Castro admits mistakes were made

Revolutionary standard-bearer Fidel Castro admitted Thursday that Cuba's leaders had made mistakes over the years but insisted they had never betrayed their communist ideals. Castro's acknowledgement comes at a time when his brother Raul is directing wrenching reforms of Cuba's state-controlled economy. The changes involve massive layoffs of public sector workers and a controlled opening for small-scale private enterprise.
"We Cuban revolutionaries have committed errors, and we will continue making them. But we will never make the mistake of being traitors," said Castro, 84, in an article published in the state-controlled press.
"We have never chosen illegality, lies, demagoguery, deceit of the people, deception, hypocrisy, opportunism, bribes, the total absence of ethics, abuse of power, including crimes and repugnant torture," he wrote. "Perhaps the biggest error of idealism committed was to think there was a modicum of justice in the world and respect for the rights of the peoples, when certainly it did not exist at all," he wrote.