Reflections of Fidel

This is a serious subject.

The summit meeting of leaders of the eight most highly industrialized powers on the planet took place July 7-9 at a mountain retreat on the banks of the Toyako, a lake formed inside a volcanic crater located in the north of the island of Hokkaido, in the northern reaches of the Japanese archipelago. It would be hard to choose a site more removed and distant from the madding crowd than this.

At approximately 98 miles from there, 21,000 Japanese police agents, equipped with impressive shields and helmets, were guarding the urban center of Sapporo, ready to neutralize any protests. Yet, another 20,000 were patrolling the streets of Tokyo itself, the capital of Japan.

In alphabetical order, the G-8 members are: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The leaders of these nations live beset by problems which include those inherited from the past and the growing tendency of the United States towards political, economic, technological and military hegemony. All of them are becoming weighed down by a bevy of pressing national and international problems, all requiring urgent solutions.

They invited the so-called G-5 to their meeting in Toyako: Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, to listen to them over breakfast.

Also invited to exchange ideas for an hour were another three countries with emerging economies: Australia, South Korea and Indonesia.

The world’s population, according to estimates, reached 6,709 million inhabitants on July 11, 2008 and over 65% of this number lives in the above-mentioned developing nations.

During the three days, there were all kinds of multilateral and bilateral meetings. The developing countries who had been invited to the meeting held parallel meetings in Hokkaido where they spoke frankly and with no reservations.

In the Summit’s final declaration, the industrialized powers of the G-8 proclaimed that a great concession had been obtained: the United States, and with it all the rest of the group’s powers, had pledged to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions being called for by the year 2050; in 42 years! In other words: when hell freezes over. None of the other critical problems that had given rise to such an odd summit had been resolved.

“…they failed to reach an agreement with emerging countries about how to respond to climate change.”

“The 16 largest economies pledged to carry out massive cut-backs in greenhouse-gas emissions even though emerging countries reiterated their demands for funds and technology from the most powerful countries.”

“President Hu Jintao denied accusations that the food crisis was due to the economic growth of some of the developing countries.”

“Lula suggested that FAO attributed the global rise in food prices to speculative maneuvers with raw materials.”

“The World Fund for Nature described the behavior of the wealthy G-8 nations as pathetic; it accused them of dodging their responsibilities in the fight on climate change.”

“Agricultural subsidies were today the main point of friction during the G-8 and G-5 meeting.”

“European Central Bank officials stated that they continued to be concerned about inflation in spite of the rise in interest rates.”

“‘It is a complete failure, they have not advanced and they have avoided adopting clear objectives for reductions of medium-range greenhouse-gas emissions,’ indicated Greenpeace, an important international organization committed to the defense of the environment.“

“‘Russia is extremely annoyed over Washington and Prague signing an agreement on Tuesday for a space shield,’ said President Medvedev in Japan.”

“Russian military experts reacted with indignation to the signing of an agreement between the United States and Prague for the installation of an anti-missile shield and they demanded tough reprisal measures.”

On July 10, complaints about the consequences of the current chaos continued to reach Cuba, whether directly or indirectly tied in with the Summit in Japan.

“Coral is also suffering stress due to factors such as climate change and pollution; these have resulted in one-third of these reef constructors to be in danger of extinction. Coral reefs, whose construction requires millions of years, are the habitat for more than 25% of all marine species.”

That same day, unrelated to the other news, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released the following news item: “Temperature variations due to climate change will have a strong impact on fishing and aquaculture, with important consequences for the food security of some populations. It was explained that aquatic foods have a higher nutritional value and contribute to 20 percent or more of the average per capita consumption of animal protein for 2,800 million people, fundamentally in developing countries.”

On that day, severe criticisms also emanated from the African continent:

“The European immigration pact is beginning to arouse indignation in Africa; Senegal asserted that a response is due, in the face of what some describe as a ‘wall’ being built by Europe to keep off the desperate peoples of the South”, declared the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of that nation at the close of a reunion of experts in Dakar.

And Le Pays newspaper from Burkina Fasso, published:

“In order to hold back the horde of desperate people who generally arrive from the South to besiege its borders, Europe has found nothing better than to raise a wall.”

“The building of new walls is an anachronism in this era of globalization…”

The rush of complaints goes on. While Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain was still in Japan, a study made by the BBC network informed of low morale in the British Armed Forces.

“According to a study conducted by the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom, almost one-half of this country’s military personnel are ready to leave the Armed Forces.”

“Forty seven percent of those surveyed in the Royal Army and Royal Navy and 44% of those in the Royal Air Force said that they felt like retiring from the Armed Forces.”

“Among some of the concerns expressed…are the frequent deployments abroad, the pay and the living conditions.”

“The regular army already suffers from a deficit of some five thousand soldiers while there is the concern that experienced young officers and non-commissioned officers are deserting in unprecedented numbers.”

“As for the morale in the different branches, 59 percent of those interviewed in the Army said that the level was ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’: 64 percent of the Royal Navy, 38 percent of the Royal Marines and 72 percent of the Royal Air Force.”

Something which offends personal sensitivity, in any social system, is the lack of respect for privacy. In the past, for example, there were laws protecting correspondence. Later this protection was extended to telephone communications, a more rapid and instantaneous form of communication. The United States law banned telephone surveillance without legal warrants. Violation of this would result in lawsuits which, in that country, totaled substantial amounts of money.

Last July 9, while Bush was meeting with his G-8 colleagues and the United States government –despite its genocides– wanted to be considered a champion of human rights, the United States Senate passed, 68 in favor to 28 against, “a law that modernizes the U.S. Spy Bill and grants immunity to tele-communications companies collaborating with the government…”

The fight against terror is the ubiquitous excuse, and phone surveillance had been going on for years without any sort of permission.

“Now it is easier to protect U.S. citizens”, declared Bush, speaking from the White House Rose Garden.

“The initiative authorizes eavesdropping without a warrant within United States telephone networks, whether of U.S. citizens or foreigners.”

The previous 1978 law “did not include new communications technology such as cell phones, the Internet and e-mail.”

Since the vast majority of communications are picked up by the U.S., “the measure approved protects communications companies from multi-million-dollar lawsuits by persons alleging violation of the right to privacy.”

The law is being applied retroactively. “The American Civil Liberties Union described the law as ‘unconstitutional’ and as ‘an attack on civil liberties and the right to privacy’.”

News coming from Sweden reported:

“The center-right alliance of Prime Minister Frederick Reinfeldt has rejected the proposal by the Social Democratic Party to review the law allowing the Defense Radio Department (FRA) to access all telephone conversations and the flow of information by cable both from and to the country.”

“What is being called the FRA Law, also baptized the Orwell Law after the novel 1984 by that British author, has been strongly criticized by big business in an open letter published in the Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s main newspaper.”

“The government justified passage of the law, approved last June 19, to improve the fight on terrorist threats.”

Another Swedish paper, the Svenska Dagbladet, yesterday reported that

“one of the main reasons for the law is, of course, the control of information coming from Russia and to use it in the negotiations of exchanges with other countries, since already about 80 percent of Russian foreign communication flow by cable goes through Sweden.”

“The regulation will enter into effect on January 1, 2009. Thousands of people demonstrated a few days ago in Stockholm and Malmö against the FRA Law and there are already plans for similar mobilizations throughout the country in the next few weeks, according to several ‘blogs’ and Facebook social network groups.”

Complaints are pouring in everywhere. For example, a cable states:

“The Germans are more pessimistic about their economic outlook than at any other time since reunification in 1990, due to the rise in prices, according to a poll.”

Others report:

• “Unemployment rate in Canada rose 6.2 percent in June.”
• “Russian government rejects the proposal presented by Condoleezza Rice for international mediation to resolve the conflicts in the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, resulting in growing tension between Moscow and Georgia.”
• “Two NATO soldiers died and another was wounded on Thursday in a bombing attack in eastern Afghanistan, announced the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).”
• “Russia states that Iranian testing of a new long-range missile confirms that Moscow is right to describe the emplacement of the U.S. anti-missile shield in Europe as unnecessary.”
• “The Israeli Army offers assurances that accusations of alleged Israeli fighter jets training in Iraq for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities are unsubstantiated.”
• “Britain expressed disappointment in the veto imposed by Russia and China in the UN Security Council to the Draft Resolution intended to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe.”
• “Sudan today summoned the ambassadors of the five Permanent Member countries of the UN Security Council to demand an explanation about a possible warrant for the arrest of President Al Bachir.”
• “A new ‘special bomb’ is the main threat for American soldiers in Iraq, according to U.S. General Jeffery Hammons.”
• “The bodies of two American soldiers who disappeared in Iraq more than a year ago have been found.”

These are all dated July 11. In these lines one could add dozens of similar news items printed on the same day. On Saturdays, reports decline; Sundays, there is hardly any news, journalists are resting. Today is Monday.

In our world of today, every day there are new and ever-more thorny problems arising which exhaust the abilities of heads of state and governments who are called upon to deal with them.

This is not a criticism: it is an observation. It cannot be expected of human beings to have supernatural abilities.

Optimism will always be the best option. There is no other alternative. That’s the reason why I once spoke about a species in danger of becoming extinct.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 14, 2008

Yesterday, Tuesday, I had a large pile of cables with news on the meeting of the most industrialized powers in Japan. I will leave the material for another day, if it doesn’t go cold. I decided to rest. I preferred to meet with Gabo (Gabriel García Márquez) and his wife, Mercedes Barcha, who are visiting Cuba until the 11th. How much I longed to talk with them, to recall almost 50 years of sincere friendship!

