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Castro: No plot against me at Caribbean oil summit
Cuban President Fidel Castro said his visit to Venezuela for a Caribbean oil summit Wednesday was possibly the first overseas trip he has taken in which foes have not mounted a plot to assassinate him. Castro told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other Caribbean leaders that his last-minute decision to attend the meeting in Venezuela appeared to have thrown of any who may have been plotting against him. "This is possibly the first visit made in which there was no plan to attack me, simply because I wasn't going to make the trip," said Castro, citing assassination plots thwarted during past summits.
The Cuban government claims there have been countless assassination plots against Castro and his closest advisers. "I have had to make things up all may life in order to survive, which is a miracle," Castro to a rousing applause from many of those present at the meeting. "You are a miracle, Fidel," said Chavez, a loyal admirer of the 78-year-old Cuban leader. "Fidel has said that this is the only summit in which they didn't have time to prepare an assassination attempt, and I believe him." Security was tight near the resort where the talks were being held in the coastal city of Puerto La Cruz, with troops blocking roads and stopping cars for checks. Castro, Chavez and top officials from 14 other Caribbean countries met for talks Wednesday on a Venezuelan plan to sell fuel more cheaply to the region as world oil prices remained near record highs. Most of the delegations were expected to sign an accord to set up a cooperative program for Venezuela to distribute fuel across the region on preferential terms. "Today I propose to the Caribbean that we form an energy alliance," Chavez told the visiting leaders, saying the oil plan would be a new force for integration. The initiative, called Petrocaribe, would extend and improve special financing arrangements under past oil deals and use an expanded fleet of Venezuelan tankers to deliver fuel directly to bypass costly intermediaries, Chavez said. Castro, who arrived in Venezuela on Tuesday, said Cuban authorities detected two assassination plots when he visited Venezuela's Margarita Island for a summit hosted by his close friend and ally Chavez in December 2001. Castro accused the United States of backing many of assassination plots against him.
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