Castro’s words, published in a column in state-run media, were the first official Cuban response to measures announced by President Barack Obama on Monday lifting restrictions on Cuban American family travel and remittances to Cuba.

“Not one word was said about the blockade (embargo), which is the most cruel of the (U.S.) measures (against Cuba),” Castro wrote of the Obama announcement.

He described the 47-year-old U.S. embargo against his country as a form of “genocide” that hurt Cuba’s economy and caused death and suffering by denying medical equipment and drugs to the communist-led island.

But, he went on, “Cuba has resisted and will resist. It will never extend its hands to beg.”

“It will go forward with its head high, cooperating with its Latin American and Caribbean brothers,” wrote the 82-year-old Castro.

Monday’s measures removed all limits on travel by Cuban Americans to their homeland and how much money they can send to relatives in Cuba.

They also did away with some restrictions for U.S. telecommunications companies, opening the way for them to offer services to Cuba to promote a “freer flow of information”, U.S. officials said.

The White House announcement came ahead of a Summit of the Americas that starts on Friday in Trinidad and Tobago, where Obama is expected to come under fire from regional leaders over the U.S. Cuba policy, which critics say is obsolete.

White House spokesmen said the new measures were meant to help Cuban families and promote democracy and human rights in Cuba. Opponents of the U.S. embargo said the moves did not go far enough, but they hoped they were just a first step toward dismantling the economic sanctions against Cuba.

Obama has said he wants dialogue and improved relations with Cuba, but that the embargo should be maintained until the Cuban government shows progress on democracy and rights.

Fidel Castro, who ceded power to younger brother and now President Raul Castro last year, said he did not blame Obama for past U.S. policy toward Cuba.

But, he said, “the conditions are created for Obama to use his talent in a constructive policy that puts an end to what has failed for the past half century.”

He pointed out that Raul Castro had expressed his willingness to hold talks with the United States and he said Cuba did not question Obama’s “sincerity and desire to change the policy and image of the United States.”
(Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Anthony Boadle)