Our news agency, proposed by Che, had just been born and, among others, it contracted the services of a humble journalist of Colombian origin called Gabriel García Márquez. Neither Prensa Latina nor Gabo could have imagined that there would be a Nobel Prize winner in the middle; or maybe he did, with the “colossal” imagination of the son of a telegraphist in the post office of a small Colombian town, lost among the banana plantations of a Yankee enterprise. He shared his fate with loads of brothers and sisters, as was the custom, but despite that, his father, a Colombian who enjoyed the privilege of being employed thanks to the telegraph, was able to send him to school.

My experience was the inverse. The post office with its telegraph and the little public school in Birán were the only installations in that hamlet that were not the property of my father; all the other goods and services of economic value belonged to Don Angel, and, because of that, I was able to study. I never had the privilege of knowing Aracataca, the little town where Gabo was born, although he did Birán, from celebrating my 70th birthday with me there, at my invitation.

It was a similar stroke of fate that when a Latin American Students Congress was organized in Colombia on our initiative, the capital of that country was the venue of the meeting of Latin America states to create the OAS, following the guidelines of the United States, in 1948.

I had the honor of being introduced to Gaitán by Colombian university students. He supported us and gave us pamphlets of what was known as the Peace Oration, a speech given on the occasion of the March of Silence, the packed and impressive demonstration that wound its way through Bogotá to protest the rural massacres executed by the Colombian oligarchy. Gabo was on that march.

Germán Sánchez, our current ambassador to Venezuela, transcribes in his book Transparencia de Emmanuel textual paragraphs of what Gabo narrated about that episode.

Up to here, it was a matter of chance.

Our friendship was the fruit of a relationship cultivated for many years in which our conversations, always agreeable for me, amounted to hundreds. Talking with García Marquez and Mercedes every time they came to Cuba — and it used to be more than once a year —became an antidote to the heavy tensions under which a Cuban revolutionary leader lived, unconsciously but constantly,.

In Colombia itself, for the 4th Ibero-American Summit, the hosts organized a horse-drawn carriage excursion through the walled city of Cartagena, a kind of Old Havana, a protected historic relic. The Cuban State Security comrades had told me that it was not a good idea to take part in the programmed excursion. I thought that their concern was excessive, because given that there was too much compartmentalization, the people that informed me did not have concrete information. I always respected their professionalism and cooperated with them.

I called Gabo, who was nearby, and said to him jokingly, “Get in this car with us so they don’t shoot us!” and he did so. I added in the same tone to Mercedes, who stayed at the departure point, “You’re going to be the youngest widow. Don’t forget it!” The carriage left with the horse limping because of the heavy load. Its hooves slipped on the sidewalk.

Later I found out what happened there. Just like when I was in Santiago de Chile, where there was a television camera containing an automatic weapon that was pointed at me during a press interview, but the mercenary operating it didn’t dare shoot; they were in Cartagena with telescopic rifles and automatic weapons, concealed at one point of the walled city, but once again those who should have pulled the trigger lost their nerve. The pretext was that Gabo’s head got in the way, obstructing their view.

Yesterday, during our conversation, I remembered and asked him and Mercedes — the Olympic champion of information — about innumerable issues inside and outside of Cuba where we were present. The New Latin American Cinema Foundation, created by Cuba and headed by García Márquez and located in the old Santa Bárbara estate — historic for the positive and negative aspects of its antecedents in the first third of the last century — and the School of New Latin American Cinema, directed by the Foundation, located on the outskirts of San Antonio de los Baños, occupied a space in our meeting.

Birri, with his long black beard, now as white as snow, and many other Cuban and foreign figures, were part of that relation.

In my eyes, Gabo earned respect and admiration on account of his capacity for meticulously organizing the school without overlooking one single detail. Out of prejudice, I had imagined him as an intellectual full of marvelous fantasy; I didn’t know how much realism there was in his mind.

Dozens of events inside and outside of Cuba, at which we were both present, were mentioned. How many things take place over the years!

Two hours for conversing were not enough, as one can imagine. The meeting had begun at 11:35 a.m. I invited them to lunch, something that I have not done with any visitor at all in these close to two years. I grasped that I was really on vacation and told them so. I improvised. I was able to sort things out. They had their own lunch and, for my part, I kept to my diet in a disciplined way, without straying from it in the least, not to add years to my life, but productivity to my hours.

They had barely arrived when they gave me a little, pleasant gift wrapped in attractive and brightly-colored paper. It contained tiny volumes that were a little bigger but less elongated than a postage stamp. Each one had 40-60 pages, in tiny letters but legible. They are the speeches given in Stockholm by five Nobel Literature Prize winners out of those awarded in the last 60 years. “So that you have reading material,” Mercedes told me on giving it to me.

I asked for more information on the present before they both left at five in the afternoon. “I have spent the most agreeable hours since I got sick nearly two years ago,” I told them without hesitation. That is how I felt.

“There’ll be more,” replied Gabo.

But my curiosity would not be stilled. A while later, as I was walking, I asked a comrade to bring me the gift. Aware of the rate at which the world has changed in the last few decades, I wondered, “What was the thinking of some of those brilliant writers who lived before this turbulent and uncertain epoch of humanity?”

In chronological order, the five Nobel Prize winners selected in the small collection of speeches that I hope our compatriots will be able to read one day, were:

William Faulkner (1949)
Pablo Neruda (1971)
Gabriel García Márquez (1982)
John Maxwell Cohetes (2003)
Doris Lessing (2007)

Gabo didn’t like making speeches. He spent months searching for data — I recall — anguishing over the words he would say on receiving the prize. The same thing happened with the brief speech that he was supposed to give at the dinner offered after the Prize. If that had been his occupation, Gabo certainly would have died of a heart attack.

It should be noted that the Nobel is awarded in the capital of a country that has not suffered the ravages of a war for more than 150 years, ruled by a constitutional monarchy and governed by a social democratic party, where a man as honorable as Olof Palme was assassinated because of his spirit of solidarity with the poor countries of the world. For Gabo, the mission was not easy to fulfill.

Without the slightest whiff of being pro-communist, the Swedish institution awarded the Nobel Prize to William Faulkner, an inspired and rebellious U.S. writer; to Pablo Neruda, a member of the Communist Party, who received it in the glorious days of Salvador Allende, when fascism tried to seize Chile; and to Gabriel García Márquez, the genius and prestigious writer of our era.

It is not necessary to say what Gabo thought. Suffice it to simply transcribe the last paragraphs of his speech, a jewel of prose, on receiving the Nobel Prize on December 10, 1982, while Cuba, dignified and heroic, was resisting the Yankee blockade.

“One day like today, my maestro William Faulkner said in this place, ‘I refuse to admit to the end of humankind,’” he affirmed.

“I would not feel worthy of occupying this place that was his if I was not fully conscious that, for the first time since the origins of humanity, the colossal disaster that he refused to admit to 32 years ago is now nothing less than a simple scientific possibility. Faced with this awesome reality that must have seemed a mere utopia through all of human time, we, the inventors of tales, who will believe anything, feel entitled to believe that it is not yet too late to engage in the creation of the opposite utopia. A new and sweeping utopia of life, where no one will be able to decide for others how they die, where love will prove true and happiness be possible, and where the races condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have, at last and forever, a second opportunity on earth.”

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 9, 2008
7:26 p.m.

I basically drew these data from statements made by William Brownfield, US ambassador to Colombia, from that country‘s press and television, from the international press, and other sources. It“s impressive the show of technology and economic resources at play.

While in Colombia the senior military officers went to great pains to explain that Ingrid Betancourt“s rescue had been an entirely Colombian operation, the US authorities were saying that “it was the result of years of intense military cooperation of the Colombian and United States“ armies.”

“‘The truth is that we have been able to get along as we seldom have in the United States, except with our oldest allies, mostly in NATO,’ said Brownfield, referring to his country‘s relationships with the Colombian security forces, which have received over 4 billion USD in military assistance since the year 2000.”

“…on various occasions it became necessary for the US Administration to make decisions at the top levels concerning this operation.

“The US spy satellites helped in locating the hostages during a month period starting on May 31st until the rescue action on Wednesday.”

“The Colombians installed video surveillance equipment, supplied by the United States. Operated by remote control, these can take close-ups and pan along the rivers which are the only transportation routes through thick forests, said the Colombian and US authorities.”

“US surveillance aircraft intercepted the rebels‘ radio and satellite phone talks and used imaging equipment that can break through the forest foliage.”

“‘The defector will receive a considerable sum of the close to one- hundred-million-dollars reward offered by the government’, stated the Commander General of the Colombian Army.”

On Wednesday, July 1st, the London BBC reported that Cesar Mauricio Velasquez, press secretary at Casa de Nariño (Colombian Government House) had informed that delegates from France and Switzerland had met with Alfonso Cano, chief of the FARC.

According to the BBC, that would be the first contact with international delegates accepted by the new chief after the death of Manuel Marulanda. The false information of the meeting of two European envoys with Cano had been released in Bogota.

The deceased leader of the FARC had been born on May 12, 1932, according to his father‘s testimony. Marulanda, a poor peasant with a liberal thinking and a Gaitan follower, had started his armed resistance 60 years back. He was a guerrilla before us; he had reacted to the carnage of peasants carried out by the oligarchy.

The Communist Party he later joined, the same as every other in Latin America, was under the influence of the Communist Party of the USSR and not of Cuba. They were in solidarity with our Revolution but they were not subordinated to it.

It was the drug-traffickers and not the FARC that unleashed terror in that sister nation as part of their feuds over the United States market. They caused powerful bomb blasts and even blew up trucks loaded with plastic explosives destroying facilities and injuring or killing countless people.

The Colombian Communist Party never contemplated the idea of conquering power through the armed struggle. The guerrilla was a resistance front and not the basic instrument to conquer revolutionary power, as it had been the case in Cuba. In 1993, at the 8th FARC Conference, they decided to break ranks with the Communist Party. Its leader, Manuel Marulanda, took over the leadership of that Party‘s guerrillas which had always excelled in their narrow sectarianism when admitting combatants as well as in their strong and compartmented commanding methods.

Marulanda, a man with a remarkable natural talent and a leader‘s gift, did not have the opportunity to study when he was young. It is said that he had only completed the 5th grade of grammar school. He conceived a long and extended struggle; I disagreed with this point of view. But, I never had the chance to talk with him.

The FARC became considerable strong with over 10 thousand combatants. Many had been born during the war and had known nothing else. Other leftist organizations rivaled the FARC in the struggle. By then the Colombian territory had become the largest source of cocaine production in the world. Then, extreme violence, kidnappings, taxes and demands from the drug producers became widespread.

The paramilitary forces, armed by the oligarchy, drew basically from the great amount of men enlisted in the country‘s armed forces who were discharged from duty every year without a secure job. These created in Colombia a very complex situation with only one way out: real peace, albeit remote and difficult as many other goals Humanity have set itself. This is the option that, for three decades, Cuba has advocated for that nation.

While our journalists meeting in their 8th Congress debated on the new technologies of information, the principles and ethic of social communicators, I meditated on the abovementioned developments.

I have expressed, very clearly, our position in favor of peace in Colombia; but, we are neither in favor of foreign military intervention nor of the policy of force that the United States intends to impose at all costs on that long-suffering and industrious people.

I have honestly and strongly criticized the objectively cruel methods of kidnapping and retaining prisoners under the conditions of the jungle. But I am not suggesting that anyone laid down their arms, when everyone who did so in the last 50 years did not survive to see peace. If I dared suggest anything to the FARC guerrillas that would simply be that they declare, by any means possible to the International Red Cross, their willingness to release the hostages and prisoners they are still holding, without any precondition. I do not intend to be heard; it is simply my duty to say what I think. Anything else would only serve to reward disloyalty and treason.

I will never support the pax romana that the empire tries to impose on Latin America.

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 5, 2008

Seven days ago I wrote about one of the great men in history: Salvador Allende, a man the world remembered with deep emotion and respect on his first centennial. However, no one quivered or even recalled the date of October 24, 1891, when the Dominican despot Rafael Leonidas Trujillo was born, eighteen years before our admired Chilean brother.

Both countries, one in the Caribbean and the other in the extreme south of Latin America, suffered the consequences of the danger that Jose Marti foresaw and tried to avert. As he indicated in his celebrated posthumous letter to his Mexican friend who had fought with Juarez, –and this is an idea I never tire of repeating: “Now, I am everyday in danger of giving my life…to timely prevent with the independence of Cuba that the United States expand over the Antilles and that, with that additional force, they may come against our American lands. Everything I’ve done until today, and everything I’ll do, is for that purpose.”

Our victorious Revolution was a friend of Allende, at the same time it hated Trujillo. This was an uncouth Pinochet begotten by the United States in the Caribbean. The despot had been the result of one of the Yankees’ military interventions in the island that country shares with Haiti, a country which was the first Spanish colony.

The American Navy infantry had invaded that sister republic to secure its country’s economic and strategic interests. Of course, there was not even a Platt Amendment there to cover up the action with a legal mantle.

In 1918, they recruited, among others, the adventurous and ambitious native Dominican, the son of a small merchant, who was then trained and admitted, as a 27-year old, to the National Army. In 1921, he went on to another training course with the Military Academy established by the country’s occupants. After he finished there, he was appointed unit chief and promoted to the rank of Captain for the services paid to the interventionist forces, although he was not previously a Lieutenant.

At the end of the Yankee occupation in 1924, Trujillo was ready to act as an instrument of the United States in high posts in the military, which he would use to deal the classic coup d’etat and the typical “democratic elections” leading him to the presidency of the republic in 1930. The beginning of his term coincided with the years of the Great Depression that hit the US economy so badly.

Cuba, the country most dependent and shackled by the trade agreements, stood to suffer the most severe consequences of that crisis. On the other hand, the Naval Base and the humiliating and unwarranted for Amendment would give them constitutional rights to intervene in our nation and to tear to pieces it glorious history.

In the neighboring country, with less direct economic dependence, the shrewd and ambitious Trujillo handled whimsically the properties of the Dominican middle class and the oligarchy. The major sugar mills and many other branches of industry became his private property. That cult to private appropriation did not offend the capitalist concepts of the empire. Many neon signs claimed everywhere “God and Trujillo.” Many cities, avenues, roads and buildings were named after him or his relatives. The same year he became President, a hurricane hit hard on Santo Domingo, the country’s capital. After the city recovered from the damages, he renamed it Trujillo City. Never before had the world known such a personality cult.

In the year 1937, he carried out along the border a huge massacre of Haitian workers. This was his reserve labor force in agriculture and construction.

He was a steady US ally. He was involved in the inception of both the United Nations and the OAS in 1948. On December 15, 1952, he traveled to Washington in his other capacity as plenipotentiary ambassador to the Organization of American States and stayed in that country for three and a half months. On July 2, 1954, he traveled to Spain on board a transatlantic ship which took him to Vigo. Franco, who was already an ally of the empire, welcomed him at the Madrid North Station accompanied by all members of the diplomatic corp.

My relationship with the Dominican Republic dates back to my days at the University. I had been honored with an appointment to President of the Committee for Dominican Democracy. It did not sound as a very important position, but since I was kind of rebellious, I took it seriously. The time to do something came up unexpectedly. The Dominican exiled fostered in Cuba the creation of an expeditionary force. I enlisted with it when I had not yet completed my sophomore. I was 21 years old.

I have told the story before of what happened then. After the frustrated Cayo Confites expedition, I was not among the over one thousand prisoners taken to the Columbia military camp, where Juan Bosch went on a hunger strike. These men had been incarcerated by the Head of the Army in Cuba, General Perez Dameras, who had received money from Trujillo to intercept the expedition. The General did this when the expeditionary were close to the Wind Passage.

A Cuban Navy frigate, aiming with its bow cannons at our leading boat, ordered us to return and to dock at the Antilla’s port. I then jump into the water of the Nipe Bay together with three other expeditionary. We were four armed men.

I had met Juan Bosch, an outstanding Dominican leader, in Cayo Confites, where we trained, and we talked at length. He was not the chief of the expedition but he was certainly the most prestigious personality among the Dominicans, even if he was ignored by some of the main leaders of that movement and by the Cuban chieftains who had rather important and well paid official relations. I was then very far from even imagining this that I’m writing today!

Eleven years later, when our fight on the Sierra Maestra Mountains was about to successfully conclude, Trujillo granted a credit to Batista to buy weapons and ammunitions, which were brought by plane in the second quarter of 1958. He also volunteered to airborne three thousand Dominican troops, and later another force that would land in Oriente.

Batista’s tyranny was defeated on January 1st, 1959, thanks to the hard blows dealt by the Rebel Army and the revolutionary general strike. The repressive state came crumbling down all throughout the island and Batista left for the Dominican Republic. He traveled there in the company of other sinister characters of that regime such as the well known thug Lutgardo Martin Perez, his 25-year old son Roberto Martin Perez Rodriguez, and a group of the top military chiefs of his defeated army.

Trujillo offered Batista a warm welcome and accommodated him at an official residence for distinguished guest, although he later sent him to a luxurious hotel. He was concerned over the example of the Cuban Revolution, therefore, he counted on the top chiefs of Batista’s former army and the likely support of the tens of thousands of members of the three army branches and the police, to organize a counterrevolution and support it with the Caribbean Legion, which might have had about 25 thousand soldiers from the Dominican Army.

The US Administration, being aware of these plans, sent a CIA officer to Santo Domingo to talk with Trujillo and assess his plans against Cuba. By midst February 1959, this man met with John Abbes Garcia, head of the Dominican Intelligence services to whom he recommended to send agents to recruit hostile elements in the ranks of the victorious Revolution. He did not say that the US government already had William Alexander Morgan Ruderth, an American citizen and CIA agent, who had infiltrated the Second Front in the Escambray, a man they had promoted to the rank of Commander and who was one of the main chiefs there.

The development of these events, which make for a fascinating story, can be found in the books of senior Cuban Intelligence and Security officers, in the testimonies of leaders of military units of the Rebel Army who were directly involved, in autobiographies, official statements made in those days and reports by national and foreign journalists, all of whom it would be impossible to mention in this Reflection.

There is another book in the process of publication written by a comrade who joined the Militias when he was 17, and who for his good conduct and sharp mind was then transferred to the Prime Minister’s and Commander in Chief’s security detail where he studied to become a stenographer, then took notes of the conversations and collected the testimony of hundreds of participants in the events he narrates. This chapter of the history of our Revolution has yet to be recounted.

As is understood, the top revolutionary leaders were constantly informed of the news about the enemy’s plans. We then conceived the idea of dealing the Yankee’s, Batista’s and Trujillo’s counterrevolution a hard blow.

When the weapons sent by sea from Florida to carry out the first actions and the chiefs and plotters were all under strict control, we simulated a successful counterrevolution in the mountainous Escambray zone, and in Trinidad, which had an airstrip. We then proceeded to isolate the municipality of that small and friendly town where revolutionary political work was intensified.

Trujillo was full of enthusiasm. A company of our soldiers disguised as peasants shouted at the airstrip: “Long live Trujillo! Down with Fidel!” which was reported to headquarters in the Dominican Republic. They had dropped plenty of ammunitions from planes. Everything was unfolding according to plan.

On August 13th, a plane came in with a special envoy from Trujillo. It was Luis del Pozo Jimenez, the son of a former mayor and Batista follower in the capital and a prominent figure with the regime. He pointed out on a map the positions that would be bombed by the Dominican Air Force and inquired about the number of legionnaires necessary in the first stage.

Another notable envoy came with him. It was Roberto Martin Perez Rodriguez who, as we have already indicated, had traveled with his father and Batista as they escaped to the Dominican Republic that January 1st. He was accompanied by several mercenary leaders who would stay behind. The plane had to go back. Its crew was the same that had carried Batista when he ran away.

I was in the proximity of the airstrip with Camilo Cienfuegos and other military chiefs. The head of the Cuban military personnel who had to unload the weapons and communication equipment had understood that they should arrest the aircraft crew. At this point, a copilot realized that something was wrong shot on them and a shootout ensued. Trujillo’s envoys and the other mercenary chiefs were then arrested. There were casualties.

That same night I visited the wounded from both sides. We couldn’t go ahead with the plan. Up until then, communications between Trujillo and the counterrevolution in the Escambray had taken place through short wave. Trujillos’s official radio station broadcast triumphant military reports similar to those we would hear from Radio Swan and Miami in the days of Giron. We never used Cuba’s public stations to spread false official reports.

It would have been possible to continue with the game even after the plane had been seized and Luis del Pozo Jimenez and Roberto Martin Perez Rodriguez were arrested. We could have faked a mechanic failure of the plane that should have returned there, but that would have misled and confused our people, which were by then restless over the news about the alleged counterrevolutionary victories in Escambray publicly spread from Trujillo City.

That August 13, 1959 was my 33rd birthday. I was in my prime, physically and mentally strong.

It was a major revolutionary victory, but at the same time a signal about the times that would come and a sad gift from Rafael Leonidas Trujillo on my anniversary. Twenty months later we would be fighting at Giron; there would be violence and bloodshed in the Escambray, by the sea shore, in towns and all over the country. It was the counterrevolution organized by the United States.

In that country they would have executed Roberto Martin Perez Rodriguez and Luis del Pozo Jimenez, as mercenaries in the service of an enemy power. The Revolutionary Courts sentenced them to prison, and they were not mistreated. What was the final destiny of Martin Perez? He migrated to the United States, legally, and he is today a standard bearer of the Cuban American terrorist Mafia which supports Republican candidate McCain.

A distinguished Canadian journalist and researcher, Jean-Guy Allard, describes the terrorist life of Roberto Martin Perez Rodriguez as follows:

“…in fact, since early in his life, ‘Macho’ (his nickname) Martin Perez joined the Batista police and, for his special merits, that is, his beating of the prisoners in the last months of the bloody regime, he earned the rank of Sergeant.

“Both, the father and son were so close to Batista that, on January 1st, 1959, instead of running away to Miami, they followed the dictator to his sanctuary in the Dominican Republic.

“…released on May 29, 1987…in 1989 he joined the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) established by the CIA under Ronald Reagan.

“He would very soon be leading the paramilitary committee created by this organization which ensures the financing, among others, of the terrorist group Alpha 66 and other extremist groups acting against Cuba.

“…Martin Perez Rodriguez took part in the arrangement of a series of failed attempts on the life the President of Cuba during various Ibero American Summits.

“In 1994, on the occasion of Fidel’s attendance to the 4th Summit, in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia… he purchased a 50 mm Barret gun and explosives which were transferred to Colombia from Miami…by plane!

“…he plotted with Jimenez Escobedo and Eugenio LLameras with a view to the 5th Ibero American Summit in 1995. That year, he revived the same plan for the Non Aligned Movement Summit, also in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

“In 1997, at Margarita Island, Venezuela, on the occasion of the 7th Ibero American Summit of Heads of Sate and Government, Posada mounted another conspiracy with direct support from Martin Perez Rodriguez and other leaders of CANF…”

“…he signed the Declaration of support for terrorism against Cuba published by the Foundation on August 11th…Roberto Martin Perez, Feliciano Foyo and Horacio Garcia are some of the people Posada publicly named as the ‘financiers’ of his terrorist actions during his interview with the New York Times in 1997.

“…he sponsored in Miami an exhibition of paintings by [Orlando] Bosch and Posada [Carriles], the two masterminds of the sabotage against the Cuban civilian plane, in 1976, where 73 people were killed.

“In 1998, the great advocate of the ‘political prisoner’ carried out one of his dirtiest deeds: with other Miami Mafia ringleaders…he led the new FBI chief, the very corruptible Hector Pesquera, to the arrest of five Cubans who had infiltrated the ranks of the terrorist organizations.

“…his unfailing friendship with Guillermo Novo Sampol, the murderer of Chilean leader Orlando Letelier is well known…

“The Republican candidate should know that his 73-year-old protégé was the first to assert that on the day of his longed for victory over the Cuban Revolution he would drive a bulldozer from the Cabo San Antonio to the Punta de Maisi crushing the island population guilty of any links with the Revolution.

“…on another occasion, asked about the risk of killing innocents in an attempt on Cuban leaders he said that he didn’t care if ‘the Pope died’.”

The historical truth tells us that John McCain’s father commandeered the amphibious attack, the invasion and occupation of the Dominican Republic in 1965 against the nationalist forces led by Francisco Caamaño, another great hero of that nation whom I knew very well and who always had confidence in Cuba.

I dedicate this Reflection on historical events to our dear journalists, since it coincides with the 8th Congress of the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC, by its Spanish acronym), whom I consider like family. How I would have liked to study the techniques of their trade!

The UPEC has been very generous in publishing a book under the title Fidel, the journalist, which will be presented tomorrow afternoon. They sent me a copy with several articles published in clandestine or legal newspapers over five decades ago, with a prologue by Guillermo Cabrera Alvarez and the selection, introduction and notes by Ana Nuñez Machin.

I gave Guillermo Cabrera the nickname of “the genius” since I first met him. It was the impression I received from that great man who unfortunately passed away last year. He had had a heart surgery some time ago at the prestigious Cardiovascular Center established by our Revolution in Santa Clara City.

I reread some of the articles published in Alerta, Bohemia and La Calle, and I relived those years.

I wrote those articles when I felt the need to convey certain ideas. I did it out of pure revolutionary instinct. I always applied the principle that words should be simple and the concepts understandable to the masses. Today I have more experience, but I’m not as strong; it’s harder for me to do it. Our people’s educational level is higher with the Revolution, thus the task is more difficult.

From the revolutionary point of view, discrepancies are not important; it is the honesty of the opinion that counts. And, it is from the contradictions that the truth will emerge. Perhaps, it would be worthwhile some other time to make an effort to make some observations on this issue.

Yesterday, an important event took place, which will be an issue the following days. This is the release of Ingrid Betancourt and a group of people held by the FARC, that is, the Revolutionary Armed Forces from Colombia.

On January 10th this year, our ambassador to Venezuela, German Sanchez, following a request of the Venezuelan and Colombian governments, took part in the release of Clara Rojas to the International Red Cross. She had been a candidate to vice President of Colombia when Ingrid Betancourt was running for President and was kidnapped on February 23, 2002. Consuelo Gonzalez, a member of the House of Representatives, kidnapped on September 10, 2001, was released with her.

An era of peace was opening for Colombia. This is a process Cuba has been supporting for over two decades, as it is most convenient for the unity and peace of the peoples of our America, using new ways in the special and complex circumstances prevailing after the demise of the USSR in the early 1990s –which I wont try to analyze here– very different from those existing in Cuba, Nicaragua and other countries in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s of the 20th century.

The bombing of a camp in Ecuadorian soil in the early hours of March 1st, –while Colombian guerrillas and young visitors from different nationalities were sleeping– using Yankee technology; the occupation of the territory, the coup de grace on the wounded and the kidnapping of corpses as part of the terrorist plan from the United States government was repudiated the world over.

A Rio Group meeting was then held in the Dominican Republic on March 7th. There the events were strongly condemned while the US administration applauded.

Manuel Marulanda, a peasant and communist militant, the main leader of that guerrilla founded almost half a century ago was still alive. He passed away on the 26th of that same month.

Ingrid Betancourt, feeble and sick, as well as other captives with a serious health condition could hardly resist any longer.

Out of a basically humanist sentiment, we rejoiced at the news that Ingrid Betancourt, three American citizens and other captives had been released. The civilians should have never been kidnapped neither should the militaries have been kept prisoners in the conditions of the jungle. These were objectively cruel actions. No revolutionary purpose could justify it. The time will come when the subjective factors should be analyzed in depth.

We won our revolutionary war in Cuba by immediately releasing every prisoner absolutely unconditionally. The soldiers and officers captured in battle were released to the International Red Cross; we only kept their weapons. No soldier will ever surrender if he thinks he will be killed or subjected to cruel treatment.

We are watching with concern how the imperialists try to capitalize on what happened in Colombia in order to hide and justify their heinous crimes of genocide against other peoples. They want to deflect international attention from their interventionist plans in Venezuela and Bolivia and from the presence of the 4th Fleet in support of the political line that intends to obliterate the independence of the countries located south of the United States while taking possession of their natural resources.

These should be illustrative examples for all of our journalists. In our times, truth is navigating rough seas, where the mass media are in the hands of those threatening human survival with their immense economic, technologic and military resources. That’s the challenge faced by the Cuban journalists!

Fidel Castro Ruz
July 3, 2008
4:26 p.m.