Fidel Castro Says North Korea Provided Cuba With Free Weapons in the 1980s

Pens first essay in four months

In his first essay in more than four months, Cuban leader Fidel Castro said that in the 1980s, North Korea provided Havana weapons "without charging a cent."

"Comrade Kim II Sung, a veteran and flawless fighter, sent us 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles and the corresponding (ammunition)," he wrote in a long, wide-ranging article taking up three pages of Communist Party newspaper, Granma.