Reflections of Fidel

The Olympics will very soon begin in China. Some days ago I wrote about our baseball team. I said that our athletes were put through a very hard test and that if something went wrong they were not the ones who deserved the harshest criticisms. I recognized their quality and patriotism. They felt depressed after the criticisms that came from Cuba.

Afterwards I learned that they were all in good spirits. They had learned how to eat the spicy Korean food with chopsticks, the way it is done in eastern Asia. On July 26 they sent a vibrant patriotic message. They will no doubt face with honor that difficult test.

But, will they be on an equal footing with regards to the teams of other rich powers, such as the United States and Japan, which will be competing against Cuba? The first has almost thirty times as much inhabitants as Cuba; the second, at least eleven times as much. Neither of them is under any economic blockade and both are extremely wealthy. No one is robbing or plundering them of their athletes.

Japan has ordered its professional athletes to join the Olympic team, and they will have to; so has been the will of their masters. That has nothing to do with the athletes that have been turned into merchandise.

On the eve of the Olympics, the United States, with its mercenary money, bought Alexei Ramirez, who had been the leading home runner of the National Baseball series in our country in 2007. The coach of the team that bought him has boasted that he does not know in what base he should place Ramirez, because he had been well trained in all of them. It is disgusting to read about the details of the commercial arrangements surrounding the case, which have been disseminated by the cables, regarding the distribution of the money.

Formerly, they had bought the most promising pitcher from the province of Pinar del Rio, José Ariel Contreras, thus creating uncertainty and mistrust.

In Edmonton, Canada, just before the beginning of a match with the team of the host country at the 23rd World Youth Baseball Championship, we learned that the southpaw Noel Argüelles, who would for sure be the starting pitcher of the game, and the shortstop José Antonio Iglesias, with a batting average above 500, were missing.

The courageous youth league pitcher from Pinar del Rio, Julio Alfredo Martinez Wong, climbed the mound. He had already pitched for eight innings in a row and had one more out to make; there were men on the bases and he looked exhausted. In the bullpen, Joan Socarras Maya was warming up hard; he was instructed to be ready to take action. Esteban Lombillo, the energetic and able coach of Cuba’s youth team had already been to the box. Julio Alfredo, exploding with dignity, demanded that he be allowed to continue pitching: “I will finish this game!” –he exclaimed. Lombillo, who was also upset about the despicable betrayal, knew what he meant and trusted him. Julio Alfredo put his heart and soul into the game. He pitched for the last out of the eighth inning. In the ninth he retired the batters by three consecutive strikeouts and beat the Canadian team by one run.

The substitute shortstop, Yandy Díaz, played wonderfully and connected for a double that was decisive for Cuba’s victory.

Edmonton has become a dumping ground. The Cuban athletes were badly taken care of. That city has the privilege of hosting that championship every year. We should analyze whether it is worth attending that tournament.

Not even a single representative of the Cuban press had been sent to cover the event. All we know we have learned through unofficially.

The proud Cuban athletes of the Olympic baseball team, who have been wonderfully taken care of by their Korean hosts and will be even better taken care of in China, will have to compete under the unfavorable circumstances that I explained before. Whatever the results, they know that what really matters for us are the honor and the courage with which they struggle.

But the imperialist aggression is not only seen in baseball. Some months ago, part of our male soccer team let itself be drawn into an act of betrayal inside the United States, which limited Cuba’s prospects in that sport in the international arena. A female Olympic judo athlete, almost a sure gold medalist, was bribed. Buying our athletes they deprived us from five sure gold medals in Olympic boxing. It is like a call to slaughter against Cuba to steal brains, muscles and bones.

Why are the rich and powerful afraid of our small and blockaded island? Leinier Domínguez struggles in Switzerland at one of the most important international chess tournaments.

At the Olympics, due to begin on August 8, our athletes in different sports will struggle to win the gold with more dignity than ever, and our people will enjoy their gold medals as they never have. Then the fanatics will remember the traitors.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 31, 2008

He returned from his trip to Europe on Friday. He was away for only four days. Flying west, he arrived at Caracas at 11 at night, at sunrise in Madrid, the point of departure. The call from Venezuela came in early on Saturday. I was told he wanted to speak to me over the phone that day. I replied that I could speak to him at 1:45 in the afternoon.

I had enough time to jot down 25 points, of the sort one can speak of over an international phone line, knowing the enemy is listening in, some of which had been tackled by the Venezuelan president himself before the press.

Chavez was calm, pensive and satisfied with his tour. We shared views on the prices of foodstuffs, oil and raw materials, needed investments, the dollar’s devaluation, inflation, recession, imperialist swindles and plundering, mistakes made by our adversaries, the risk of nuclear war, the system’s insurmountable problems and other issues which require no secrecy. Nevertheless, I use this means of communication only exceptionally.

We exchanged comments and news. He didn’t say one word about the wonderful message he wrote on the occasion of the 26th of July celebrations, in which he analyzed my denunciation entitled “Machiavelli’s Strategy”. I received it that same Saturday at night. Chaves is the embodiment of Bolivar’s ideas. Our one-hour conversation, back in the days of the Liberator, would have spanned months and his 4-day European tour at least 2 years.

Yesterday, I listened to his remarks on the Alo Presidente program. His investment program is impressive. Never before, quite possibly, has more attention been paid to the most deeply felt wishes and pressing needs of people. We’re already seeing some results.

When I turned on the television at night, Chavez was in the midst of a crowd that was cheering on the female softball team playing the final game of the cup against Cuba. The Venezuelan team won, one to zero. And, to top it all, this was a “no hit, no run” match. The eyes of the young and handsome Venezuelan pitcher almost popped out of her head when the magnitude of her feat dawned on her following the last out. In the middle of the exuberant team that was leaping with joy on the infield next to the box, Chavez was hugging and kissing the players. Were we not internationalist in spirit, this would have been reason to be depressed. But, after thinking about it a few seconds, I was happy for him and Venezuela. What a man! How can he keep at it like that after so much effort?

Today is his birthday. Raul and I sent him a painting which shows Che emerging from the earth, as envisaged by a painter from Cuba’s westernmost province. It is a striking piece.

I shall have this reflection reach him early tomorrow.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 28, 2008

On October 19, 1950, more than 400 thousand voluntary Chinese combatants, on orders from Mao Zedong, crossed the Yalu and waylaid the US troops that were advancing towards the Chinese border. The US units, surprised by the vigorous response of the country they had underestimated, were forced to withdraw towards a region near the southern coast, pushed back by the joint action of the Chinese and North Korean forces. Stalin, who was immensely cautious, offered far less support than Mao had anticipated, though the MiG-15 aircrafts piloted by the Soviets, over a limited 42.5-miles front, proved valuable help during the initial stage of the conflict in protecting land forces during their intrepid advance. Pyongyang was again recovered and Seoul re-occupied once more, attempting to fight back the incessant onslaught of the US Air Force, the most powerful which has ever existed.

McArthur was anxious to attack China with nuclear weapons. He called for their use following the shameful defeat they had tasted. President Truman saw no other choice but to dismiss him from his command and appoint General Matthews Ridgeway head of US air, sea and land forces in the theatre of operations. Next to the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece, Canada, Turkey, Ethiopia, South Africa, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Colombia took part in the imperialist adventure. Colombia, then under the unitary government of conservative Laureano Gómez, who was responsible for the mass slaughter of peasants, was the only Latin American country involved. As we said, the Ethiopia of Haile Selassie, where slavery still existed, and a South Africa still under the domination of white racists, also took part in the invasion.

It had been scarcely five years since the world slaughter that began in September 1939 had come to an end, on August 1945. Following bloody combat in Korean territory, Parallel 38 once again became the border separating North and South. It is estimated that, in that war, about two million North Koreans, nearly half a million or one million Chinese and more than a million allied soldiers perished. Around 44 thousand US soldiers lost their lives. No few of them had been born in Puerto Rico or other Latin American countries, recruited to take part in a war they were driven to by their condition as poor immigrants.

Japan was to reap many benefits from the conflict. In a year’s time, industrial output grew by 50 % and, within two years, it again reached pre-war production levels. What didn’t change, however, was how the acts of genocide perpetrated by China’s imperial troops in Korea were perceived. The governments of Japan have paid tribute to the acts of genocide carried out by their soldiers, which, in China, had raped tens of thousands of women and brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of people, as was explained in a reflection.

Hard-working and tenacious, the Japanese have transformed their country, bereft of oil and other important raw materials, into the second most powerful economy in the world.

