TEHRAN Wielding an AK-47 rifle at a huge rally to mark 40 years since his proclamation of socialism in Cuba, President Fidel Castro urged Latin American nations to stop the U.S. "shark" destroying them with a free trade pact.

"Latin American nations are on the verge of being devoured by the United States," Castro said of the proposed free trade area of the Americas, which is due to top the agenda this week at a regional summit in Canada.

"In Quebec, the hegemonic superpower will try to dictate the conditions of surrender to the Latin American governments.

... The shark wants to eat the sardines," added Castro, to roars of "Fidel! Fidel!" from the 100,000-strong crowd.

Communist-run Cuba is the only nation in the Americas excluded from negotiations for the Western Hemisphere Pact and the three-day summit of the Americas in Quebec.

Faced with the devastating economic fallout of the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, in the 1990's the Cuban government introduces some limited, market-oriented economic reforms and allowed foreign capital into joint ventures with official Cuban firms.

But more than 70 percent of the national economy is still in state hands.

Castro, who maintains a state-run economy and is perhaps the world's most famous opponent of capitalism, accused the United States of pushing the regional trade pact to impose its economic dominion on weaker nations of the region, Reuter reported.

Washington also wants to "sabotage" the increasingly strong Mercosur trade group of South American nations, Castro alleged.

"The most urgent task for all forces of the left ... is to awake consciences, and denounce imperialist greed and the risk the Latin American and Caribbean peoples face," said Castro, whose 1959 revolution remains an icon for left-wing radicals around the world.

The 74-year-old Cuban leader spoke on the same Havana Street corner where exactly four decades previously he dispelled lingering doubts over his political persuasion by publicly declaring the socialist character of his revolution.

----------- "Defending Dreams" ---------------

That speech -- one of the most famous in Castro's voluminous oratorical history -- came at the April 16, 1959, burial of seven Cubans killed by foreign air strikes on the eve of the failed CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion.

Celebrations of the April 17-19 Bay of Pigs battle are dominating the Caribbean island this week, with another mass rally planned for Thursday on the beach where Castro's troops defeated 1,500 Cuban exile invaders after 72 hours of fighting.

"Before, we were defending our dreams. Now we are defending the materialization of those dreams," Bay of Pigs veteran Angel Rodriguez Alvarez, who was present at Castro's original April 16, 1959, speech, told the crowd in a warm-up speech.

In a carefully choreographed event, speaker after speaker rose to extol the virtues of socialism and condemn U.S. capitalism. Castro's presence was greeted with chants like: "Fidel, for Sure, Hit the Yanquis Hard!" or "Fidel, Our Friend, the People Are With You!"

The "maximum leader" lost the script at several points, however, confusing the order of some pages in his speech, and reappearing after the end to add some points he had left out.

Most of Castro's speech was a description of the achievements of socialism in Cuba, particularly in the fields of free health care and education. "Without socialism, it would not have been possible to have a society without beggars in the street," he said.

Repeating his question of 40 years ago, Castro asked the crowd: "Workers and peasants, humble men and women of our fatherland, do you swear to defend to your last drop of blood this revolution of the poor, by the poor and for the poor?"

"Yes!" cried the crowd, many raising rifles aloft in a collective show of political faith.