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11/03/09 - EFE (Madrid) - Cuba: Juanita Castro's Book "in Bad Taste"

HAVANA - The autobiography of Juanita Castro, sister of Raul and Fidel
Castro, is "a commercial venture in bad taste and of low morality," a
magazine published by Cuba's Culture Ministry said Monday as a first
official reaction to the book.

"Through techniques of political recycling and marketing that includes
advertising, manipulation and sensationalism, Miami's anti-Castro industry,
under the auspices of the publisher Santillana and the PRISA Group in Spain,
has launched a new product on the market: the memoirs of Juanita Castro," an
article in La Jiribilla magazine said.

The article entitled "Memorias para el Olvido" (Memoirs to Forget) broke the
official silence on last week's launch of the book by the sister of the two
men who have ruled Cuba since Jan. 1, 1959.

"The fact is more shocking precisely because to keep his distance from the
usual frivolity as no other western leader has done, for more than 50 years
Fidel Castro has made an effort to preserve the privacy of his family from
the vicissitudes of his public activities," La Jiribilla said.

The book is "a rag created to spread statements that are frankly trivial,"
the article said.

It added that "if it is true that at the beginning of the 1960s the author
worked for the CIA, she would be just one more among thousands of Cubans who
for handouts, money or other motives, including hatred, a lust for revenge
and intolerance, worked for the CIA and offered to serve as pawns of U.S.
policy against Cuba."

"In this case,the article continued, "the difference comes in having also
conspired against close family members. In this conduct there is no merit
nor anything particularly exceptional, just the opposite."

Juanita revealed her collaboration with the CIA in her memoirs "Fidel y
Raul, Mis Hermanos: La Historia Secreta" (Fidel and Raul, My Brothers: The
Secret History)

The younger sister of Fidel and Raul Castro said Tuesday in an interview
with Efe that it was not easy to decide between preserving her family ties
or joining with the CIA to undermine the communist regime that replaced the
democratic ideals that initially motivated the Cuban Revolution.

Before her contacts with the CIA began, Juanita "on her own initiative"
worked against the Castro government after noticing that her brothers were
betraying what they had been promising: "bread with freedom, bread without
terror, a true democracy, social justice."

Juanita said she has not spoken with Fidel or Raul since 1963. EFE