Japan’s GDP, measured in capitalist terms, though the data varies across different Western sources, is today over 4.5 billion dollars, and the country has over one billion dollars in hard currency reserves. This is twice China’s GDP, of 2.2 billion, even though China has 50% more hard currency reserves than Japan. The GDP of the United States, of 12.4 billion dollars, for a country with 34.6 times more territory and 2.3 times Japan’s population, is only three times that of Japan. Its government is today one of imperialism’s main allies, at a time when it is threatened by economic recession and the sophisticated weapons of the superpower put at risk the entire human species.

These are historical lessons which cannot be forgotten.

The war, however, took a considerable toll on China. Truman instructed the 6th Fleet to prevent the landing of Chinese revolutionary forces that would achieve the complete emancipation of their country by reclaiming the 0.3 percent of their territory that had been occupied by the rest of the pro-Yankee forces of Chiang Kai-shek that had fled there.

Sino-Soviet relations were to deteriorate later, following the death of Stalin, on March 1953. The revolutionary movement splintered nearly everywhere. The dramatic call issued by Ho Chi Minh made evident the damage that had been done and imperialism, through its immense media apparatus, poked the fires of extremism among false revolutionary theoreticians, an area in which US intelligence agencies were to become experts.

Following the arbitrary division, North Korea had been dealt the most rugged part of the country. Each grain of food had to be reaped through sweat and sacrifice. Pyongyang, the capital, had been razed to the ground. Many, who had been wounded or mutilated during the war, were in need of medical attention. They were enduring a blockade and had no resources available. The Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist block were in the process of recovering from the war.

When I arrived at the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on March 7, 1986, nearly 33 years following the destruction caused by the war, it was still difficult to believe what had transpired there. That heroic people had constructed myriad things: large and small dams and canals to store water in, generate electricity, service cities and irrigate fields; Thermoelectric plants, large mechanical and other types of industries, many of them underground in the depths of the bedrock, all created through hard, methodical labor. Because of copper and aluminum shortages, they had been forced to use iron to create electricity-guzzling transmission lines, iron which, in part, was produced from coal.

The capital and other cities that had been devastated were reconstructed, inch by inch. I estimated that millions of new homes had been built in urban and rural areas and that tens of thousands of other kinds of facilities had been set up. Countless hours of work were contained in stone, concrete, steel, wood, synthetic products and machinery. The fields I had the opportunity to see, wherever I went, looked like gardens. Well-dressed, organized and enthusiastic people were everywhere, ready to greet visitors. The country deserved cooperation and peace.

There was no issue I didn’t discuss with my illustrious host Kim Il Sung. I shall never forget this.

Korea was divided into two parts by an imaginary line. The South was to have a different experience. It was the more densely populated part and endured less destruction during the war. The presence of an enormous foreign military force required the supply of local manufactured and other products, from crafts to fresh fruits and vegetables, not to mention services. The military spending of the allies was huge. The same thing occurred when the United States decided to retain extensive military forces in the country indefinitely.

During the Cold War, Western and Japanese transnationals invested considerable sums of money, siphoning out incalculable wealth from the sweat of South Koreans, a people who are as hard-working and industrious as their brothers in the North. The great markets of the world were open to their products. They were not blockaded. Today, the country has high levels of technology and productivity. It has suffered the economic crises of the West, following which many South Korean companies were bought over by transnationals. The austere nature of its people has allowed the State to accumulate significant reserves in hard currency. Today, it is enduring the United States’ economic depression, particularly the high prices of oil and food, and the inflationary pressures from both.

South Korea’s GDP — 787.6 billion dollars — is almost equal to that of Brazil (796 billion) and Mexico (768 billion), countries with abundant hydrocarbon reserves and incomparably larger populations. Imperialism imposed its system upon these nations. Two fell behind; the other made much more progress.

There is hardly any emigration from South Korea to the West. There is emigration en masse from Mexico to what is currently US territory. From Brazil, South and Central America, people emigrate everywhere, in search of employment and lured by consumerist propaganda. Today, they pay them back with rigorous and contemptuous laws.

The position of principles on nuclear weapons supported by Cuba within the Non-Aligned Movement, ratified during the Summit Conference held in Havana in August 2006, is well known.

