Geneva - President Fidel Castro said yesterday the United States had followed a policy of genocide against Cuba.
"The effort to carry out genocide against our people made us multiply our efforts and our desire to survive," he told the Assembly of the United Nations' World Health Organisation (WHO), referring to the 36-year US embargo on Cuba.
Mr Castro (71), who arrived on Wednesday for a week-long stay in Switzerland, made his remark at the end of a speech in which he also said extreme free-market liberalism was a threat to the planet's poor and its environment.
Next Tuesday, he is to address a special meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - the key to the opening of global markets since 1948.
Mr Clinton is to make an evening visit to Geneva on Monday to address the WTO, of which Cuba was a founder-member. Mr Castro has said he would have nothing against a meeting of the two.
In his speech to the WHO, the Cuban president said his country's health service - which had achieved low levels of infant mortality and high life expectancy despite being one of the poorer states - was an example to the world.