Cuba cricket match turns into US denunciation

HAVANA, Nov 5 (Reuters) Like many events in communist Cuba, a cricket match for children on Saturday turned into a denunciation of the United States, but this time from London's leftist Mayor Ken Livingstone, not Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

While young Cubans played a game that is a novelty in their baseball-mad homeland, Livingstone praised the ailing Castro and blasted US policy toward the small nation 90 miles (145 km) off its shores.

''What's amazing here is you've got a country that's suffered an illegal economic blockade by the United States for almost half a century and yet it's been able to give its people the best standard of health care, brilliant education,'' Livingstone told reporters yesterday on a visit to a Havana baseball field converted for cricket.

''And to do this in the teeth of an almost economic war I think is a tribute to Fidel Castro and his government,'' he said.

The United States, which has maintained a trade embargo against Cuba since 1962, has pushed for free elections in the country Castro has led since a 1959 revolution.

But Livingstone criticised the 2000 US election that gave George W Bush the presidency on a legal decision, despite getting fewer votes than Democrat Al Gore.

''Given the problems there where you had a judicial coup d'etat imposing a candidate whom the American people rejected, who then launched an evil war (in Iraq), I have to say I'm not sure the Americans should cast the first stone on these things,'' said the man popularly known as ''Red Ken'' for his leftist politics.

Livingstone, on his way to see Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, gave little notice of his Cuba visit, which angered critics back home who questioned his motivations.

Livingstone said he met with local officials, but not Castro, who had surgery in July and has temporarily put his brother Raul in power.

''Clearly the man is recovering from major surgery and he's not going to start popping around for photo opportunities,'' Livingstone said.

After his comments, Livingstone watched Cuban boys play cricket as part of an initiative by the British, Indians and other cricket-playing nations to develop the sport in Cuba.

The cricket players were less interested in politics than playing a game that before the 1959 revolution was popular among West Indian immigrants working in Cuba's sugar industry, but faded as Castro's government steered people toward state-organised sports.

''It's a really nice game,'' said 12-year-old Yondri Hernandez Diaz. ''It's easier than baseball.'' REUTERS PB RAI0919