I met the current leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong Il, when I arrived at the Pyongyang airport. He was standing discretely beside his father, to one side of the red carpet. Cuba maintains excellent relations with his government.

When the Soviet Union and the socialist block collapsed, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea lost important markets and sources of oil, raw materials and equipment. As in Cuba’s case, the consequences were severe. The progress that had been attained through great sacrifices was at risk. In spite of this, they showed themselves capable of constructing a nuclear weapon.

When the nuclear test was conducted around a year ago, we conveyed the government of North Korea our points of view on the damage this could cause poor Third World countries that were waging an unequal and difficult battle against imperialist designs, at a decisive moment for the world. It might not have been necessary. Kim Song Il, at that point, had already decided, beforehand, what he had to do, mindful of the geographic and strategic characteristics of the region.

We are pleased to see North Korea’s declaration on its intentions of suspending its nuclear weapons program. This has nothing to do with the crimes and the blackmail of Bush, who now touts the declaration as proof of the success of his policy of genocide. North Korea’s gesture was not aimed at the government of the United States, before which it never budged an inch, but, rather, at China, a neighboring ally, whose security and development is vital for the two States.

Third World countries are interested in the friendship and cooperation between China and the two Koreas, whose union need not be from coast to coast, as was the case of Germany, today a US ally in NATO. Step by step, unhurriedly but indefatigably, as befits their culture and history, they shall continue to knit the bonds that will unite the two Koreas. With South Korea, we are developing more and more ties. With North Korea, these have always existed and we shall continue to strengthen them.
Fidel Castro Ruz
July 24, 2008

Raul was right to keep dignified silence over the statements published last Monday, July 21st, by Izvestia on the eventual installation of strategic Russian fighter-planes bases in our country. The news came up from a certain hypothesis elaborated in Russia associated with the Yankees obstinacy in setting up radars and launching pads for their nuclear shield close to the borders of that great power.

Yesterday, July 22nd, General Norton Schwartz, recently appointed U.S. new Air Force Chief of Staff, said at the Senate that if Russia did that it would be crossing the red line, something inadmissible to the United States security.

If you say yes I’ll kill you. If you say no I’ll do too; I’ll kill you anyway. It is Machavelli’s strategy applied to Cuba by the empire. No need for explanations, excuses or pardon.

In these times of genocide nerves of steel are much needed, and Cuba has them. The imperialists know it. On Saturday July 26th it will be 55 years since we have been restlessly fighting; there can be no better tribute to those fallen in action, those who perished later without ever abandoning their principles and those who keep on fighting. They are the symbol of a whole generation who put up a fight and it is only fair that our people rejoice in their memory.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 23, 2008

The Korean nation, with its unique culture that differentiates it from its Chinese and Japanese neighbors, has existed for three thousand years. These characteristics are typical of societies in that Asian region, including those of China, Vietnam and others. There is nothing like it in Western cultures, some of which are less than 250 years old.

In the war of 1894, the Japanese had seized from China its control over the Korean dynasty and turned its territory into a Japanese colony. Protestantism was introduced into this country in the year 1892, following an agreement between the United States and the Korean authorities. On the other hand, Catholicism was introduced in the same century by missionaries. It is estimated that today in South Korea, around 25 percent of the population is Christian and a similar percentage is Buddhist. The philosophy of Confucius had a great influence on the spirit of Koreans, who are not characterized by fanatical religious practices.

Two important figures stand out in that nation’s political life in the 20th century: Syngman Rhee, born in March of 1875, and Kim Il Sung, born 37 years later in April of 1912. Both personalities, of different social background, confronted each other due to historical circumstances that had nothing to do with either of them. The Christians opposed the Japanese colonial system. One of them was Syngman Rhee, who was an actively practicing Protestant. Korea changed its status: Japan annexed its territory in 1910. Years later, in 1919, Rhee was appointed president of the provisional government in exile, headquartered in Shanghai, China. He never used weapons against the invaders. The League of Nations in Geneva paid no attention to him.

The Japanese Empire was brutally repressive with the Korean population. The patriots took up arms against the Japanese colonialist policy and succeeded in liberating a small area in the mountain region of the north at the end of the 1890’s.

Kim Il Sung, born in the vicinity of Pyongyang, joined the Korean Communist guerrillas to fight the Japanese at the age of 18. In his active revolutionary life, he attained the position of political and military leader of the anti-Japanese combatants in North Korea, at the young age of 33.

