Castro: 'I Will Die Fighting' if U.S. Invades Cuba

By Anthony Boadle

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro vowed on Friday to die fighting "with a gun in my hand" if the United States invaded Cuba to overthrow his communist government.

"I don't care how I die, but for sure, if they invade us, I will die fighting," the 77-year-old leader said at a meeting of anti-free trade activists from across the hemisphere.

Castro, who was the target of countless CIA assassination plots in the 1960s, called on the Bush administration to clarify to the world what its policy was on assassinating foreign leaders.

Earlier this month, Bush Administration officials accused Cuba of joining forces with Venezuela's leftist government to destabilize democratic governments in Latin America.

President Bush last year named a commission to speed up a post-Castro transition to democratic rule in Cuba.

Havana is worried that Cuba could be the next on Bush's list for a regime change after Iraq.

"We don't want a conflict, but we will not give an inch on our principles," Castro said in a rambling five-and-a-half-hour speech.

Castro said Cuba was prepared to resist invasion, with "hundreds of thousands" of soldiers ready to defend the island with guerrilla tactics he had used in the Sierra Maestra mountains to defeat a dictator's army and seize power in 1959.

He said instructions have been given in the case he were to die in a surgical strike.

"This nation will never surrender ... We have taken all the measures. Everyone knows what to do," Castro said.

Western diplomats said Cuban authorities were preparing the population for a possible invasion with training drills.

Castro said Washington "should explain to the world what its position is on its powers to order assassinations."

A U.S. presidential directive from the 1970s banned the assassination of foreign leaders, but the Bush Administration appeared to waive the ban when it made clear that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was to be considered a target before last year's invasion.

Castro spoke to more than 1,000 activists, from Andean Indians and landless Brazilians to Canadian postal workers, who met in Havana to plan protests against the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas.