Pubdate: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 Source: Associated Press Copyright: 1999 Associated Press Author: The Associated Press CASTRO DECLARES WAR ON DRUGS CIENFUEGOS, Cuba (AP) -- President Fidel Castro declared war on drug traffickers during his annual Revolution Day speech Monday night, rejecting charges that his government engages in the practice and promising prosecution for those who do. "They will be tried in Cuba, without a single exception," Castro promised. A recent toughening of Cuba's penal code sets aside capital punishment not only for military officers but also for top ranking civilian members of the communist government found guilty of drug trafficking. Speaking in the open plaza in this coastal city, Castro rejected persistent rumors and charges from what he called the "counterrevolutionary mafia of Miami" that he and his government aid traffickers who use the Caribbean island. He called on the United States to join Cuba in a pact to work together to fight the crime, scolding the American government for not doing so already. Earlier in the speech, Castro included Canada in his traditional attack on the United States during the annual July 26 address, accusing both countries of dirty tricks aimed at harming Cuba during the Pan American Games in Winnipeg. "We have never seen so many tricks, so much filth in the Pan American Games," Castro told tens of thousands of Communist Party faithful and other guests marking the start of the revolution that brought him to power four decades ago. Castro criticized calls by the local media in Canada for Cuban athletes to defect and "hostile" treatment of the Cuban delegation. He also criticized changes in the rules of competition for baseball, "the most important, the most attractive sport." "We are competing in enemy territory," Castro said of Canada. Relations between Cuba and Canada were long friendly but have soured recently as Canada has increasingly taken the communist country to task for its human rights record. A key issue has been Canada's opposition to the sentencing of four government opponents convicted of inciting sedition through words and documents. In the audience were 150 members of the Venceremos Brigade, a group of Americans who come to Cuba annually to perform field work or other tasks in support of the communist government. "When I heard his helicopter land, I almost began crying," said Teresa Calderon, 66, a Colombian-born American resident living in New York. When Castro strode in front of the stage in his olive green uniform, she clambered up on a white plastic chair and cried out like a teen-ager at a rock concert. "He is a hero for the Americas," she exclaimed. The yearly ceremony marks the disastrous July 26, 1953, attack by the Castro brothers and their followers on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago. The attack launched the revolution against the dictatorship of then-President Fulgencio Batista. Although the attackers were all either killed or jailed, the movement later regained strength and triumphed on New Year's Day 1959 after Batista fled the country. The site of the central speech varies every year and is chosen from among provincial capitals based on their economic performance. This year, Cienfuegos shares the honor with the central province of Matanzas, where a second Revolution Day speech will be held Aug. 2 on Cuba's northern coast. Cienfuegos, a city of 125,000, is one of Cuba's major industrial centers, boasting one of the world's largest sugar exporting facilities, an oil refinery, a paper mill, a cement plant, a thermal power plant and much of Cuba's shrimp fleet. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D