Fidel Castro warns Venezuela is ready to confront US on sanctions

Cuba’s Fidel Castro warned Tuesday that Venezuela was prepared to confront US “threats and impositions,” and said Washington could no longer count on the Venezuelan military to do its bidding. Venezuela “will never allow a return to the shameful pre-revolutionary past,” Castro said in a letter to Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro published in Cuba’s state-run media. The confrontation with Washington follows the imposition of US sanctions March 9 on seven Venezuelan officials that the United States alleges have been involved in human rights abuses against opponents of the leftist regime in Caracas. The measure signed by US President Barack Obama cites Venezuela as “an extraordinary threat to the national security” of the United States, which Caracas in turn has interpreted as a US threat.