Havana: Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has mocked the idea that US President Barack Obama could wear a "guayabera" shirt at an upcoming Americas summit in Colombia, while opposing Cuba`s presence at the event.
News reports have said a noted Colombian designer is making a series of guayaberas for Obama to wear at the summit of the Americas in Cartagena, April 14-15.

Castro, whose brother Raul formally succeeded him as president in 2008, offered a history lesson on the origins of the light, tropical shirt, asserting that it was created in an area of Cuba that is watered by the Yayabo River.

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"That`s why they were originally called yayaberas," he wrote in an article published in the Cuban press. Other accounts say the shirt`s name may have come from the guayabas, or guavas, that could be carried in the large pockets that are sewn into the shirt`s pleated front.

"What`s curious, dear readers, is that Cuba is forbidden from attending this meeting, but not the guayaberas. Who can stop laughing?" Castro said.

The United States and Canada have opposed Cuba`s participation in the meeting, which brings together 34 heads of state and government to discuss regional cooperation and a reduction of physical barriers to integration. Other Latin American countries had pressed for Cuba`s inclusion in the summit, but Washington has been reluctant to end a five decade old policy of isolating the only one-party communist state in the Americas.
Castro, while president, delegated his duties to Raul in 2006 in what was said to be a temporary transfer of powers but the move became permanent two years later.
PTI