PUBLIC OPINION CAMPAIGN

(Excerpts) Caracas--Replying to a journalist who asked him how he thought

it was possible to end the dictatorial regimes of presidents Trujillo,

Somoza, and Stroessner, Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro said at the

press conference at the Cuban embassy in Caracas that in his opinion it

would be enough to have an understanding among the free Latin American

nations and to organize a public opinion campaign.



"It is with this idea in mind," Fidel Castro added, "that I am putting

before the Venezuelan Congress the idea of a democratic bloc of the Latin

American nations."



Questioned about the new Cuban Government's intentions regarding relations

with the United States, Fidel Castro declared that for the time being he

did not see anything that might change the excellent relations between Cuba

and the United States.



About the executions of war criminals which were labeled "summary" in some

countries, the Cuban leader said that all those who thus far had been shot

had first been tried by normally constituted tribunals, and that if in

several instances the executions may have seemed hasty it was because the

guilt of the defendants had been abundantly proved by those who had been

tortured or by relatives of those who had been assassinated.



Finally, asked why he had sent a cable to Cuba banning the televising of

the war crimes trials, the Cuban revolutionary leader said that he had made

this decision to prevent the later showing of these debates for purposes of

propaganda against the Cuban revolution.

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