During World War II, the United States decided the fate of Korea in the post-war period. It joined the conflict when it was attacked by one of its own creatures, the Empire of the Rising Sun, whose tight feudal gates were opened by Commodore Perry in the first half of the 19th century, aiming his cannons at the strange Asian country that refused to trade with America.

The outstanding disciple later became a powerful rival, as I have already explained on another occasion. Decades later, Japan successively struck at China and Russia, additionally taking over Korea. Nevertheless it was an astute ally for the victors of World War I, at the expense of China. It amassed forces and, transformed into the Asian version of fascist Nazism, attempted to occupy Chinese territory in 1937 and attacked the United States in December of 1941; it brought the war to Southeast Asia and Oceania.

The colonial domains of Britain, France, Holland and Portugal in the region were doomed and the United States emerged as the most powerful country in the world, matched only by the Soviet Union then destroyed by World War II and by the heavy material and human losses resulting from the Nazi attack. The Chinese Revolution was about to conclude in 1945 when the world massacre ceased. The united anti-Japanese combat was taking up its energy then. Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Gandhi, Sukarno and other leaders later carried on the fight against the restoration of the old world order which was already unsustainable.

Truman dropped the nuclear bomb on two civilian Japanese cities; this was a terribly destructive new weapon whose existence they had not reported to their Soviet ally, as has been explained, one which had been the major contributor to the destruction of fascism. Nothing justified the genocide committed, not even the fact that the tenacious Japanese resistance had taken the lives of almost 15,000 American soldiers on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Japan was already defeated, and that weapon, had it been dropped on a military target, would have sooner or later had the same demoralizing effect on the Japanese military machine without any more casualties among U.S. soldiers. It was an act of indescribable terror.

Soviet soldiers were advancing on Manchuria and North Korea, just as they had promised when fighting ceased in Europe. The allies had defined beforehand the point each army could reach. The dividing line would be in the middle of Korea, equidistant between the Yalu River and the southern end of the peninsula. The U.S. government negotiated with the Japanese the rules that would govern the surrendering of troops on their own territory. Japan would be occupied by the United States. In Korea, annexed to Japan, a large force of the powerful Japanese army would remain. South of the 38th Parallel, the established dividing line, U.S. interests prevailed. Syngman Rhee, reincorporated into that part of the territory by the U.S. government, was the leader the Americans supported, with the open cooperation of the Japanese. That is how he won the hard-fought election of 1948. That year, the soldiers of the Soviet Army had pulled out of North Korea.

On June 25, 1950 war broke out in the country. It is still unclear who fired the first shot, whether it was the combatants in the North or the American soldiers on duty with soldiers recruited by Rhee. The argument does not make any sense if one analyzes it from the Korean angle. Kim Il Sung’s soldiers fought against the Japanese for the liberation of all Korea. His armies advanced irrepressibly to the far reaches to the South where the Yankees were defending themselves with the massive back-up of their fighter planes. Seoul and other cities had been occupied. MacArthur, commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific, decided to order a Marine landing at Incheon, at the rearguard of Northern forces which by then were in no condition to counterattack.

Pyongyang fell into the hands of Yankee forces, preceded by devastating air strikes. That fostered the idea of the U.S. military command in the Pacific to occupy all of Korea, since the Peoples’ Liberation Army of China, lead by Mao Zedong had inflicted a resounding defeat on the pro-Yankee forces of Chiang Kai-shek, supplied and supported by the United States. The entire continental and maritime territory of that great country had been recovered, with the exception of Taipei and other small near-by islands where Kuomintang forces found refuge after being transported there by vessels of the Sixth Fleet.

The history of what happened then is well known today. It should not be forgotten that Boris Yeltsin handed over to Washington the Soviet Union archives, among other things.

What did the United States do when the virtually inevitable conflict broke out under the premises created in Korea? It portrayed the northern part of that country as the aggressor. The Security Council of the recently created United Nations Organization, promoted by the victorious powers of W. W. II, passed a resolution that none of the five members could veto. Precisely in those months, the USSR had expressed its disagreement with the exclusion of China from the Security Council, where the United States was recognizing Chiang Kai-Shek, with less than 0.3 percent of national territory and less than 2 percent of the population, as a member of that Council and with a right to the veto. Such arbitrariness led to the absence of the Russian delegate, with the result that the Council agreed to give the war the character of a UN military action against the alleged aggressor: the Peoples’ Republic of Korea.

