches.

Bush's remarks have never been published nor broadcast in Cuba, though there have been references to them in the state-run media.

In Saturday's speech, Castro made no reference to calls by Bush and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter for greater respect for human rights and release of political prisoners.

On May 20, Bush denounced Castro as a "tyrant" and "a relic from another era" and vowed not to ease the nearly 40-year-old U.S. trade and travel ban on Cuba until political and economic changes come to that island nation.

He also called for "free and fair" elections there in 2003 and for the release of all political prisoners.

"The dream of a free and independent Cuba has been deferred, but it can never be destroyed, and it will not be denied," Bush said during a speech in Miami, where he was enthusiastically applauded by the city's politically vocal Cuban-American community.

His speech followed a similar address at the White House, where he outlined the steps Castro must take before the United States would ease its embargo, which Carter criticized during his historic trip earlier in May.