Reflections of Fidel

Kangamba is one of the most serious and dramatic films I have ever seen. I watched it on a small television screen but perhaps my judgment is influenced by cherished memories. Hundreds of thousands of Cuban compatriots will have the privilege of watching it on the big screen of movie theaters.

The Cuban artists’ performance was great. For a moment I thought that the production had required the cooperation of dozens of Angolans. There are scenes that from the humane point of view tear to pieces the contemptuous and racist way in which the imperialists have traditionally approached African culture and habits. There are really unforgettable images of houses in flames after being hit by the rockets with which the South African rulers armed an African ethnic group to fight their Angolan brothers.

The exploits of our compatriots fighting together with the Angolans in that battlefield were really moving. Their heroic resistance saved them all from death.

Those who perished did not do so in vain. The South African Army had been defeated in 1976 when Cuba had sent up to 42 thousand combatants to prevent that the Angolan independence, for which that fraternal people had long been fighting, would succumb to the treacherous invasion launched by the apartheid regime whose soldiers were forced to pull out back to the border that had been their point of departure: the colonized Namibia. Shortly after the end of the war and the beginning of the progressive withdrawal of the Cuban combatants under pressure from the Soviet leadership, the South Africans went back to their old ways against Angola.

The battle of Cuito Cuanavale, four years after that of Kangamba –its real name—and the dramatic situation experienced at that place were the result of a wrong Soviet strategy advised to the Angolan high command. We had always favored preventing the apartheid regime’s army from intervening in Angola. Likewise, at the end of the 1976 war, we were in favor of demanding the independence of Namibia.

The Soviet Union supplied the weapons while we trained the Angolan combatants and advised their almost neglected brigades involved in fighting the UNITA bandits. This was the case of the 32nd Brigade operating in Cuanza, near the central border to the east of the country.

We had systematically refused to take part in the offensives carried out almost every year on the hypothetical or real commanding post of Jonas Savimbi, chief of the counterrevolutionary UNITA. This was over 625 miles away from the capital, in the remote Southeast corner of Angola, where they used brigades equipped with shining new Soviet weapons, tanks and sophisticated armored transportation vehicles. The Angolan soldiers and officers were thus uselessly killed when they were deep in the enemy’s territory and the South African air force, long-range artillery and troops intervened.

This time, after sustaining great losses, the brigades had retreated to a place located 12.5 miles from Cuito Cuanavale, a former NATO air base. It was at that point that our forces in Angola were ordered to send a tank brigade to that place and when the decision was made, on our own, to definitely put an end to the intervention of the South African forces. We then reinforced our troops in Angola sending from Cuba military units equipped with their weapons and the necessary means to accomplish their mission. This time the number of Cuban combatants exceeded the figure of 55 thousand.

The battle of Cuito Cuanavale, starting on November 1987, was combined with the units already moving towards the Angolan border with Namibia where the third most important war action would take place.

When an even more dramatic film than Kangamba is made, the movie story will show even more impressive episodes where the massive heroism of Cubans and Angolans shone up to the humiliating defeat of apartheid.

It was at the end of the last battles when the Cuban combatants took the risk of being hit –this time together with their Angolan brothers—by the nuclear weapons that the US Administration provided to the hateful apartheid regime.

It would be most appropriate to eventually produce a third film like Kangamba which is presently being shown to our people in the movie theaters of Cuba.

Meanwhile, the empire is stuck with an economic crisis unparalleled in its decadent history and Bush shouts his head off making absurd speeches. This is what is mostly discussed these days.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 30, 2008
7:40 p.m.

I did not want to write a third consecutive reflection, but I can not leave that for Monday.

There is one accurate response to Bush’s “democratic capitalism”: Chávez’s democratic socialism. There wouldn’t be a more accurate way to express the big contradiction that exists between North and South in our hemisphere, between the ideas of Bolivar and those of Monroe.

Bolivar’s great merit was having stated so at a time when modern communication media did not exist -not even the Panama Canal did. There was no US imperialism. There were just the English speaking Thirteen Colonies which, united, gained their independence in 1776 with the support of France and Spain.

The Liberator, as if he were capable of seeing through centuries ahead of his own time, proclaimed in 1829: “The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.”

Hugo Chávez is a Venezuelan soldier. In his mind, Bolivar’s ideas germinated only naturally. Suffice it to observe the way in which his thinking went through different political stages, starting from his humble origin, the school, the military academy, his readings of History, the reality of his country and the humiliating presence of the Yankee domination.

He was not a General; he didn’t have any armed institution under his command. He didn’t perpetrate a coup d’état; nor could he do so. He did not want to wait; nor could he. He rebelled himself; he took up full responsibility for the events and turned the prison into a school. He conquered the sympathy of the people and gained their support for his cause while being out of government. He won the elections under a bourgeois Constitution. He took an oath under that agonizing document and swore allegiance to a new Constitution. He clashed with both right and left preconceived ideas and started the Bolivarian Revolution in the midst of the most difficult subjective conditions in the whole Latin America.

For ten years, from the presidency of his country, he has not ceased to sow ideas inside and outside his homeland.

No honest person should have any doubt that in Venezuela there is a true Revolution in progress, and there is also an exceptional struggle that is being waged against imperialism.

It is worth mentioning that Chávez does not rest, not even for a single minute. He struggles inside Venezuela and at the same time he systematically travels to the capitals of the Latin American countries as well as important nations of Europe, Asia and Africa.

He keeps permanent communication, hour after hour, with the national and international press. He is not afraid to address any issue; he is listened to with respect by the main leaders in the world. He makes a correct and efficient use of the real power his country has -the biggest proven oil reserves in the world, in addition to abundant gas- and he is designing an unprecedented national and internationalist program.

With the signing of an association agreement between Gazprom, from Russia, and PDVSA, from Venezuela for the prospecting and exploitation of hydrocarbons, he created a consortium in that field that is equal to no one in the world. His economic association with China and Russia, some countries of Europe and others of Latin America and Africa with abundant resources, has released the liberating forces that will pave the way towards a multipolar world. He did not exclude the United States from the energy supply or the commercial exchange programs. That is an objective and balanced conception.

He thinks about a socialist revolution for his own homeland, without excluding important productive factors. At this historical juncture, after being hit by Nature and the criminal ravages of the decadent empire, our country is truly privileged to be able to count on Chávez’s solidarity.

We never heard a more internationalist and fraternal phrase as the one he said to our people: “The country of Venezuela is also your country!”

Imperialism is trying to get rid of him politically or eliminate him physically no matter the cost, without realizing that his death would be a catastrophe for Venezuela as well as for the economy and stability of all other governments of Latin America and the Caribbean.

My conversations with him are characterized by one point of view I defend: at this point in time, the most important thing is to save Venezuela from the political onslaught of the US government. During his last visit we discussed the magnitude of the assistance he is giving to us as well as the assistance he wishes to give to us, and our suggestion that he should concentrate the biggest possible amount of resources on the domestic battle that he is waging today against the offensive launched by the media and the conditioned reflexes that imperialism has been creating for many years.

Starting from now until November 23, the battle to be waged will be of great transcendence, and we don’t want his support to Cuba to be used as a pretext to damage the Bolivarian Revolution.

The 92 Venezuelan construction workers who are members of the Socialist Voluntary Work Brigades, who were sent to build houses in Pinar del Río, are a symbol of our times.

We are living through very important moments. The popular referendum to approve the new Constitution in Ecuador the day after tomorrow will be of great significance. Chávez will meet with President Lula in Brazil on Monday. Tonight there is a televised debate between Obama and McCain. These are all important news.

That is why I did not want to leave the writing of these lines for Monday. Tomorrow Saturday, Chávez will be back to his country and on Sunday he will be addressing his people. He always makes use of some excerpts of these reflections in his battle.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 26, 2008

In a brief 15-minute speech, the President of the United States made some assertions that, had they come from the mouths of any of his adversaries, they would have been described as atrocious and cynical slanders against the economic system of his country which he named “democratic capitalism”.

After dramatically appealing to Congress to allocate an additional 700 billion dollars to cope with the crisis, he cited, among others, the following reasons:

• This is an extraordinary period for America’s economy.
• We have seen terrible situations in the U.S. economy.
• The aim is to preserve the country’s overall economy.
• I have declared that our global economy remains regulated largely by twentieth century laws and we must update it to the financial structure of the twenty-first century.
• Banks have restricted credits.
• Many lenders have approved loans without examining ability to pay.
• How did we reach this point? What does this mean for the country’s financial future?
• Economists suggest these are problems that have developed for more than a decade.
• Most economists agree that the problems we’re witnessing today developed over a long period of time.
• Many entrepreneurs got loans to start businesses, buy houses and cars. There were many negative consequences, particularly in the housing market.
• Many mortgage lenders approved loans for borrowers without carefully examining their ability to pay.
• Many people assumed they would be able to pay their mortgages, but it was not so.
• All this had effects far beyond the housing market.
• Securities are sold to investors around the world. Many assumed these securities had a tangible value.
• Many companies like Freddie Mac borrowed enormous sums of money and put our financial market at risk.
• The large banks found themselves saddled with large amounts of assets they could not sell.
• Other banks found themselves in similar situations and available credit dried up.
• Many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government and put our financial system at risk.
• The situation became more precarious by the day.
• I’m a strong believer in free enterprise.
• The decline in the housing market set off a domino effect.
• I believe companies that make bad decisions should pay for it. Under normal circumstances, I would have not followed this corse. But these are not normal circumstances.
• The market is not functioning properly. There has been a widespread loss of confidence.
• The government’s top economic experts warn that, without immediate action, the country could slip into panic, more banks could fail, there would be negative effects on the retirement accounts, foreclosures would rise and millions of Americans could lose their jobs.
• The country could experience a long and painful recession. We must not let this happen.
• Many are asking, how would a rescue plan work?
• It should be enacted as soon as possible.
• The federal government would put up to $700 billion to inject liquidity.
• The government will try to have the markets back to normal as soon as possible.
• We have seen how one company can grow so large that its failure jeopardizes the entire financial system.
• The government should be authorized to take a closer look at the companies to ensure that their growth does not threaten the global economy.
• Democratic capitalism is the best system ever devised.
• I know that Americans sometimes get discouraged, but this is a temporary situation.
• History has shown that, in times of real trial, its leaders unite to rise to the occasion.
• Tomorrow, in the White House, Obama, McCain and other congressional leaders will meet.

He concluded with thanks.

Some have pointed out that his eyes did not for one minute move away from the teleprompter and that he was frowning.

Yesterday, George W. Bush did not only confess these truths; he launched a new sort of Alliance for Progress.

The first of them all was the colossal farce at Punta del Este in 1961, conceived by Kennedy after the Cuban Revolution.

The one before the last, as we know, was Bill Clinton’s and it was called the Free Trade Area for the Americas (FTAA), which was signed in 1994. This one received its coup de grâce in Mar del Plata in the year 2005.

On the same day of his “self-criticism”, Bush launched the Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas Initiative. What a ridiculous name.

After checking the list of the ten Latin American countries committed to the Initiative in New York, I realized the absence of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Nicaragua; in other words, almost all of South America and one from Central America, whose former Chancellor, Miguel D’Escoto, a Sandinista and a priest who favor the Theology of Liberation, is now presiding over the United Nations General Assembly.

According to Bush’s recurring fantasy, this project which is being discussed by the news cable agencies, as expressed by the President when he addressed the governments of the ten countries present,

“would permit us to work to ensure that the benefits of trade are broadly shared.”

“It will deepen the connections among regional markets. It will expand our cooperation on development issues.”

“It is a good idea to continue opening up new markets, especially in our own neighbourhood.”

Such events constitute excellent study material for the ideological battle.

What kind of progress can imperialism guarantee for any Latin American country, with its atomic weapons, its arms industry, its escorted fleets of nuclear aircraft carriers, its wars of conquest, its unequal exchange and permanent pillaging of other peoples?

Self-criticism is not a category under “democratic capitalism”. Anyway, we shouldn’t be ungrateful or impolite: we should thank Bush for his brilliant contribution to political theory.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 25, 2008
6:35 p.m.

Around 35,000 Cuban health specialists are providing free or paid services in the world. Furthermore, some young doctors from countries such as Haiti and others among the poorest of the Third World are working in their homelands thanks to the assistance provided by Cuba. In Latin America, our main contribution has been the ophthalmologic surgeries that will help to preserve the eyesight of millions of people. In addition, we are assisting in the training of tens of thousands of young medical students from other nations, both in and outside Cuba.

However, this is not something that is ruining our people, who were able to survive thanks to the internationalism that the USSR implemented with Cuba, and it helps us to pay our own debt to humanity.

After carefully meditating and analyzing in detail the history of the last few decades, I have come to the conclusion, without the least bit of chauvinism, that Cuba has the best medical care in the whole world, and it is important that we are aware of that, since it is the starting point for what I wish to state.

The basis of the aforementioned success lies in the network of polyclinics and family doctors’ offices set up throughout the country, which replaced the disastrous and precarious capitalist system of medical care based on the private practice of medicine, although the harsh reality of the times had imposed the necessity of creating a number of mutual-benefit healthcare centers. To the youngest ones amongst us, I should clarify that these were cooperative institutions where those services were offered for a monthly fee. Under that system, all the members of my family benefited from some of those services at a hospital located in the far-away capital of the former province of Oriente. However, I cannot remember one single sugarcane or sugar mill worker entitled to be a member of that institution, for they lacked the necessary resources and never traveled to that city. Wherever the principles of capitalism prevail, society moves backward. That is why we must be extremely careful every time we see that socialism is forced to resort to capitalist mechanisms. There are those who get intoxicated and alienated while dreaming about the effects of the drug of individual egoism as if it were the only incentive capable of mobilizing people.

The great need for medical specialists generated a bourgeois elitist spirit in that sector, which Cuba put an end to once and for all, as the Revolution, throughout these years, graduated growing numbers of doctors who rejected private medical practice and later became specialists through study and systematic practice, coming to constitute a mass of well-qualified professionals.

Under capitalism, the limited number of specialists whose work had to do with health and life became gods. We have no other alternative but to cultivate in these people, as well as in the high-level educators and other professionals who require great doses of knowledge, a profound revolutionary spirit. Experience has shown that is possible, especially in a profession that has so much to do with life and death.

Our network of polyclinics provides coverage to all cities and rural areas throughout Cuba; it was created as a result of a process aimed at developing health centers adapted to the most varied situations in our country and among its inhabitants.

In a city such as Havana, the largest in the country and an example of the complexities of urban life –which, on the other hand, are different from those in Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Camagüey, Villa Clara or Pinar del Río, just as much as they differ amongst themselves –each polyclinic is responsible for approximately 22,000 people.

After the triumph of the Revolution on January 1, 1959, the citizens of the capital used to flood the emergency rooms of hospitals that were generally many blocks away from their homes, seeking the assistance that the Revolution was providing there free of charge, with the equipment then available. They did not go to the recently-created polyclinics where, quite often, the least efficient doctors were assigned. Later on they learned to receive such assistance at the polyclinics which were gradually better equipped and staffed with doctors of increasing quality and professionalism. Finally, they opted for the best variant: going to the family doctor’s office, where they would be looked after by a young doctor who was trained after a six-year program of theoretical and practical courses skillfully designed by eminent professors. Afterwards these young doctors continued studying until becoming specialists in General Comprehensive Medicine. The polyclinic provided them support through its laboratories and equipment.

One day, when I visited one such center to check on its professionalism, I asked them, without any warning, to examine my vital signs. That was one of the best and fastest tests I had ever seen in my life.

Not for a single second has the Revolution waned in its efforts to repair, adapt or build new polyclinics and family doctors’ offices, while thousands of students were enrolled in and graduated from more than 20 medical schools. It has been a long and fascinating experience.

According to the current approach, polyclinics must always be ready to offer 10 basic services: diagnosis, emergency care, dental care, comprehensive rehabilitation, maternal and child health, nursing, clinical and surgical care, assistance to the elderly, mental health, hygiene and epidemiology. The system was designed to provide services in 32 specialties, including those that must be looked after at any time, day or night, ranging from an agonizing toothache to a heart attack. Polyclinics should have emergency rooms, thus placing emergency care closer to family households.

When I wrote “Vices and Virtues,” I pointed out that any attempt by those workers to appropriate goods passing through their hands, as some do, was something unworthy of the conduct of those workers, whatever their social status, skills, education or knowledge; whether they harvest potatoes, milk cows, cook in a restaurant, work in a factory or a school, a library or a museum, whether they are manual or intellectual workers, anywhere. Nobody wishes to establish slave or semi-slave labor in our world. We all believe that citizens are born to live a more dignified life.

Those who steal forget that everybody wants tranquility and respect for themselves and their relatives, a variety of quality foods, decent housing, electricity without outages, running water, roads without potholes, comfortable and safe transportation, good hospitals, well-equipped polyclinics, first-class schools, shops and groceries that work properly, movie theatres, radio, television, the Internet and many other nice things that can only be the result of methodical, efficient and well organized work by highly productive workers.

The production of consumer goods and services requires modern equipment in construction, agriculture, transportation, high-voltage electric power, chemical or flammable products; working conditions that encompass risks in terms of heights, depths and many other unavoidable variants. The tiniest negligence causes mutilation and death, and so we are forced to always observe measures to prevent them or minimize them as much as possible, even though, unfortunately, we have been unable to avoid the occurrence of a painful number of such cases every year. Added to this there are occupational illnesses and the suffering and damages they cause. Those goods and services everybody longs for do not come out of mere chance. Heavy investment, state-of-the-art technology, costly raw materials, abundant energy, and, especially, human labor are indispensable if we do not want to remain stuck in prehistory.

Just recently, I requested data from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security about the number of workers involved in health and education programs in the country; they accounted for almost 20% of the active labor force involved in economic production and services.

The data I received, which I carefully analyzed, justifies the steps we have taken to increase the retirement age. In the draft law, this is associated with real improvements in household income and, in my opinion, it is also related to the pressing need to avoid an excess of money in circulation and the duty we have to swiftly recover from the ravages of the hurricanes in a way that nobody feels they have been abandoned to their own fate.

The question I am posing is whether or not human beings are able to rationally organize the society in which they are obliged to live.

The efforts being made by musicians with their instruments are probably just as powerful as those of the welders at the Antillana de Acero steel plant. Sometimes there are no differences between the first and the latter in terms of their mental and physical efforts, although there might be some differences in their way of thinking, because the first are well-known and constantly applauded, and the latter are not. However, the first can make use of their influence to combat the old vices of past societies, as many others do, not only musicians, but also prestigious writers and painters who have been trained by the Revolution.

There are professionals who specialize in the economic sciences, labor organization, psychology and other branches, who are aware of these realities, dealing with subjects associated with them in some way or another. We read or hear about interesting concepts seeking answers which will no doubt end up pointing in the same direction as the national and international debate opens up.

Nobel Laureates in Economics are stunned by a crisis of developed capitalism never seen before, and which at this moment requires an additional $700 billion that will have to be paid by the children of American families. Apparently, the experts of imperialism just can’t get it right, while heads of state, prime ministers and high-ranking officials attending the United Nations General Assembly are racking their brains trying to find solutions. It is curious to see that many of the United States’ allies in NATO are no longer speaking in their own national language, but in English — visibly broken English — the Esperanto of our era.

I think that there is no alternative but to re-evaluate everything, looking for more productivity and less waste of human resources in all vital sectors, including health and education – as well as in all others in the productive economy and the services – without strictly abiding by figures that were issued years ago, trying to enhance – rather than allowing a decrease of – the quality of everything that is being done in our country, without neglecting our internationalist duty, the fruits of which have started to be clearly noticed. Those are many more than one could imagine and considerably less than those needed. We have to contribute the rest without any hesitation whatsoever.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 24, 2008
8:37 p.m.

The news agencies are reporting that Chávez will visit Cuba tomorrow on his way to China, Russia, Belarus, France and Portugal.

Watching Venezolana de Televisión I learned that he was signing energy investment agreements in Caracas with important businessmen from Japan, Russia, Malaysia, Italy, Argentina, the United States, Qatar, and Portugal. The deals are for the extraction of gas from one of the reserves located in an area of 500,000 square kilometers of territorial waters.

The companies will be 60% Venezuela-owned and the investment will total $19 billion in that field alone. The world is eager and craving for fossil fuels.

Such activity in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is striking at a time when the United States is deep into a dramatic financial crisis and is forced to inject hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks to avoid a debacle. Investments of that sort have been recurrent in the past year, and nobody knows when they will end. The value of the stockmarket shares goes up temporarily; Wall Street and the world’s central banks have a chance to breathe, until the oxygen in the tank is used up and the operation must be repeated.

Without a doubt, Venezuela has shown the greatest solidarity with Cuba after we were hit by the two devastating hurricanes. Its President did not hesitate to offer, on behalf of his country, every possible assistance soon after hurricane Gustav ravaged Pinar del Rio and the Isle of Youth. Impressed by the record 340 km/h gusts, the images that showed the destruction, and the extraordinary fact that not a single person died, he offered to provide whatever was necessary, as a sign of solidarity with Cuba, including financial support and even land in Venezuela to produce food in areas not threatened by hurricanes.

It was the first but not the only country to show solidarity; the list is long and it includes very significant actions by Russia, Angola, Vietnam, China and other nations, big and small, with more or with less resources, which offered financial loans and soft loans in excess of one billion dollars, in addition to money, food and other donations that have been reaching us in many ways as an expression of the desire to assist our heroic and generous people. The hypocritical offer by the U.S. government was rejected. Our reply to it was appropriate. I did not hesitate to express my point of view. The counterrevolutionaries inside and outside Cuba crowed over the measure. They desperately wanted to see us behave as shameful beggars. That battle is not over yet, however; it has just begun.

An EFE news agency report says that the U.S. government has granted a license to the Movimiento Democracia (Democracy Movement) — a Cuban exile group in Miami– to send direct aid to Cubans affected by hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

It adds that the “influential” Cuban-American National Foundation has been licensed by the US Treasury Department to send the remittances of Cubans directly to their relatives in the island. It further reports that the aid will be distributed among the hurricane victims, including dissidents who activists claim are not receiving much in the form of assistance and are marginalized “by the Cuban government”.

No citizen is discriminated against in Cuba. All citizens are provided with free health services some of which would cost thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in US hospitals; also provided are high education services for the youths — whether they have a relative abroad or not — which would also cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Those who receive remittances from the United States can, upon paying the relevant tax, buy the regular rations at extremely low prices and also purchase goods in the hard-currency shops which sell products that are now significantly more expensive elsewhere in the world.

Any product that enters Cuba from the United States for a counterrevolutionary purpose must be returned or confiscated.

In Venezuela, some 40,000 highly skilled Cubans are rendering a selfless service to the Bolivarian people, including the training of community specialists and sport instructors. They have not abandoned their homeland; they are working abroad for the wellbeing of the Cubans and the fruits of their work reach all, from the small children to the elderly. Additionally, they are now donating from their salary to buy Venezuelan-made goods to distribute among the people most in need in any of the provinces. That is a true example of how resources must be put to use in our society.

Chávez is a tireless preacher of the most advanced ideas of his time in Venezuela and he has been confronted with almost all the media tools controlled by the pro-yankee oligarchy that try to deceive and confuse the people. One believes he will get rest some day, until one realizes that he will only rest in the grave.

I will meet the Bolivarian President briefly tomorrow. Just the time necessary for an exchange of views; an hour approximately. It will be a great honor for me.

These are facts that mark the huge difference between what is true and what is false.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 20, 2008

Yesterday we were talking about the Financial Ike that is driving the empire mad. America can’t find a way of reconciling consumerism with unjust wars, defence spending and the massive investments in the arms industry, which kill peoples, rather than feeding them or otherwise satisfying their most basic needs.

Nothing better describes the staggering contradiction than the words of Senator Richard Shelby, the leading Republican on the US Senate’s Banking Committee, when he told BBC television that they did not know how much it was going to cost – probably between 500 billion and 1,000 billion dollars, which would affect taxpayers sooner or later, or be a debt collected from everyone or everyone’s children, (as reported by the British Reuters press agency).

No-one can doubt the destiny of the industrialized, capitalist world or the fate it promises to billions of people on the planet.

Strife is the only prospect of peoples now, to achieve a community that permits a life of social justice and decency – the antithesis of capitalism and the principles that underlie that repugnant, unjust system. In the fierce struggle to reach those goals, the worst enemy is the human being’s instinctive egoism. If capitalism means perpetual free rein to that natural impulse, socialism is the constant struggle to subdue it. While at other times in history, the alternative was to return to the past, that possibility now no longer exists. The battle is one to be waged basically by our glorious Party.

Every manifestation of privilege, corruption or misappropriation must be combated; for a true communist, there can be no excuse of any kind for such conduct. Any weakness of that sort is totally unacceptable. It never applied to the thousands of men and women who voluntarily departed to fulfil their internationalist duty and endowed the Cuban Revolution with glory and renown. Such were the principles of ethics and purity that inspired the thinking of José Martí and all those who preceded him.

It is now, amid the fresh wreckage left by the hurricanes, that we must show what we are capable of.

Stealing from factories, warehouses, service stations, hotels, restaurants and other establishments where money or goods are kept must be combated relentlessly by the Party militants.

And if any of the latter are themselves found guilty of such shabby acts, they must be sanctioned by the Party (as well as suffering the consequences under the law), albeit without extreme measures, but in a considered and effective way.

Capitalism is a victim of common crime, from which it defends itself with sophisticated technology, unemployment, marginalization, murder and even extreme violence, which are now useless against a drugs trade that costs hundreds and even thousands of lives every year in some Latin American countries.

The militants have no easy task in a world where the temptations of consumerism are everywhere, via all the radio, television and electronic media and the press, while the techniques for seducing the human being emanate from laboratories and research centres.

Consider what happens with what they are pleased to call advertising, which costs the consumer over a billion annually. The commercials are repeated over and over to the point of maddening practically everyone with their banality.

But stealing is far from being the only evil that threatens the fruits of our Revolution. There are also the known and tolerated privileges and contrived bureaucratic devices. Resources allocated to meet a temporary situation become permanent expense and consumption.

Everything conspires against the country’s material and monetary reserves, a situation that can result in shortages of goods and an excess of money in circulation. The same thing happens when the well-heeled buy up excessive quantities of the goods in the hard-currency retail outlets.

There are state agencies with a tendency to lavish privileges or give away much more in the competition for the available technical personnel and workforce.

Sometimes they become speculators, using genuinely capitalist methods, in their quest for revenues, to manage resources so as to gain a reputation for efficiency and secure the willing support of their staffs. These are bourgeois customs – not proletarian – and we all have a sacred duty to combat them in ourselves and in others.

Some countries do not hesitate to apply the death penalty to these crimes. I do not really believe that is necessary in our case. Nor featherbed the recidivists in our prisons either. It’s fine to get on in organization, but that doesn’t entitle you to write your own job description.

Throughout my life as a revolutionary, I have seen how these vices develop alongside the virtues. Weaknesses also appear among some citizens who become accustomed to receiving, and dedicate little time to reflection, reading the newspapers and finding out what’s happening.

In its quest for spies and traitors, the enemy understands human frailties only too well, but is ignorant of the other side of the coin: the enormous human capacity for self-sacrifice and heroism.

Parents want to endow their children with material wellbeing, but prefer to leave them the legacy of a decent life of good repute that will accompany them always.

On this island, the enemy has come up against a people able to resist its blockade and hostility for many long years. So it reinforces its measures against Cuba.

It tries to steal our skilled professionals and our workforce; it selects those to whom the thousands of visas are granted annually, while at the same time encouraging illegal departures; it maintains and tightens up the Cuban Adjustment Act, which grants special privileges for illegal immigration to the citizens of just one country in the world: Cuba. If the same facility were extended to the rest of Latin America, in no time Latin Americans would account for half the US population.

Even more cynical is its recruitment of mercenaries, who claim impunity and who it supplies with intelligence and materials and promotes internationally, while taking pleasure in testing the patience and equanimity of the Cuban government.

Our people will never be in ignorance of the truth.

Not only are we striving constantly against our mistakes, weaknesses and vices, but are also winning the battle of ideas to which we have committed ourselves.

If there is one thing the empire’s leaders can always be sure of, it is that neither natural hurricanes nor hurricanes of cynicism can reverse the Cuban Revolution.

Before that happens – as Martí said – the sea of the North will join the sea of the South and a snake will hatch from an eagle’s egg.

Fidel Castro Ruz
19 September 2008

Today’s afternoon news wastes nothing:

“Bush cancelled all his activities. He intended to travel to Alabama and Florida to participate in campaign fundraising events.”

“He said on Thursday that he was worried about the financial markets and the U.S. economy…”

“Markets have plummeted,” the cables continue to report. “The government has seen itself forced to nationalize the giant insurance company American International Group (AIG), and the Federal Reserve, in a coordinated action with other central banks, has injected $180 billion into the financial markets.”

“The president reaffirmed that his government is taking aggressive and extraordinary measures ‘to appease the markets.’”

“Authorities all over Asia are trying to stop their currencies, stock markets and securities from falling to prevent the Wall Street crisis from affecting the region.”

“President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil today blamed the international financial crisis on speculation, and admitted he was worried about the danger of a possible recession in the United States.”

“He also sympathized with the situation of major banks in the United States which, in the past, have criticized Brazil and other emerging countries, and called into question the international financial system.”

“He said, ‘There is a crisis in the United States, a very big crisis that has extraordinarily shaken up the largest economy in the world.’”

“‘It is not that we are not worried. The United States is the world’s largest economy and its largest importer.’

He concluded by saying, “It is with a certain degree of sadness that I see how important banks, very important banks that were always giving advice about Brazil and about what we should or should not do are now broke or have declared bankruptcy.”

The hurricane winds of the financial Ike are also threatening all of the world’s “provinces.” The weather forecast is uncertain; it’s been talked about for weeks, and gusts of more than 200 kilometers per hour are now being felt. As Rubiera would say, its [the hurricane’s] devastating power is increasing geometrically from one category to the next.

It is very difficult to closely follow and understand the fabulous figures of fresh money that are being injected into the global economy. They are huge doses of paper money, which are inevitably leading to a decline in its value and purchasing power.

Higher prices are inevitable in consumer societies and disastrous for emerging countries, as Lula da Silva said. If the largest importer in the world stops importing, this will impact on the rest; if it goes out to compete, this will impact on other producers.

The big banks of the developed countries are imitating and trying to coordinate with the banks of the United States; if the U.S. banks go broke, theirs will too, and they will devour each other.

Fiscal paradises are prospering; people are suffering. Is this how humanity’s well-being can be guaranteed?

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 18, 2008

Reading the cables will suffice.

In the reflection I wrote the day before yesterday I stated that Cuba would not accept any donation from the government that is blockading us and that, in the Verbal Note handed over to the U.S. Interests Section, we had requested authorization so that U.S. companies could sell us construction materials; that same Note made no reference whatsoever to foodstuffs. There was an additional request for trade in those materials to take place under normal conditions, including credits, something that is only logical considering that, for eight years, our country has been paying in cash for the few commodities that U.S. companies are authorized to export to Cuba.

Such a request was all the more justified in the face of the emergency situation created as a result of the ravages of the hurricanes.

It was precisely George W. Bush who, after Hurricane Michelle violently lashed the island on November 4, 2001, authorized the sale of agricultural produce to Cuba, which included lumber as a product derived from silviculture, which is highly developed in that nation. He did not insist on any in situ inspection when, as is currently the case, we responded that we had already completed such an inspection. In the main, we imported foodstuffs. Within a few weeks we had imported $4.4 million dollars worth, once all the relevant procedures were rapidly finalized.

In 2002, we purchased $173.6 million in goods; in 2003, $327 million; in 2004, $434.1 million; in 2005, $473 million; in 2006, $483.3 million; in 2007, $515.8 million, and during the first semester of 2008, $425 million. As can be seen, the figures have increased year by year, and this year, after the devastating impact caused by two hurricanes, it is possible that the country would have to import a much higher volume from the United States alone, especially taking into account that prices have risen significantly and the colossal blow that has been dealt to agriculture.

The government of that country informed world public opinion that it had authorized the sale of foodstuffs and lumber, as if this was a new decision related to the two hurricanes, Gustav and Ike. A total and complete joke.

What did the State Department spokesperson say?

On Sunday, September 14 he declared that, as soon as Hurricane Gustav reached Cuba, the United States authorized $250 million in agricultural sales to the island, including lumber. Prior to that, the U.S. secretary of commerce had ruled out any commercial credits.

Again on September 16, the State Department announced that the United States had authorized some licenses for food aid after the disaster caused by the two hurricanes, and that those agricultural licenses included ‘lumber, an important material for reconstruction.”

In addition to the lies, what were the arguments with which they tried to justify the prohibition on U.S. companies facilitating normal trade credits to Cuba? “The government of the United States has to respect Congress laws.” One would suppose that the blockade is a congressional law by virtue of a perfidious Platt Amendment-type provision. The president of the United States can declare war without consulting Congress – something unheard of in the history of that country – but cannot, however, authorize a U.S. company to trade with Cuba under normal conditions.

In the message sent to Hugo Chávez, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which described some of the experiences of our Revolution, I wrote that, due to the “ruthless and absolute economic blockade, it is not possible to purchase one single kilogram of food. This changed slightly 30 years later, due to pressure exerted by farmers, but this policy was accompanied by leonine financial and monetary obstacles.” The Venezuelan revolutionary leader partially disclosed that message himself.

Everything is obvious and clear.

In resorting to the same lie twice over, the State Department has had no qualms over deceiving world public opinion, and it is doing so in a cynical manner.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 18, 2008