China, completely outside the conflict, which was affecting its unfinished fight for the total liberation of the country, saw the threat hovering directly against its own territory, this being unacceptable for its security. According to public information, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai was sent to Moscow to inform Stalin of China’s point of view as to the inadmissibility of the presence of UN forces under U.S. command on the banks of the Yalu River which marks Korea’s border with China, and to request Soviet cooperation. At the time there were no profound contradictions between the two Socialist giants.

It has been affirmed that China’s response was planned for the October 13 and that Mao postponed it to the 19th, awaiting the Soviet reply. That was as long as he could put it off.

I intend to finish this reflection next Friday. It is a complex and laborious subject which requires special care and information that is as precise as possible. These are historical events that should be known and remembered.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 22, 2008

It would seem our country has the most educational problems in the world. All of the cables that reach us report the many and difficult challenges we face: a deficit of over 8,000 teachers, disrespectful and ill-mannered students, lack of training, in short: problems of all sorts.

I don‘t believe, to begin with, that we‘re in such bad shape. Not one developed country shares our schooling indices and the educational opportunities open to all citizens, which we maintain in spite of the unjust blockade and the shameless plundering of arms, muscles and brains Cuba endures.

The United States and other wealthy countries cannot even compare themselves to us. They do have many more automobiles, use more fuel, consume more drugs, buy more cosmetics and benefit from pillaging our countries, as they have done for centuries.

Imperialism seeks to return Cuban women to the condition of merchandise, pleasure objects and servants for the rich. They do not forgive countries for their struggle for liberation. It yearns to return to the time when black Cubans were barred from using recreational facilities. Then, many citizens lacked employment, social security and medical services.

To Martí, freedom was very dear and one had to pay the price for it or resign oneself to a life without it. That is the question all Cubans must ask themselves each day.

How feasible are the aspirations of our enemies? Only we have the answer, within each of us. In terms of education, should we not ask ourselves if our educational system employs a bureaucratic method which teaches science without conscience? I don’t believe we have regressed that much. In any event, each one of us must ask these questions to avoid having our dignity spat on. We should expect no mercy from our enemies.

There are tens of thousands of people who think, speak, act and make decisions. The measures that are adopted every day are in their hands.

Let us keep a watchful eye on our enemies and let us do exactly the opposite of what they want from us to continue being who we are.

This is an appeal to our conscience. The Revolution justifiably demands from us that we work more, that is to say, that we work! We have held our ground for 50 years. The new generations are much better educated to face the challenges; we have the right to demand from them much more. Let us not become discouraged by the news spread by our enemies, which distorts the meaning of our words and paints our self-criticisms as tragedies. The wellspring of our revolutionary ethics is inexhaustible.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 19, 2008

Any autobiographically-tinted writing forces me to clear up any doubts about decisions I made more than half a century ago. I am talking about subtle details, since the essential points are never forgotten. This is true for what I did in 1948, sixty years ago.

I remember it as if it were yesterday when I decided to join the expedition to liberate the Dominican people from the Trujillo dictatorship. Also, each of the most transcendental events of that period remained in my mind; several dozens of episodes, unforgettable for me and which from time to time I have been bringing up. Many of them are around in written form.

When I decided to travel to Colombia with the idea of promoting the creation of the Federation of Latin American Students, I could not say today, with all certainty, that among the aims there was also the concrete idea of impeding the founding of the Organization of American States, OAS, being promoted by the United States; this is a precocious vision which I am not sure I had yet reached.

The exceptional historian and master of detail, Arturo Alape, who interviewed me 33 years after the events, reproduces some of my answers where I affirm that this was part of my intent in my trip to Colombia in 1948.

Germán Sánchez, in his book Transparency of Emanuel, quotes verbatim a paragraph from the Alape interview: “During those days, confronted by the OAS meeting of 1948 which had been instigated by the United States to consolidate its system of control here in Latin America, I came up with the idea that, at the same time as the OAS meeting and in the same location, we would have a meeting of Latin American students backing these anti-imperialist principles and defending the points I had already expressed”.

