MONTERREY (Mexico), March 22: The current world economic order fosters plunder and genocide and should be overhauled, Cuban President Fidel Castro declared here on Thursday in a hard-hitting address to a UN summit.

“The world economy is today a huge casino,” the 75-year-old Marxist revolutionary said in remarks that stood in sharp contrast to the listless rhetoric served up by most other speakers.

“For every dollar that goes into trade, over one hundred end up in speculative operations completely disconnected from the real economy,” he said.

“The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plunder and exploitation like no other in history,” Castro told the gathering, addressing the sober-suited assembly in his olive-green military garb.

“A true genocide” was how he described circumstances that allow people in the developed world to enjoy a life span 30 years higher than those in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Cuban president later said he was leaving Monterrey and returning to Cuba, citing “a special situation created by my participation in this summit,” which he did not explain.

A US source said he was unaware of any link between Castro’s departure and the arrival here of the US president.

Castro argued that “people believe less and less in statements and promises,” adding that the economic structures — the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund — that were established following World War II “should be reconsidered.”—AFP