Reflections of Fidel

The final declaration from the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh on Friday, September 25 seems unreal. Let’s have a look at the main points in its contents:

“We meet in the midst of a critical transition from crisis to recovery to turn the page on an era of irresponsibility and to adopt a set of policies, regulations and reforms to meet the needs of the 21st century global economy.

“We pledge today to sustain our strong policy response until a durable recovery is secured.”

“…we pledge to adopt the policies needed to lay the foundation for strong, sustained and balanced growth in the 21st century.”

“We want growth without cycles of boom and bust and markets that foster responsibility.”

“…we [will] act together to generate strong, sustainable and balanced global growth. We need a durable recovery that creates the good jobs our people need.”

“We need to establish a pattern of growth across countries that are more sustainable and balanced, and reduce development imbalances.”

“We pledge to avoid destabilizing booms and busts in asset and credit prices”

“We will also make decisive progress on structural reforms that foster private demand and strengthen long-run growth potential.”

“Where reckless behavior and a lack of responsibility led to crisis, we will not allow a return to banking as usual.”

“We committed to act together to end practices that lead to excessive risk-taking.”

“We designated the G-20 to be the premier forum for our international economic cooperation.”

“We are committed to a shift in International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota share to dynamic emerging markets and developing countries of at least 5 percent …”

“a sustainable economic development is essential in order to reduce poverty.”

The G-20 is made up of the seven wealthiest and most industrialized countries: the United States, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, plus Russia; the 11 principal emerging countries: China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Mexico and the European Union; with several of these we have excellent economic and political relations. For the last three Summits, Spain and Holland take part as guests.

The idea of capitalist development without crisis is the great dream that the US and its allies are trying to sell to the countries with emerging economies that participate in the G-20.

Almost all the Third World countries which are not US allies are observing how the United States prints paper money that circulates throughout the planet like convertible currency with no gold backing, buying shares and companies, natural resources, real estate and chattel, and public debt bonds, protecting their products, stripping nations of their best brainpower and granting extra-territoriality for their laws. This gets added to the overwhelming power of its weaponry and the monopoly on the basic mass media.

Consumer societies are incompatible with saving the natural and energy resources that development and the preservation of our species require.

In a brief historical period and thanks to the Revolution, China ceased being a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, growing at the rhythm of more than 10 percent for the last 20 years and it has become the main engine of the world economy. There has never been such an enormous multi-national state to achieve such a rate of growth. Today it has the most elevated reserve of convertible currencies and it is the greatest creditor of the United States. The difference is abysmal with respect to the two most developed capitalist countries in the world: the United States and Japan. Their accumulated debts total 20 trillion dollars.

The US can no longer be the model for economic development.

Departing from the fact that in recent years the temperature of the planet has gone up 0.8 degrees Celsius, the same day the Pittsburgh Summit concluded the principal American news agency printed that the temperature would go up “almost three degrees Celsius between this year and the end of the century, even if every country were to reduce their emissions of greenhouse effect gases as they propose, according to a United Nations report.”

“A group of scientists reviewed the plans for emissions from 192 countries and calculated what might happen with global warming. Projections take into account 80 percent of the cutbacks on pollutants in the United States and Europe for the year 2050, something which is not certain.” “Carbon dioxide, derived mainly from the use of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, is the principal cause of global warming which traps solar energy in the atmosphere (…) the world temperature has already increased by 0.8 degrees C.,” it reiterates.

“A large part of the increase is due to developing nations which have not undertaken great measures to reduce their gas emissions, scientists pointed out at a press conference on Thursday.”

“‘We are headed for a very serious series of changes on our planet,’ said Achim Steiner, director of UNEPA, the United Nations Environment Programme.”

And Robert Corell, an important American specialist on climate, stressed that:

“… it would be the same for an increase of 2.7 degrees C. in world temperature by the end of the century, said Corell. European leaders and President Barack Obama of the United States established a goal to limit warming by a couple of degrees.”

What they haven’t explained is how they are going to reach that goal, nor the GDP contribution to invest in the poor countries and to compensate for the damages caused by the volume of polluting gases that the most industrialized countries have launched into the atmosphere. World public opinion ought to acquire a solid education on climate change. Even if there was not the slightest error in the calculations, humanity will be marching on the edge of the abyss.

When Obama was meeting in Pittsburgh with his G-20 guests to talk about the delights of Capitalism, the Summit Meeting of the UNASUR and Organization of African Unity heads of state was beginning on Margarita Island in Venezuela. There, more than 60 presidents, prime ministers and senior representatives of the countries of South America and Africa were coming together. Also present were Lula, Cristina Fernandez and the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, coming from Pittsburgh in order to enjoy a warmer, more fraternal summit meeting where the problems of the Third World were being tackled with great honesty. President Hugo Rafael Chavez of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela shone and vibrated at that Summit. I had the pleasant possibility of listening to the voices of well-known and proven friends.

Cuba gives thanks for the support and solidarity that emerged from that Summit where nothing was forgotten.

Come what may, the peoples will become ever more aware of their rights and duties!

What a great battle will be waged in Copenhagen!

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 27, 2009
6:14 p.m.

Last July 16, I literally said that the coup d’etat in Honduras “was conceived and organized by unscrupulous characters on the far-right who were officials in the confidence of George W. Bush and had been promoted by him.”

I mentioned the names of Hugo Llorens, Robert Blau, Stephen McFarland and Robert Callahan, Yankee ambassadors to Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua appointed by Bush in the months of July and August 2008; the four pursued the line of John Negroponte and Otto Reich, two characters with an ominous history.

I then indicated that the Yankee base at Soto Cano had provided the main backup to the coup and that “the idea of a peace initiative from Costa Rica was transmitted to the president of that country from the State Department when Obama was in Moscow and he was declaring at a Russian university that the only president of Honduras was Manuel Zelaya,” and added: “With the Costa Rica meeting, the authority of the UN, the OAS and the other institutions that committed their support to the people of Honduras is being questioned.” “The only correct thing to do at this moment is to demand that the government of the United States ceases its intervention, stops giving military aid to the coup and pulls out its Task Force from Honduras.”

The US response to the coup d’etat in that Central American country has been to strike an agreement with the government of Colombia in order to set up seven military bases similar to that of Soto Cano in that sister nation thus menacing Venezuela, Brazil and every other people in South America.

At a critical moment, when the tragedy of the climate change and the international economic crisis are under discussion at a UN summit conference of heads of States, the putschists in Honduras are threatening the immunity of the Brazilian Embassy where President Zelaya, his family and a group of followers were forced to seek sanctuary.

The fact is that the government of Brazil had absolutely nothing to do with the situation created there.

Consequently, it is inadmissible –actually inconceivable– that the Brazilian Embassy may be assaulted by the fascist government, unless it intends to commit suicide dragging the country to a direct intervention of foreign forces, –as it was the case in Haiti which would mean the intervention of Yankee troops under the UN flag. Honduras is not a remote isolated country in the Caribbean. An intervention in Honduras with foreign forces would unleash a conflict in Central America and bring political chaos to the entire Latin American region.

The heroic struggle of the Honduran people during almost 90 days of ceaseless battle has placed the fascist pro-Yankee government, which is crushing unarmed men and women, in a critical situation.

We have seen the emergence of a new conscience among the Honduran people. Legions of social fighters have gained experience in that battle. Zelaya delivered on his promise to return. He is entitled to his position in the government and to preside over the elections. New and admirable cadres are outstanding in the combative social movements; they are capable of leading that people through the hazardous journey ahead of the peoples of Our America. A Revolution is in the making there.

The current session of the United Nations General Assembly can be a historic one depending on its rights and/or wrongs.

The world leaders have presented very interesting and complex subjects, which reflect the enormity of the tasks facing humanity and the little time available.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 24, 2009
1:23 PM

Bolivarian President Hugo Chavez really made a clever remark when he referred to the “riddle of the two Obamas.”

The serious Obama spoke today. Recently, I recognized two positive features in his behavior: his attempt to make health care available to the 47 million Americans who don’t have access to it, and his concern for climate change.

What I said yesterday about the imminent threat to the human species could sound pessimistic but it is not far from reality. The views of many Heads of State on the ignored and neglected issue of climate change are still unknown.

As the representative of the country hosting the United Nations High Level Meeting on the subject, Obama was the first to express his opinion.

What did he say? I’ll refer to the substance of his remarks.

- He said that he recognizes that the threat on the planet is serious and growing.

- That history will pass judgment on the response to this environmental challenge.

- That there is no nation, big or small, that can avoid the impact of climate change.

- That there is a daily increase of the high tides lashing against the coastlines while more intensive storms and floods are threatening our continents.

- That the security and stability of every nation are in danger.

- That climate has been placed at the top of the international agenda, from China to Brazil, from India to Mexico, Africa and Europe.

- That these can be significant steps if we are all united.

- That we understand the seriousness of the situation and are determined to act on it.

- That we were not there to celebrate any progress.

- That much remains to be done.

- That it will not be an easy job.

- That the most difficult part of the road is ahead of us.

- That this is happening at a time when to many the priority is to revitalize their economies.

- That we all have doubts about the climate challenge.

-That difficulties and doubts are no excuse to act.

- That each of us should do his share so that our economies can grow without endangering the planet.

- That we should turn Copenhagen into a significant step forward in the climate debate.

- That we should not allow for old divisions to jeopardize the united quest for solutions.

- That the developed nations have caused most of the damage and should thus take responsibility for it.

- That we shall not overcome this challenge unless we are united.

- That we know that these nations, particularly the most vulnerable, do not have the same resources to combat climate change.

- That the future is not a choice between economic growth and a clean planet because survival depends on both.

- That it is our responsibility to provide technical and financial assistance to these nations.

- That we are seeking an agreement that would enhance the quality of life of the peoples without disturbing the planet.

- That we know that the future depends on a global commitment.

- But that it is a long and tough road and we have no time to make the journey.

The problem now is that everything he has said contradicts what the United States has been doing for over 150 years, especially from the moment –at the end of World War II– when it imposed on the world the Bretton Woods accord and became the master of the world economy.

The hundreds of military bases set up in scores of countries in every continent; their aircraft carriers and Navy fleets; their thousands of nuclear weapons; their wars of conquest; their military-industrial complex and their arms trade are incompatible with the survival of our species. Likewise, the consumer societies and the wastage of material resources are incompatible with the idea of economic growth and a clean planet. The unlimited waste of non-renewable natural resources, –especially oil and gas accumulated throughout hundreds of millions of years and depleted in barely two centuries at the current rate of consumption has been the major cause of climate change. Even if the unfriendly emissions of the industrialized nations were reduced, which would be commendable, it is a reality that 5.2 billion people on planet Earth, that is, three-fourth of the population live in countries that are still in various stages of development and will therefore demand an enormous input of coal, oil, natural gas and other non-renewable resources that, according to the consumption patterns created by the capitalist economies, are incompatible with the objective of saving the human species.

It would not be fair to blame the serious Obama for the above-mentioned riddle of what has happened until today, but it would not be fair either to have the other Obama make us believe that humanity could be preserved under the prevailing rules of the world economy.

The President of the United States has conceded that the developed nations have caused most of the damage and should take responsibility for it. It was certainly a brave gesture.

It would also be fair to concede that no other President of the United States would have had the courage to say what he has said.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 22, 2009
6:14 pm

Today I would have liked to speak about the extraordinary “Paz sin Fronteras” (Peace without Borders) Concert held at the José Martí Revolution Square 24 hours ago, but the stubborn reality forces me to write about a danger that threatens not just peace but the survival of our species.

The United Nations Organization, whose task is to safeguard the peace, security and rights of almost 200 states that represent more than 6 thousand 500 million inhabitants on our planet, is about to begin the General Assembly debates next Wednesday, with the participation of heads of states. This time, on Tuesday September 22nd, given the exceptional importance of the subject, it will dedicate a senior-level session on climate change as preparation for the Copenhagen Conference to be held in Denmark between December 7th and 18th of this year.

At the International Conference on the Environment called by the UN in Rio de Janeiro, I stated as the then head of state of the Cuban state: “A species is in danger of extinction: man”. When I uttered and backed up those words, received and applauded by the heads of state in attendance -including the president of the United States, a Bush less dismal than his son George W. -they still believed that they had several centuries to confront the problem. I myself did not envision a date any closer than 60 or 80 years.

Today we are dealing with a truly imminent danger and its effects are already visible. I shall limit myself to just a few details which shall be amply tackled in New York by our Minister of Foreign Affairs who will be speaking there on behalf of Cuba.

Average temperatures have increased 0.8 degrees Centigrade since 1980 according to the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The last two decades of the twentieth century were the warmest in hundreds of years. The temperatures in Alaska, the Canadian West and eastern Russia have gone up at a pace that doubles the world average. Arctic ice has been quickly disappearing and the region can experience its first completely ice-free summer as soon as the year 2040. The effects are visible in the 2 kilometre high masses of ice melting in Greenland, the South American glaciers, from Ecuador all the way to Cape Horn, fundamental sources of water, and the gigantic ice cap covering the extensive area of Antarctica.

Current carbon dioxide concentrations have reached the equivalent of 380 parts per million, a figure surpassing the natural range of the last 650,000 years. The warming is already affecting the natural systems throughout the world. If this should occur it would be devastating for all peoples. Scientists have discovered that no less than 3 billion years ago the first basic life forms on planet Earth appeared. Since then, these same life forms have evolved non-stop towards higher and more complex forms by virtue of the inexorable laws of biology. Our current species, Homo sapiens, has existed for barely 150 thousand years, an insignificant fraction of time from the beginning of life. Even though the Greeks, hundreds of years before our era, were already in possession of certain astronomical knowledge, barely more than 500 years ago, after a long period of medieval darkness, Man discovered that the Earth was round and not flat. An audacious Genovese admiral with solid understanding proposed to sail eastward in search of India instead of circumnavigating southern Africa. European colonization of this hemisphere and the rest of the planet would commence.

The human species could measure with sufficient precision the rotation of the Earth every 24 hours and its movement around the enormous incandescent mass of the Sun approximately every 365 days. These and other singular circumstances were associated with the existence and life for all species in existence at that time.

Since antiquity, the most advanced philosophers and thinkers have sought social justice. In spite of this, physical slavery legally lasted until 129 years ago at which time slavery was abolished in the Spanish colony of Cuba.

From my point of view, the Theory of Evolution as presented by Darwin in his book “The Origin of Species” has been one of the two most important scientific discoveries. Some people saw in this an antagonistic element for religious beliefs; however, no scientist today refutes it and many of them who profess sincere religious beliefs see in evolution the expression of Divine Will.

The other decisive contribution was Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, presented in 1915, the source of much research following the death of its author in April of 1955. Few persons have so much influenced the future of the world as he did. Einstein persuaded Roosevelt to start research to produce the atomic bomb fearing that it would be developed by the Nazis. When Truman dropped them over the defenseless civilian cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the event had such an impact on him that he became a confirmed pacifist. Today, the US possesses thousands of nuclear weapons much more powerful than those; they could exterminate the population of the world several times over. At the same time, they are the greatest producers and exporters of all kinds of weapons.

The accelerated pace of scientific research in all fields of material production and services, under the economic order imposed on the world following World War II, has led humanity towards an unsustainable situation.

It is our duty to demand the truth. The populations of all countries have the right to know the factors causing climate change and the current scientific possibilities to reverse the tendency, if indeed we still really have any.

The Cuban people, especially its magnificent youth, demonstrated yesterday that even in the midst of a brutal economic blockade, it is possible to overcome unimaginable obstacles.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 21, 2009
5:44 p.m.

I have been watching for hours now on television the tribute that the entire country is paying to Commander of the Revolution Juan Almeida Bosque. I think that facing death was for him just another duty as so many others he discharged throughout his life. He did not know (neither did we) how much sadness the news of his physical absence would bring to us.

I was privileged to know that young black militant worker who would successively be the leader of a revolutionary group, a combatant at the Moncada, a comrade in prison, a platoon captain at the time of the Granma landing, an officer with the Rebel Army –held back by a shot on his chest during the violent combat at Uveroâ the Commander of a column marching on to create the Third Eastern Front, and the comrade sharing the leadership of our forces in the last successful battles to overthrow the tyranny.

I was an exceptional witness to his exemplary conduct for over half a century of heroic and victorious resistance in the struggle against the bandits, during the Giron counteroffensive, the Missile Crisis, the internationalist missions and the resistance to the imperialist blockade.

It was a pleasure to listen to some of his songs, especially the one particularly emotional where he bade farewell to human dreams in response to the homeland’s call to “win or die”. I was not aware that he had composed over 300 songs in addition to his literary work, a source of historical narratives and enjoyable readings. He defended principles of justice that will be defended at any time and age while human beings breathe on Earth.

Let’s not say that Almeida is dead! Almeida lives today more than ever!

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 13, 2009
3:12 P.M.

I would not have wished to utter any harsh criticism against any of the companies that manufacture medical equipment, whose profits do not derive from the production of weapons to kill, but from the combat of diseases, suffering and death. That is why I have always treated all of them with respect, and I liked to exchange with them about their scientific advances.

Something quite different is thinking bitterly about those countries which do not have these equipment; sadder still is the fact that a country from the Third World realizes that all its efforts are hindered because of a stupid measure imposed by a rich and powerful country on those who manufacture those equipment: to discontinue the supply of spare parts required for their use.

Cuban cardiology specialists both in Venezuela and in Cuba operate 28 Philips echocardiographs, without which an accurate and completely safe diagnosis would be impossible. For every one of them that goes out of order, five hundred patients will stop receiving that vital service every month.

In our country, cardiopathies account for the first cause of death; in Venezuela the situation is more or less the same. Defibrillators are the instruments par excellence that allow patients to recover from a cardiac arrest, from which they could die if they don’t receive urgent assistance. