By Jeff Franks
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Raul Castro rejected U.S. and European pressure over political prisoners on Sunday and said Guillermo Farinas, on a hunger strike for 40 days, and his supporters would be responsible if the prominent Cuban dissident dies.
Castro's comments -- his most extensive yet on recent dissident activities on the island -- signalled that Cuban authorities will not budge politically to prevent the death of Farinas, who they view as an instrument of U.S. and European efforts to topple Cuba's communist system.
"Everything possible is being done to save his life, but if he does not change his self-destructive attitude, he will be responsible, together with his backers, for the outcome we don't want," Castro said in a speech to a Union of Communist Youth convention.
"More than a half century of permanent combat has taught our people that vacillation is synonymous with defeat," he said.
"We will never give in to blackmail, by any country or any group of countries no matter how powerful they are, no matter what happens," Castro added.
Farinas, 48, began his hunger strike seeking the release of ailing political prisoners a day after the February 23 death of dissident prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who refused to eat for 85 days to protest prison conditions.
Zapata's death was followed by a week of protest marches in Havana by the dissident "Ladies in White," wives and mothers of government opponents jailed in a 2003 crackdown, who were repeatedly shouted down by government supporters.
The recent events have worsened relations with the United States and the European Union, both of which condemned Cuba and called for the release of its estimated 200 political prisoners.
Farinas, who has conducted 22 previous hunger strikes, has been in a hospital in the central city of Santa Clara receiving fluids intravenously since he collapsed on March 11.
READY TO DIE
The government has asked him to drop his hunger strike because of his frail health, but he has said he is ready to die for his cause.
Spain, at the request of both the Cuban government and Cuban dissidents, has offered to take Farinas to Spain, but he has refused.
Farinas spokeswoman Licete Zamora told Reuters that Cuba's leaders would be to blame if Farinas dies.
"The Cuban government doesn't care about the life of Farinas," she said in a telephone interview from Santa Clara. "If they don't give him a satisfactory response, the world can't be accused, they have to be accused."
Castro previously said he regretted Zapata's death, but blamed it on the United States and its long campaign to undermine the communist government installed by former leader Fidel Castro after he took power in a 1959 revolution.
President Castro accused the United States and Europe of orchestrating the dissident acts in collusion with international media.
"This convention had coincided with a huge campaign to discredit Cuba, organised, directed and financed from the centres of imperial power in the United States and Europe, hypocritically hoisting the flag of human rights," he told the young communists attending the meeting.
Castro, 78, said that through much of its history Cuba had fended off large international powers, citing the failure of the U.S.-backed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion among other examples.
(Editing by Will Dunham)