In an edition of that very interview, published in Cuba by the Abril Publishing House recently, the paragraph appears intact. Some one reminded me that in the book One Hundred Hours with Fidel, I myself had cast some doubt upon whether those had been the purposes guiding my conduct. It is obvious that the expression had not been clear when I used the phrase “confronted by the OAS meeting”.

As a sole recourse to dispel doubt, I have attempted to reconstruct the objectives that moved me at that time and what point my political evolution had reached, someone who, just two and a half years earlier, was finishing his twelfth grade education in schools run by priests. I was a rebellious person whose energies had been channeled into playing sports, exploring, climbing mountains and examining the pertinent school subjects with as much knowledge as time would permit, simply as a matter of honor.

Something I was quite aware of during my school years was the news printed daily about battles, from the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 –I had not yet reached my 10th birthday– until August 1945 – I was about to turn 19 – when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as I related at one point .
From a very young age I suffered the injustices and prejudices of the society in which I was living.

When I left for Colombia, I was quite radicalized, but at 21 years of age I was not yet a Marxist-Leninist. I was active in the fight against the Trujillo dictatorship and others like that, for the independence of Puerto Rico, the return of the Canal to Panama, the restitution of the Malvinas to the Argentine Republic, the end of colonialism in the Caribbean and the independence of islands and territories occupied by Britain, France and Holland in our hemisphere.

In those years, in Venezuela, the homeland of Bolívar, a revolution led by Democratic Action took place. Rómulo Betancourt, inspired by radical leftist ideas, was simulating being a revolutionary leader. He led the country between October 1945 and February 1948. Rómulo Gallegos, the great writer, followed him, having been elected President in the first elections to take place after the military movement of 1945. I met with him that same year when I visited Caracas.

In Panama, students had just been brutally suppressed for demanding the return of the Canal; one of them had been wounded in the spinal column by a bullet and was unable to move his legs.

In Colombia, the university was seething with the popular pro-Gaitán mobilization.
My contacts with students from these three countries had been fruitful: they agreed with the Congress and with the idea of creating the Federation of Latin American Students. In Argentina, the Peronists were also supporting us.

The Colombian university students put me in contact with Gaitán. Thus I had the honor of meeting and talking with him. He was the undeniable leader of the humble sectors of the Liberal Party and of the progressive forces in Colombia. He promised us that he would inaugurate our Congress. For us, this was great encouragement.
In that sister country, a meeting of representatives from the governments of Latin America was taking place. The Secretary of State, General Marshall, was there on behalf of the US President Harry S. Truman who, behind the backs of the Soviets, its ally in World War II who had lost millions of soldiers, had dropped atomic bombs on two great civilian communities in Japan. The main purpose of the United States in the Bogotá meeting was to create the OAS, which ended up producing such bitter results for our peoples.

I ask myself whether I had advanced in my ideological development to such a point as to propose to myself the bold idea of obstructing the creation of that supra-national institution. In any case, I was against the dictatorships that were represented there, the occupation of Puerto Rico and Panama by the United States, but as yet I did not possess a clear idea about the system of imperial domination.
Something that amazed me was reading, in the Colombian press, the news about the massacres that were taking place in the countryside under the conservative government of Ospina Pérez. There would usually be information about dozens of campesinos being murdered during those days. It was a while since something similar had occurred in Cuba.

Things appeared to be so normal that in the theater where they were holding an official gala and where Marshall and the other representatives from the countries meeting in Bogotá were present, I made the mistake of dropping from the top floor some leaflets outlining our program. This resulted in my being arrested, and two hours later I was released. It seemed that it was a perfect democracy there.
To get to know Gaitán and his speeches, such as his Oration for Peace, as well as his eloquent, impressive and well-founded defense of Lieutenant Cortés –which I heard from the outside because there was no room inside– was something unexpected. As for me, I had just barely finished two years at the Faculty of Law.

Our second meeting with Gaitán and other university representatives was set for April 9 at 2:00 in the afternoon. I waited for the time of the meeting with a Cuban friend who accompanied me, walking up and down the avenue close to the little hotel where we were staying and to Gaitán’s office, when some fanatic or crazy man, no doubt instigated, shot the Colombian leader; the assailant was torn to shreds by the people.

At that moment, the unimaginable experience I lived through in Colombia began. I was a voluntary combatant with that brave people. I supported Gaitán and his progressive movement, just as Colombian citizens supported our mambises (patriotic fighters) in our struggle for independence.

When Arturo Alape traveled to Cuba years after the triumph of the Revolution, in 1981, Gabriel García Márquez arranged a meeting with me; it began at dawn, at Antonio Núñez Jiménez’ home. Alape came with a tape recorder and interrogated me for hours about the events in Bogotá in the month of April in 1948. Núñez Jiménez was recording on another one.

I had a lot of fresh memories of the events I could not forget; for his part, the historian knew everything that had happened on the Colombian side, many details which I naturally didn’t know about and this helped me to understand the meaning of each of the episodes I lived through. Without him, maybe I would never have known about them. However, he was still missing one task: to transcribe everything on tape with his people; the other recording was transcribed in the Palacio de la Revolución. I recall checking one of them. For this work, dialogues are more difficult than speeches, because often the voices overlap. I found mutilated words and changed phrases. I took the time to check and correct them. There were more than four hours of interview. Not many can imagine the kind of work involved in this.

I think that the mixture of historical events before and after the triumph of the Revolution resulted in a probable state of confusion in my mind. That’s what I am thinking and, in the case of any doubt, the most honorable thing is to explain it.

If in three years my political ideas had radicalized before my visit to Colombia, in the short period between April 9, 1948 and July 26, 1953 when we attacked the Moncada Garrison-now almost exactly 55 years ago- the passage was enormous. I had been ideologically transformed into a true leftist radical, which inspired the perseverance, the tenacity and also the astuteness with which I dedicated myself to revolutionary action.

Subsequently, the struggle in the Sierra Maestra followed, lasting 25 months, and the first victorious combat with only 18 weapons, after our small troop of 82 men was almost wiped out on December 5, 1956.

In the files of the International Red Cross there are records of hundreds of prisoners we returned after the last enemy offensive, in the summer of 1958. In December of that year, there wasn’t enough time to call in the International Red Cross in order to hand over prisoners. Promising not to fight, the soldiers in the surrendering units handed over their weapons and remained mobilized and unarmed, while the officers kept their rank and small fire-arms, awaiting the end of the war.

Now that all of that is in the distant past, nobody can imagine the value of a work such as that of Arturo Alape; he wrote an excellent book about the phase of revolutionary struggle in Colombia. It is my intention to write about this in a number of reflections, from a theoretical angle and with the greatest respect, in light of current circumstances in our hemisphere and the world.

From all of this, true revolutionaries can draw a permanent lesson: sincerity and the value of being humble.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 17, 2008
8:21 p.m.

The fanatics were upset due to the hard setback on Sunday. But the word says it all: fa-nat-ics!

They forget that our team is now in South Korea, a country where we do not even have an embassy. There, our athletes continue to train.

Anyway, they are not the ones who deserve the strongest criticisms. They will be taking part in the Olympic Games that will be held on the other side of the world, where sleeping hours and life pace are different. They have an intense program of physical training with a view to the last presentation of this sport at the Olympics, as determined by the rich and powerful masters of such games. They have not been defeated. Let’s not discourage them. Let’s send them a message of encouragement.

Why don’t we wait until the conclusion of the Olympiads to engage in a full and truly democratic discussion on the responsibility of everyone involved in Cuban sports?

We dazzle our people with descriptions of sport successes and promises but then we don’t even dare publish the names of those who betray their homeland and sell off to the enemy. Our bureaucratic style in the education of our sportspeople seems to run high on science and low on conscience, even though sports are socially vital and our objective should not be glory or gold medals but our people’s physical and mental health. How it hurts when some of them sustain injuries related to sport drills or accidents, as in the case of Pedro Pablo Perez! The painful accident that keeps him on the verge of death is also impacting on a great Olympic promise, his companion Yoanka Gonzalez.

Let’s not forget Ana Fidelia’s exploits.

Despite adverse circumstances, our athletes shine for their human and patriotic virtues. Not even one out of ten moraly yields to the torrent of offers they receive from a world full of greediness, vices, drugs, doping and consumerism, one where our homeland shines as an example hard to imitate.

We should never allow the traitors to come visit the country showing off the luxury obtained through infamy. Let’s blame ourselves for that.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 16, 2008