Reflections of Fidel

It’s not the money injection per se to the developing countries that I criticized in my reflection yesterday, as some press dispatches chose to interpret.

When I spoke of The Worst Choice, I was thinking of the objectives of the money injection and the way it was given. I have been analyzing the idea that the financial crisis is the consequence of the privileges granted to the United States developed capitalism at Bretton Woods in 1944. At the end of World War II, this country was emerging with a considerable economic and military power. The phenomenon tends to repeat itself every so often.

Upon President of Brazil Lula da Silva’s arrival in the country, I addressed him a letter. We had not scheduled a meeting during his short visit to our country. On the abovementioned point I wrote:

“Whoever becomes the United States leader after the current crisis should feel a rising pressure from all of the Third World countries towards solutions involving every nation and not only a few of them. The wealthiest nations are in desperate need of the poor nation’s consumption, otherwise their goods and services production centers would be paralyzed. Let them use their computers to estimate how many trillions they’ll need to invest to enable the poor nations to develop while preventing the destruction of the environment and life on our planet.”

Any reader can see that when I speak of investing in the Third World, I mean making a contribution in funds, basically as soft loans, with almost no interest, in order to promote a rational ecology-friendly development.

I could meet with Lula who asked to see me despite his tight schedule. We talked for almost two hours. I explained to him that I would be making public the concepts contained in my letter. He did not raise any objection. Our conversation was, as usual, pleasant and respectful. He related to me in detail the work he is carrying out in his country. I thanked him for Brazil’s political and economic support to Cuba in its struggle and emphasized the decisive role played by Venezuela, a Latin American developing country and its President, in the most critical days of the Special Period and today, as the imperialist blockade has tightened and our country has just endured the scourge of two devastating hurricanes.

Despite our broad exchange, he was free an hour and a half before the time scheduled for his departure.

As I could see in the press reports this afternoon, he adopted a brave position with regards to the United States elections. If McCain were elected, he would not be able to count beforehand with the largest Latin American country: Brazil.

The G-20 meeting convened by Bush will be held in Washington next November 15. The first thing you see as you turn on a TV set is a Head of State addressing a high level gathering. I wonder how much time is left to the Heads of State to be informed about and to meditate on the complex problems afflicting the world.

The current President of the United States has no problem at all. He does not solve problems, he creates them.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 31, 2008
5:15 p.m.

Today, I read that the US Federal Reserve had opened a new line of credit for the Central Banks of Mexico, Brazil, South Korea and Singapore.

The same report claimed that similar credits have been issued to the Central Banks of Australia, Canada, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and the European Central Bank.

Based on these agreements, the Central Banks shall receive funds in exchange for hard currency reserves from these countries which have sustained considerable losses due to the trade and financial crisis.

This way the economic power of the US currency is asserted, a privilege granted at Bretton Woods.

The International Monetary Fund, which is the same people under a different name, has announced the release of high sums of money to its clients in Eastern Europe. Hungary will be receiving the equivalent of $20 billion euros; a large part of these are dollars coming from the United States. The machines keep minting bills and the IMF keeps granting its unfair loans.

On the other hand, the World Wild Fund stated in Geneva yesterday that at the present spending rate, by 2030 humanity will need the resources of two planets to keep up its life style.

The WWF is a serious institution. There is no need to be a University graduate of Mathematics, Economics or Political Sciences to understand what this means. It’s the worst choice. The developed capitalism hopes to continue plundering the world as if the world could still stand it.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 30, 2008
8:05 p.m.

In Zulia, Chavez made reference to “comrade Sarkozy,” and did so with a certain irony but he meant no offense. On the contrary, he was rather recognizing the sincerity of the president when he spoke in Beijing in his capacity as chairman of the European Community.

Nobody was saying what every European leader knows but is not confessing: that the current financial system is no good and must be changed. The Venezuelan president candidly proclaimed:

“It is not possible to re-found the capitalist system; it would be like trying to re-float the Titanic when it’s lying on the ocean floor.”

According to press dispatches, at the meeting of the European and Asian Nations Association attended by 43 countries, Sarkozy made some remarkable confessions:

“Things are going badly for the world, which is facing an unprecedented financial crisis marked by its magnitude, swiftness and violence, a crisis whose consequences on the environment call into question the survival of humankind, as 900 million people lack the means to feed themselves.”
“The countries taking part in this meeting account for two thirds of the global population and half its wealth. The financial crisis started in the United States, but it is now a global crisis demanding a global response:

“An 11-year-old child’s place is not in a factory but in school.”

“No region in the world has any lesson to teach others.” This is a clear reference to the United States.

