President Fidel Castro in a message sent to the Cuban...

President Fidel Castro in a message sent to the Cuban condemned Gary Graham's execution in Texas as a racist "crime" and cited the execution as an example of why Elian Gonzalez (a Cuban boat boy who had been retained in the United States by his relatives in Miami) should return to Cuba. He said: "the execution had shown the world the bitter fruits of a social system where the differences between rich and poor are infinite and where individualism, egoism, consumerism, the generalized use of firearms and violence constitute the underlying philosophy".