HAVANA (AFP) - President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) led a massive protest march against new US moves aimed at speeding the end of his communist rule, lashed out at US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) as an illegitimate leader and said he would die fighting if the United States invades.
Addressing himself to Bush in David-and-Goliath mode, Castro said if the United States invades "I am just sorry I would not be able to see your face, because in that case you would be thousands of miles away and I will be front and center to die fighting in defense of my country.
"Since you have decided our fate is sealed, it is my pleasure to bid farewell as did the Roman gladiators: Hail, Caesar, we who are about to die salute you.
"This people can be exterminated -- take this into account -- wiped off the face of the earth, but never subjugated nor defeated," an olive-drab-clad Castro warned.
And everything that is written about human rights in his world "and that of your allies who share in the looting of the planet, is a colossal lie," Castro said.
Cuba has recently come under increasing criticism for its human rights record, particularly its treatment of dissidents and political prisoners, from the United States and the European Union (news - web sites).
"In the world that you seek to impose, there is not the least notion of ethics, credibility, norms of justice, humanitarian sentiment, nor even the most basic principles of solidarity and generosity," the grey-bearded Castro, 77, charged, referring to Bush.
"You have no moral standing nor any right whatsoever to speak of freedom, democracy and human rights when you boast enough power to destroy mankind and with it, you are trying to impose a global tyranny ... and carry out wars of conquest," Castro said in uncustomarily lengthy and harsh public remarks about Bush, adding that the US president had "turned global politics into a genuine insane asylum."
The veteran Cuba leader, in power for 45 years, also criticized the United States for the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US occupying forces saying "the incredible torture applied to prisoners in Iraq (news - web sites) has left the world dumbfounded."
What's more, Castro charged, "everyone knows that your rise to the presidency of the United States was fraudulent."
"You cannot talk about liberty because you cannot conceive of a world other than an empire of terror wrought with deadly weapons that your inexperienced hands can launch against mankind," Castro said.
Last week, Bush endorsed measures to tighten the US embargo against Cuba by restricting Cuban-Americans' cash remittances to relatives on the island and limiting family visits between the United States and Cuba to one every three years.
The remittances are a pillar of the Cuban economy, worth some 1.2 billion dollars a year.
The plan also involves the use of US military aircraft to broadcast pro-democracy radio and television programs into Cuba, meant to foil Cuba's jamming of the US signal.
On February 24, 1996, the Cuban air force shot down civilian aircraft with the Florida-based Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue, killing all four men on board and sharply raising tensions between the neighboring countries, which do not maintain full diplomatic ties.
Cuba said the planes were in its airspace, though a UN body found they were not.
Castro said Bush "lacks the moral authority to talk about Cuba" which he said Washington targets "for petty political reasons looking for votes" in Florida, key to a potential Bush reelection in the November 2 US presidential vote. The state is home to some 800,000 mostly anti-Castro Cuban-Americans.
Meanwhile in Geneva, Cuba complained at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that the United States was trying with "new and crueler measures" to "choke us with hunger ... worsening the living standards and suffering of 11 million Cubans," Cuban ambassador Ivan Mora said.
Authorities said more than one million demonstrators marched. The government gave workers in the capital and surrounding areas a day off work Friday "to facilitate participation."
Thousands were bused in for the event. Most of these demonstrators wore crimson T-shirts, waved tiny Cuban flags and mock photos of Bush in Adolph Hitler's uniform, complete with Hitler's moustache.
The march snaked along Havana's famous Malecon waterfront boulevard for more than five hours, within earshot of the US Interests Section. Some foreign students studying here joined in as did many curious foreign tourists.
Wednesday, Cuban ambassador to Honduras Alberto Gonzalez told reporters Havana had stepped up military preparations, fearing a US invasion "is closer than ever."
The United States has had a comprehensive economic embargo clamped on Cuba, the Americas' only one-party communist state, since 1962.