Finally, he recalled before the Asian nations the colonizing past of Europe on that continent.

If Granma had written those words, they would have been considered a cliché of the official communist press.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Beijing that it was not possible “to foresee the magnitude and duration of the current international financial crisis. We are actually dealing with the creation of a new constituent Charter of finances.” That same day the news revealed the general uncertainty unleashed.

In the Beijing meeting, the 43 countries from Europe and Asia agreed that the IMF should play a major role in assisting the countries most seriously affected by the crisis. They also supported an interregional summit to promote stability in the long term and the development of the world economy.

The President of the Spanish government, Rodriguez Zapatero, stated that “there is a crisis of responsibility in which a few have grown richer but the majority is growing poorer.” He also said that “the markets have lost confidence in the market,” and urged countries to flee protectionism, as he is convinced that competition will make the financial markets to play their role. He has not been officially invited to the Washington summit since Bush resents his withdrawing the Spanish troops from Iraq.
The European Community president, José Manuel Durão Barroso, supported his warning on protectionism.

For his part, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon met with eminent economists to try and avert the developing countries becoming the principal victims of the crisis.
Miguel D’Escoto, former foreign minister of the Sandinista Revolution and current president of the UN General Assembly, demanded that the issue of the financial crisis should be discussed in the United Nations, not by the wealthiest nations and the group of emerging countries that make up the G-20.

There are disputes over the venue of the meeting at which a new financial system should be adopted on order to bring about an end to the chaos and the absolute lack of security for the peoples. There is a major fear that the wealthiest countries in the world, meeting with a small group of emerging nations hit by the financial crisis, might approve a new Bretton Woods, ignoring the rest of the world. President Bush said yesterday that the countries that will discuss the global crisis here next month should also renew their commitment to the basics of economic growth on a long-term basis: free markets, free enterprise and free trade.

The banks were lending tens of dollars for every dollar deposited by savers. They were multiplying money. They breathed and sweated through every pore… Any contraction would lead to ruin or to absorption by other banks. They had to be saved; always at the expense of the taxpayers. They were amassing great fortunes. Their privileged majority shareholders could afford to pay any money for anything.

Shi Jianxun, a professor at the Tongui University in Shanghai, stated in an article published in the foreign edition of The People’s Daily that “the crude reality has made people realize, amidst the panic, that the United States has utilized the hegemony of the dollar to plunder the riches of the world. He confirms the pressing need to change the international monetary system based on the dominant position of the dollar.”

With just a few words he explained the essential role of currencies in international economic relations. This was happening for centuries between Asia and Europe: it should be recalled that opium was imposed on China as a currency. I talked about that when I wrote The Chinese Victory.

The authorities of that country did not even wish to receive the metal silver initially paid by the Spaniards from their colony in the Filipinas for products acquired in China, because it was progressively devaluated due to its abundance in the so-called New World recently been conquered by Europe. Even today, European leaders feel ashamed at the things that they imposed on China for centuries.

According to the Chinese economist, current difficulties in the terms of trade between those two continents should be solved with euros, GB sterling, yens and yuans. Undoubtedly, reasonable regulation between those four currencies would aid the development of relations of fair trade between Europe, Britain, Japan and China.

Two countries that produce sophisticated equipment with state-of- the-art technology, both for production and services, such as Japan and Germany, would be included in that sphere, as well as China, the potentially largest locomotive of the world economy, with a population of close to 1.4 billion and over $1.5 trillion in its hard currency reserves, mostly in US dollars and Treasury bonds. Japan comes second with an almost identical total of hard currency reserves.

At the present juncture, as the Shanghai professor has rightly indicated and rejected, the value of the dollar is increasing due to this currency’s dominant position imposed on the world economy.

A large number of Third World countries, exporters of goods and raw materials with little added value, are importers of Chinese consumer goods which generally have reasonable prices, and technical products from Japan and Germany, which are constantly increasing in price. Even though China has tried to halt the overvaluation of the yuan, as the Yankees are constantly demanding in order to protect their industries from Chinese competition, the value of the yuan is increasing and the purchasing power of our exports is decreasing.

The price of nickel, our main export item, whose value recently reached $50,000-plus per ton, is currently barely fetching $8,500 per ton; that is, less than 20% of its maximum price attained. The price of copper has dropped at least 50%, and the same is happening with iron, aluminum, tin, zinc, and all the minerals indispensable for sustained development. And defying any rational or human sense, the price of consumer goods like coffee, cocoa, sugar and others have barely grown over more than 40 years. That is why, not long ago, I also warned that as a result of the impending crisis, markets would be lost and the purchasing power of our products would be considerably reduced. In that circumstance, the developed capitalist nations are well aware that their factories and services will be paralyzed, and only the consumption capacity of a large part of humankind already living on the poverty line or below it, will keep them operating.

That is the great dilemma posed by the financial crisis and the danger that social and national self-interest will prevail over and above the desire of many politicians and statespersons agonizing over the phenomenon. They do not have the least confidence in the very same system from which they emerged as public figures.

When the peoples leave behind illiteracy, know how to read and write and possess the minimum knowledge indispensable for living and producing in an honorable way, they will still need to overcome the worst form of ignorance in our times: economic illiteracy. Only in that way can we understand what is occurring in the world.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 26, 2008
5:15 p.m.

It is a spiritual force. In the critical moments of Russian history it played an important role. When the Great Russian War began after the treacherous Nazi attack, Stalin turned to it in support of the workers and peasants that the October Revolution made owners of the factories and the land.

When the USSR disintegrated, imperialism did not have an ally in that Church. For that reason, when His Eminence Vladimir Mijailovich Gundiav, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, visited our country in 2004, I proposed to him to build a cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church as a monument to Cuban-Russian friendship. City Historian Eusebio Leal assumed responsibility for the completion of the task. Soil from the place where the remains of Soviet soldiers who died in our country during many years of lending their services here. For that reason, when the Cathedral was inaugurated last Sunday, I felt a desire to talk with the esteemed figure from the Russian Orthodox Church who was visiting us.

Tomorrow, Thursday, he will be in Venezuela conversing with President Chávez. Both are inspired by the same ethical principles emanating from Christ’s preaching according to the Evangelists, a religious belief that the two share. Then he is to visit Ecuador to talk with Correa, a political leader educated in Liberation Theology.

His Eminence is not an enemy of socialism, nor does he condemn to eternal fire those of us who based ourselves on Marxism-Leninism to fight for a just world. When he talks in the UN Human Rights Council or other institutions, he is listened to with much respect. In his immense country, he talks regularly on television, for 15 minutes every Saturday, and is followed with interest by tens of millions of people.

Our capital is enriched with a temple worthy of the prestigious Russian Orthodox Church, which is unimpeachable evidence of the respect of our Revolution for one of the fundamental principles of human rights, in consonance with a profound and radical socialist revolution.

There is no reason whatsoever to make the slightest concession to Yankee imperialism. I have the impression that His Eminence thinks that way. He is not anti-Muslim, he respects that religion. Within his ecumenical conception, he believes that the Catholic Church can solve his problems with countries such as China and Vietnam.

It was most agreeable and edifying talking with him.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 21, 2008
7:40 p.m.

On Sunday, October 12, the Eurozone countries agreed an anti-crisis plan at the initiative of French President Sarkozy.

On Monday 13th came the announcement of multimillion funds that the European countries are to inject into the financial market to avoid a collapse. Shares rose with the surprising news.

In virtue of the aforementioned agreement, Germany had committed – in the rescue survey – 480 billion euros; France, 360 billion; Holland, 200 billion; Austria and Spain, 100 billion each; and so on until the total reached, with the British contribution of 1.7 trillion euros which, that day – given that the exchange rate between one and another currency is constantly varying – was equivalent to U.S.$2.2 billion, on top of the $700 billion of the United States.

The shares of the major corporations that had not gone bankrupt saw a sudden rise in their value which, while far from compensating the losses suffered in nine tragic days, allowed the politicians and bankers of the developed capitalist system to enjoy a breathing space.

In the evening of that same day, Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister of Italy, at a banquet given in his honor at the White House, made a speech rendering tribute to Bush; “We trust in the president who had the courage to put into practice what he considered right, what he must do for himself, his people and the world.”

He really went over the top there!

Also on the 13th, the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for 2008 was awarded to U.S. citizen Paul Krugman. An undoubted defender of the capitalist system, he is also a very strong critic of President Bush.

Under the headline Gordon’s done a good job, published on the 14th in El País, various ideas are expressed, some of which merit being quoted textually:

“The natural thing to do is to face the problem of the lack of financial capital by having the state supply the financial institutions with more capital in exchange for part ownership…

“This kind of temporary partial nationalization was also the preferred solution, in private, of Ben Bernanke, president of the Federal Reserve.

“On announcing his financial aid plan of 500 billion euros, Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary, rejected this obvious way, alleging, “that is what is done in the case of bankruptcy.”

“The UK government has gone straight to the root of the problem and has acted with astonishing speed to solve it.”

“Paulson – having supposedly misspent a number of very valuable weeks – has also backpedaled and is now attempting to buy up bank shares instead of toxic mortgage assets.

“As I have said, we still don’t know if these measures will work… That clearsightedness has had to come from London and not from Washington.

“It is hard to ignore the feeling that Paulson’s initial response was distorted by ideology. Remember, he works for a government whose philosophy can be summed up by ‘private is good; public, bad.’”

“Throughout the executive, professional experts have been dismissed; quite possibly there is nobody left in the Treasury with the stature and experience necessary to tell Paulson that what he was doing made no sense.

“Luckily for the world economy, what Gordon Brown and his ministers are doing does make sense. And perhaps they have showed us the way to get over this crisis.”

As he confesses, not even the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences is convinced that those measures will work.

These things are unheard of.

On Tuesday 14th, shares on the Stock Exchange fell a few points. The smiles have become more stereotypic.

The European capitalist countries, their productive and mercantile capacity saturated, desperately in need of markets to avoid strikes by workers and those specialized in services, depositors who are losing their money and ruined campesinos, are in no position to impose conditions and solutions on the rest of the world. That is being proclaimed by leaders of important emerging countries and of those poor and economically plundered nations who are the victims of unequal terms of trade.

Today, Wednesday, the value of stock market shares crashed again.

McCain and Obama are to laboriously debate the economic issue tonight.

In the great democracy of the United States, half of those with the right to vote are not registered; of those registered, half do not vote and only 25% elect those who govern them. Many of those who might now wish to vote for the Black candidate, cannot do so.

According to the polls, that candidate has an overwhelming majority. However, nobody dares to say what the result will be.

November 4 is a day of great interest to world public opinion, given the economic crisis in which U.S. society is enmeshed.

In the electoral context, there is just one thing that we can be sure of: in the next UK elections, Gordon Brown will not be elected prime minister.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 15, 2008
7:05 p.m.

As the dramatic combats developed in Cangamba we could see that the enemy intended more than an isolated action. First, we had to save the Cuban internationalists and the men of the 32nd Brigade FAPLA.

On August 7, in a handwritten letter I sent to those besieged, we promised they would be rescued at all costs.

The assault and landing brigade was sent from Cuba by air. If need be, all the available means would be used, that’s why we urged them to resist as they did. Once the mission of crushing the assailing forces had been accomplished other measures had to be adopted to break up the enemy’s strategic plans.

In his historic research, Blandino reconstructs the enemy’s intentions based on proofs and testimonies he collected:

“Not only Cangamba is under enemy fire, but also Munhango, Calapo, Tempue and Luena –villages located north of Cangumbe– are being simultaneously attacked with artillery and mortar fire. Only Cangumbe has been seized; in the other places the enemy is repelled. The aggressor’s strategic objective is to isolate the Moxico province and to prevent the arrival of reinforcements, then seize Luena, a city it intends to proclaim the capital of a so-called ‘black republic’ severed from Angola. After this, it would seek international recognition. But, at the moment, its purpose is to seize Cangamba and to capture or kill the Cuban advisors there. It is betting on the political, moral and psychological impact of such a blow.”

“Division General Leopoldo Cintra Frias:

“Their plan is to seize the whole place, capturing the eighty-two Cubans there to try forcing Cuba to negotiate directly with UNITA, leaving the Angolan government out.”

“General N’Dalu:

“Being aware of the Cuban presence there, UNITA resorts to a major force, many troops, to try to capture them and present them to the international press; that’s why they make such efforts. We are extremely worried about that; if Cuban prisoners were exposed it would be bad for everything, for the struggle we’re carrying forward and all. On the other hand, our people are suffering there, too.”

“The testimony of Colonel Wambu –chief of Intelligence of FALA (Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola and a part of UNITA) during the Cangamba operation— is of great importance:

“The participation of the South African aviation is contemplated, above all, due to the Cuban presence. It can be considered the first confrontation between the joint South African and UNITA forces, and the forces of the Angolan State with the support it can get. The Cuban presence is of special strategic interest.”

It is in Cangamba, after the enemy closes in from west and south, that the main blow is dealt with the 12th and 13th semi-regular brigades, two of its three most important units. Two other independent battalions and a special destiny company are also involved; three thousand men. The powerful concentration of forces counts on some fifty to sixty artillery and mortar pieces, seven 14.5 millimeters multiple antiaircraft systems known as “cuatrobocas”, and portable antiaircraft rockets.

The abovementioned FALA colonel adds:

“Talking in classical terms, we have on the ground a brigade in an expanded disposition, since it’s not only the three infantry battalions but considerably expanded troops. Although there are not South African ground troops, in terms of infantry the watchers and pointers for the air raids and the logistics and drivers, etc. bring the number of troops up to a battalion. We can speak of a conventional brigade of FALA troops, plus two battalions of command and services, and a combined battalion of men who support the logistics, artillery and air observation, in addition to liaison officers from the South African side, that is, officers from the intelligence services, the air force and other specialties.”

“Lieutenant Colonel N’gongo (Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola, MPLA):

“That same day the Western press starts reporting that Cangamba is under siege from some nine thousand men, therefore, sooner or later it will fall in UNITA hands.”

The armored column that left Huambo, we add, reinforced Luena with enough forces to face any South African attack in that direction. This meant a remarkable progress. In order to go from Luanda, the Angolan capital to the West, towards Luena, capital of Moxico, it was imperative to move 687.5 miles by road, a distance similar to that between Havana City and Santiago de Cuba. The bridges had been destroyed by the UNITA gangs. The supplying caravans and the constructors of provisional passages to supply the populations had a hard time advancing along the road. The key places had to be protected.

The armored column from Menongue was strongly reinforced –and the South front with her– by the already mentioned fresh tank battalions sent from Cuba. We were stronger. But we would still have to wait four more years and endure the consequences of Konstantin’s erratic strategies that cost the Angolans so many lives.

The Soviet advisor had arrived in the Peoples Republic of Angola at the end of 1982 as chief of his country’s Military Mission. Once his tour of duty had been completed he returned to the USSR in 1985, but in 1987 he was back in the African country with a higher military rank. He was the strategist of the absurd offensives towards Jamba in the remote Angolan Southeast where Savimbi’s hypothetical commanding post was located, while the UNITA bandits, with South African support, operated in municipalities close to Luanda, as I have said on previous occasions. However, the last of these offensives with the usual disastrous outcome led to the Cuito Cuanavale battle, which marked the beginning of the end of apartheid when the Angolan units, uselessly battered were falling back and the South African army clashed with the tank brigade, the BM-21s and the Cuban forces sent to defend the old NATO air base.

At that decisive moment, the President of Angola fully supported our viewpoints. As soon as the last shots were heard in the distant bulwark, over 30 thousand Angolan troops and 40 thousand Cuban internationalist combatants advanced along the Angolan Southwest towards the South African lines on the Namibian border. They marched with their well-trained chiefs and officers who had accumulated experience in the struggle. A great number of tanks, antiaircraft rocket artillery together with other weapons and the corresponding personnel were sent from Cuba.

With a relatively small number of MiG-23 aircrafts and the audacity of our pilots, we became the masters of the air, even though they were not that many when compared with the number of South African fighter planes. The USSR still existed. It was a country that showed its solidarity with Cuba. Gorbachev had become the top leader of the Party and State. I sent him a personal message urgently asking him to provide 12 additional MiG-23 fighter planes. He gave a positive response.

In a matter of weeks, we had built an advanced airstrip to the Southwest of Angola, over 125 miles from the place where the most important defense line in the area had been. Our main problem was the shortage of additional fuel tanks for the MiGs. It was practically impossible that anyone would give us a few more. Anyway, the South African barracks in the frontline were within our reach and, except for distant fighter planes, they had hardly any antiaircraft weapons. The few additional tanks would enable us to strike on the racists as far as Windhoek, the capital of Namibia.

Nevertheless, South Africa had seven nuclear weapons supplied by the Reagan administration. Based on certain information, we had guessed that they might have them. Thus, we placed explosive charges in the levee of an important water reservoir inside Angola built by the Portuguese colonialists almost on the Namibian border, near the main positions occupied by the South African army in that country. The Cuban and Angolan troops were conveniently deployed in case those weapons were eventually used to strike them. Nothing could beat the selfless heroism of the internationalist combatants determined to put an end to apartheid.

South Africa failed to withstand the challenge and negotiated after the first blows dealt in that direction, still inside the Angolan territory. For months the Yankees, the racists, the Angolans, the Soviets and the Cubans sat at the same table. And there was Konstantin, with the ones advocating our cause. I had already met him and had tried to prevent his feeling humiliated by our discrepancies and our successes. He was undoubtedly influential with the military command of the glorious Soviet Army. His mistakes had an important bearing on our country’s decision to prevent the racists from intervening in Angola and to rectify the political mistakes made by the Soviet leadership in 1976.

In an act of generosity towards a man who had been our adversary in strategic matters, we decided to present him with the “Che Guevara” Order. He apparently received it with satisfaction. His worst mistake was not what he had done before, but what he did later. The USSR had disappeared and Konstantin made opportunistic statements slandering Cuba, which had been so generous to him. The professional military of Cangamba, who advocated the absurd initiatives he proposed and invented the useless offensives towards remote Jamba, had been conquered by the enemy’s anti-Cuban ideology. Not many of his patriotic countrymen will defend him.

Konstantin was his war name. One day I mentioned his real name, with no last names; it was the one I remembered then. I don’t want to bring it up again.

Savimbi remained loyal to his adventurous and mercenary spirit. Initially, he was at the service of the Portuguese colonialists; later, of the South African racists, and eventually, he was directly at the service of the Yankee imperialists. When the apartheid system was removed by the very South African people and the stunning blow it received in Angola, the Yankees put him under the protection of Mobutu, who had amassed a $40 billion fortune from plundering Zaire. Europe surely knows this story well. Savimbi collected diamonds in the Center and North of Angola for himself and UNITA. He thus continued his brutal war against the Angolans. But the Cubans were no longer there; once their mission had been duly fulfilled, they had rigorously observed their gradual withdrawal schedule.

The FAPLA, by then a brave and experienced armed force, crushed Savimbi’s pro-Yankee army supported by Mobutu. Then UNITA had no option but to abandon the revolt. The Angolan nation could preserve its independence and integrity.

It is necessary that young revolutionary internationalists, with deep feelings and willing to act, put on record for history the actions carried out by the Cuban people.

The FAR are for our Party an unassailable bulwark, a Mambi Army which this time was not, and never will be disarmed.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 14, 2008
11:36 a.m.

Three days ago, on Friday October 10, the world was shocked by the impact of the Wall Street financial crisis. There is no way to count the millions of dollars in paper money injected by the Federal Reserve into the world’s finances to keep up banking operations and to prevent depositors from losing their money.

The G-7 finance ministers’ meeting has agreed to implement the following measures:

• Take decisive measures and use every available instrument to back financial institutions of importance to the system and prevent their bankruptcy.
• Take all necessary steps to unfreeze the credit and monetary markets and to ensure that banks and other financial institutions have plenty of access to liquidity and funds.
• Ensure that banks and other major financial intermediaries, depending on their needs, can raise capital from both public and private sources in sufficient amounts to restore confidence and enable them to make loans to families and businesses.
• Ensure that each country’s respective national deposit insurance and guarantee programs are robust and consistent so that minor depositors continue to have confidence in the safety of their deposits.
• To act, when appropriate, to re-launch the secondary mortgage market.

That same day, the secretary of the US Treasury confirmed that the government would purchase bank shares, thus joining Britain’s initiative. Both the United States and Britain have indicated that they will purchase preferential shares which are the first to receive dividends but that will have no voting rights.

President Bush deemed his presence unnecessary at that finance ministers’ meeting. He will meet with them on Saturday. Where was he on Friday, October 10th? In Miami, no less. He was attending a fundraiser for Florida Republican candidates. Presently, with a 24% approval rating, he is the president with the least amount of support in the entire history of the United States. He was meeting with businesspeople and ringleaders of the Cuban scum in Miami. There he was, driven by his maniacal anti-Cuban obsession, at the end of his dismal two terms as leader of the empire. He could not even count on the support of the Cuban-American National Foundation set up by Reagan as part of his anti-Cuba crusade.

For purely demagogical reasons, that organization had publicly asked him to provisionally lift the ban on sending direct assistance to relatives and others affected by the devastating hurricanes which hit our people. Raul Martinez, a former mayor of Hialeah and a rival of Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, had criticized the current policies of the man who was elected president by fraudulent means with less national votes than his adversary, due to Florida’s weight in the electoral vote count, when he failed to win a majority even there.

On Sunday October 12, the European Union, chaired by France, agreed to request that the United States organize a summit to “reestablish the international financial system.” This was stated by President Sarkozy after a meeting in Paris of the Eurozone countries.

Sarkozy said Europe should now join the United States and other powers in attacking the root causes of the financial crisis in which the stock markets are immersed.

“We should persuade our American friends of the need for an international summit to reestablish the financial system,” said Sarkozy, current president of the EU. It will not be a gift to the banks, the French president emphasized.

The president of the United States, George Bush, today begins his final 100 days in power shadowed by his extreme unpopularity and one of the worst economic crises in recent decades.

On the other hand, Brazilian Treasury Minister Guido Mantega criticized the IMF today for describing the advanced nations as models to pursue, and said that the rules of those nations should not prevail in any future reform of the financial system.

“The world is watching in awe as the present crisis exposes weaknesses and serious errors in the policies of countries that were considered models and presented as points of reference for good government,” Mantega said in the International Monetary and Financial Committee, the IMF’s main leadership body.

With the global economy in tatters, the U.S. president, who was placed in that office in such an irregular and irresponsible way, has created a real predicament for all of the NATO allies and Japan, the most developed and wealthiest military, economic and technological partner of the United States in the Pacific.

Miami today is bedlam and Bush has become a ghost.

The stock markets have not fallen further because they were already on the floor. Today, they were breathing happily thanks to the enormous injections of money artificially inflating them at the expense of the future. However, this absurdity cannot last. Bretton Woods is in its death throes. The world will never be the same again.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 13, 2008
5:20 p.m.

The intensity of the actions by the small group of MiG-21 pilots was related by the author as follows:

“Despite the confidentiality demanded from members of the General Staff and the personnel at the command posts, it is impossible to prevent any leak concerning a war action lasting more than eight days and which has kept hundred of men and women on both sides of the ocean in maximum tension.

“How to conceal, for example, the deafening noise of 239 takeoffs and landings by fighter jets –over 50 a day—even though that very high number of sorties was accomplished by just nine pilots who remained in the air for an average of two and a half hours each day during battle, including one who has completed almost four sorties every day, which means having flown for 3 hours and 45 minutes in one after another of these tense missions?

“What method can guarantee the secret movement of the thousands of men making up the armored column reinforcements? How to make invisible the movement of the approximately 200 vehicles that make up each of these – including tanks, artillery and armored transportation vehicles – along hundreds of miles to Munhango, Tempue, Luena and other places from Huambo, Menongue and other points of the extensive Angolan territory?”

The armored column from Huambo, on its way to Cangamba, and which later, after the lifting of the siege, received instructions to turn left in the direction of Luena, reports to the command post by radio “that they have run out of fuel.” As related in the book, “this and the Menongue column are ordered to stay put and to take the necessary safety measures until they have been refueled. The decision is made that the helicopters will take that important supply to them. As always, it is extremely difficult to locate the column. The aircraft spend a long time flying without finding the slightest trace of them. Finally, they are located by some sheets spread over the trees.”

Colonel Calvo reports: “Six helicopters are taking off from Luena to Munhango, 25 kilometers south of Luena, taking 42 drums of gasoline – about 10,000 liters – to Sotomayor’s column. The blades of the H-08 break during the landing. The later, they also take off for Tempue region to locate Suarez’ column, take him documents and get out three injured men.”

Suarez’ armored column, which had left Menongue for Cangamba, was a long way away from Luena, from where the helicopters carrying the fuel took off. It is a long haul given the extension of Angola, which covers an area approximately 11 times that of Cuba. It was the territory where the Soviet advisor proposed to launch an offensive with the Cuban assault brigade, giving rise to the conflict that came up.

“A few minutes past midnight, when it was already Saturday 13 in Luanda, it is communicated to Cuba that the order to evacuate every Cuban internationalist from Cangamba has been fully carried out. The high command of the FAR ratifies the decision that the Huambo column should continue its march to Luena, and that the Menongue column should return to that city” (an important bulwark on the South Front).

Colonel Calvo:

“It’s also my birthday and I receive an early kiss sent by my family – telepathically. In the afternoon, I am presented with a bottle of wine and one of rum, and we celebrate the Comandante’s birthday (on the same day) and mine too.”

The author continues explaining:

“But for the pilots and the members of the armored columns, the actions were far from over. Two helicopters take off loaded with 14 drums of gasoline, about 2,800 liters, for the Menongue column, which has already begun the return march to that city. Once that first flight was completed, they head for Menongue airport in order to continue supplying fuel from there. Four others Mi-8’s also take off from Luena for Munhango, loaded with an additional 5,600 liters of gasoline. Their mission is to refuel the Huambo column which is now heading for Luena to reinforce the troops defending that city.

“There are more than enough reasons to justify all these measures, since the Cuban command is still anxious. Apparently, the Angolan authorities have decided, at least for now, not to evacuate their troops from Cangamba and the risk of a renewed enemy attack, both the village and the columns still marching through hazardous roads, is still present.”

In a detailed description of the events in Cangamba based on testimonies and documents and offered under the epigraph, “The assessment is confirmed”, the author takes us to the tensest hours of those days:

“It is still some time before daybreak in Angola. It is Sunday, August 14. It is 04:45 hours in Luanda and the combatants on guard duty at the Communications Center at the Cuban Military Mission headquarters are sunk in the torpor that accompanies the dawn for those who have not slept all night. The entry of a message from Havana, where it is still 23:45 pm the night before, rapidly dissipates sleepiness of the occupants of the mission, well-equipped with technical backup.

“Slowly, the coded text is becoming intelligible. Its content is addressed to Division General Leopoldo Cintra Frias and contains precise instructions from the Commander in Chief: ‘Be prepared to give air support to the FAPLA in Cangamba.’ If the Angolans ultimately decide to pull out, help them with the helicopters. Fidel warns that the enemy has sustained heavy losses, but our combatants shouldn’t be overconfident: ‘We have fulfilled our duty, and acted and advised correctly.’”

At dawn that Sunday, eight South African bombers dropped their deadly loads on the positions occupied by the Angolan and Cuban forces in Cangamba. Once again the apartheid regime was making a direct intervention in Angola. The Yankees and their South African allies were not resigned to their devastating defeat. The closet MiGs-21’s and radars were 400 kilometers away “Colonel N’Gongo (Deputy Chief of the FAPLA General Staff):

“Once the puppets had been defeated, the South Africans saw themselves obliged directly intervene in the combat. That is why the South African racist forces, with four Canberra aircraft and four Impala MK-2 planes, completely destroyed the population of Cangamba.”

Lieutenant Colonel Henry:

“…we won the battle in Cangamba; we pilots even thought of doing an air parade will all our planes, flying over there with the planes, but Fidel says: ‘…I don’t want anybody there, neither Cubans nor FAPLA.’ I must acknowledge that we acted on this order out of discipline and confidence in the Commander in Chief, but really, at that moment we didn’t understand…”

Colonel Escalante:

“…it is true that the Commander in Chief is either a magician or has a crystal ball. He orders the urgent evacuation from Cangamba and, shortly afterward, a squadron of Impalas and another of Canberra – they bombed that place with works! He anticipated that the South Africans, precisely because of the defeat that UNITA suffered, would bomb the area. At the Mission we said: ‘Damn it, the truth is that the Commander in Chief made a tremendous decision!

Division General Leopoldo Cintra Frias:

“Sometimes you’d think that the Chief is a fortune teller. If the Cubans had been there, we would once again have been immersed in an even more prolonged combat and in worse conditions for us, because refueling would have been even more difficult.”

These opinions were expressed at a point when tensions had decreased, after the uncertain and dramatic days of the battle, but not one of those chiefs failed to fulfill the instructions received with absolute discipline, efficiency and seriousness. It is absolutely true that when times are hard, nothing works if there is no confidence in those who are leading.

Twenty years later, Amels Escalante, who is also an astute and zealous researcher, was totally rigorous in his description of the Jigue battle, where, 45 years earlier, in July 1958, around 120 men – almost all of them recruited from the Minas del Frio school – under the command of 10 or 12 chiefs, veterans of our war in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, fighting for 10 days, and inflicting on the enemy and its reinforcements three casualties per each combatant who took part in the action, and they seized hundreds of weapons. Amels, using the same method as Jorge Martin Blandino, obtained more details than I had of that battle.

In his book Cangamba, Martin Blandino illustrates with details:

“Between August 18 and 23, 1983, just a few days after the evacuation of the Cuban advisors from Cangamba, the ships Donato Marmol, Ignacio Agramonte and Pepito Tey left for Angola from the ports of Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas and Mariel. Thus, in different circumstances, the feat of 1975 was repeated under different circumstances. Hidden from enemy intelligence means in the hold of these merchant ships, three tank battalions and one mechanized infantry battalion are traveling to the African country. That first step is soon followed by many others on the military, political and diplomatic plane to afford the FAPLA and the Cuban internationalist contingent the conditions to defeat the new escalation by the foreign aggressor and its local allies…

“All of this is taking place at a point when Cuba is facing the possibility of a direct large-scale military aggression by the U.S. armed forces, when the country is involved in the immense effort to implement the concept of the war of all the people, in the face of the constant threats from the Ronald Reagan administration…”

How did the events expounded by the researcher come about so quickly?

From Cuba, elemental logic enabled us to perceive the enemy intentions very quickly, as the fighting developed, and we set about adopting the corresponding measures in response. The very first one, when we received the news that the 32nd brigade and its advisors were under siege, was to implement the immediate return to Angola of Division General Leopoldo Cintra Frias, chief of the Military Mission, a veteran of the Sierra Maestra and a devoted supporter of FAPLA, who happened to be in Cuba at the time. The order he received was: “Those forces have to be rescued at all costs.”
“The Landing and Assault Brigade (as it was then called) was sent by air to the country being systematically attacked by South Africa.

I have already said that we had been suffering for years the consequences of the impunity enjoyed by the fascist apartheid regime, which had been defeated in its aggression of the People’s Republic of Angola. I have likewise explained to the Soviet leadership the reasons and points of view maintained by Cuba.

I shall continue tomorrow, Tuesday.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 12, 2008
5:23 p.m.