From Lucia Newman
CNN Havana Bureau Chief

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) --Referring to U.S. President George W. Bush as "Mr.
W.," Cuban President Fidel Castro lashed out at Bush's recent Cuba policy
speeches at an enormous government-sponsored rally.

Speaking in pouring rain in the eastern Holguin province, Castro said, "Don't be
foolish, Mr. W. Respect the intelligence of people capable of thinking. Don't insult
[Cuban independence hero Jose] Marti. Show respect and respect yourself."

The Cuban leader was referring to Bush's May 20 policy speeches, including his
demands for Cuba to become a democracy. "W" is often a nickname for the
president, whose middle name is Walker.

Castro elaborated on Cuba's health and education system and low infant mortality
rate and said: "That is not tyranny, as Mr. W. calls it. It is justice and real equality
among human beings."

Refuting Bush's demands that Cuba be a country that allows for private enterprise
and private property, Castro said the Cuban Revolution has turned the Cuban people
into the true proprietors of their own country.

He said that before the revolution, international companies, such as United Fruit,
were the ones that ruled Cuba, along the local oligarchy.

"Today, not a single cent has landed in the pockets of Castro and his followers. Not
a single high-level Cuban revolutionary leader has a single dollar in a bank account in
or outside of Cuba," Castro said. "No high-level Cuban leader can be bribed.

"None of them are millionaires, as is the president of the United States, whose
monthly salary is nearly double that of all the members of the State Council and the
Council of Ministers of Cuba for a whole year," Castro said.

"None of them can be included in the long list of neo-liberal friends of Mr. W. in
Latin America who are Olympic champions of embezzlement and robbery."

The mass meeting, which brought 400,000 people from the eastern region of the
country, was the first direct reference by Castro to Bush's May 20 speeches.

Bush's remarks have never been published nor broadcast in Cuba, though there have
been references to them in the state-run media.

In Saturday's speech, Castro made no reference to calls by Bush and former U.S.
President Jimmy Carter for greater respect for human rights and release of political
prisoners.

On May 20, Bush denounced Castro as a "tyrant" and "a relic from another era" and
vowed not to ease the nearly 40-year-old U.S. trade and travel ban on Cuba until
political and economic changes come to that island nation.

He also called for "free and fair" elections there in 2003 and for the release of all
political prisoners.

"The dream of a free and independent Cuba has been deferred, but it can never be
destroyed, and it will not be denied," Bush said during a speech in Miami, where he
was enthusiastically applauded by the city's politically vocal Cuban-American
community.

His speech followed a similar address at the White House, where he outlined the
steps Castro must take before the United States would ease its embargo, which
Carter criticized during his historic trip earlier in May.