Cuba's revolutionary leader and ex-president Fidel Castro gave support today to a Venezuelan offer to mediate the crisis in Libya, calling it a "valiant effort" on the part of President Hugo Chavez.

The Venezuelan proposal has been flatly rejected by rebels who have taken the eastern half of Libya and are pressing in on Tripoli, where Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has vowed a fight to the death.

Castro praised Chavez for "making a valiant effort to find a solution without a NATO intervention in Libya."

"Its possibilities of success would increase if a vast public movement could be created before and not after an intervention, so that the atrocious experience in Iraq is not repeated in other countries," he said.

Castro's remarks were made in an article published by the local press.

Members of ALBA, a grouping of leftist Latin American countries led by Venezuela and Cuba, planned to examine Chavez's proposal today in Caracas.

Besides the Libyan rebels, the proposal has been rejected by France and the United States, while the Arab League said it was studying the Chavez offer.

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