PORLAMAR, Venezuela -- Facing severe reproach by several of his Latin American counterparts, Cuban President Fidel Castro on Saturday declared his nation's 38-year-old Marxist political system immutable and ``neither to be sold nor betrayed.''

Castro faced harsh criticism from the Argentine and Nicaraguan leaders, but bantered easily with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, an ideological adversary.

By the early evening, the Seventh Ibero-American Summit appeared to be wrapping up, except for formalities, as four of the 22 heads of state or government headed home a day early. Leaders of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Peru left or were preparing to leave.

Castro, wearing a dark suit rather than his customary olive green uniform, told his counterparts that Cuba would not budge from its Marxist doctrine.

``I find it necessary to recall that in Cuba there was, there is, and there will be a revolution whose principles are neither to be sold nor betrayed,'' Castro asserted, adding, ``We have fought harder than anyone for real democracy and a government of the people, by the people and for the people -- and not of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.''

The day began with Spanish King Juan Carlos easing tensions between Aznar, a conservative, and Castro, a lifelong revolutionary. For more than a year, Spain has had no ambassador in its former colony.

At an outdoor photo session near a palm-fringed beach, the king urged Castro and Aznar to stand side by side.

``Come over here so I can take a closer look at your beard,'' Aznar said to Castro, whose beard has grown gray and thin.

Verbal attacks

Once the leaders of Latin America, Spain and Portugal assembled indoors, though, the atmosphere grew chillier.

Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman, a burly coffee grower with close ties to Cuban exiles in South Florida, attacked Castro without ever naming him or Cuba directly.

``Will we continue passively observing how, in a few parts of the world, and right here in the Ibero-American community of nations, rights and elemental freedoms of humans continue to be violated?'' Aleman asked.

``What kind of democracy and ethical values can we be talking of?''

In a speech that prompted Castro to drop his head into his hands, Argentine President Carlos Menem declared: ``I don't want prisoners of conscience in any part of the world, especially in Ibero-America.''

Referring to Cuba's repressive state security apparatus, Menem asserted the right of individuals ``to live in their own homelands without being watched.''

In oblique references to Cuba, several presidents noted that the annual Ibero-American summit declarations call for respect of political pluralism, regular elections and respect for human and civil rights.

Castro remained unmoved.

Castro responds

``The argument that Cuba did not comply with the summit accords is a cynical theory elaborated by the proconsuls of the United States,'' he said.

``We will continue defending the ideas for which we have fought all our lives, side by side with the poor, . . . the hundreds of millions of abandoned children who are forced to work or prostitute themselves to live, the hungry, the oppressed and those exploited across the lands, who are the great majority of humanity,'' Castro said.

He declared that Cuba's enemies don't want it to host the 1999 Ibero-American summit but that ``very few governments played into their hands.''

In the final hours, several presidents again backed Venezuelan President Rafael Caldera's urging that journalists use ``truthful information'' in press reports.

On Friday, after weeks of criticism that such language was an end run to limit press freedoms, foreign ministers backpedaled on the suggestion, calling instead for a ``free and truthful information, with neither censorship nor restrictions.''

But on Saturday Caldera made an impassioned plea for the news media to do more in support of democracy. He received an ovation.

``The power of editors is growing stronger, and unfortunately many times it is the owners of the newspapers, and not professional journalists, who establish censorship, who decide what should and shouldn't be said, and what must be told,'' he said.

Caldera said public figures often have to buy advertisements to see their rebuttals printed because newspapers won't publish them.

Joining in the criticism, Guatemalan President Alvaro Arzu declared that while other sectors of society face scrutiny journalists ``want to build a fire wall around the news media to exempt them from being evaluated and analyzed.''

Final statement

A final summit statement signed Saturday evening urged all Ibero-American nations to join an agreement against corruption and help in clearing land mines. It also contained a veiled condemnation of the possible U.S. deportation of tens of thousands of Central Americans.

The declaration also blasted the U.S. Helms-Burton law tightening the economic embargo on Cuba as ``contrary to the spirit of cooperation and friendship that should characterize relations between members of the international community.''

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald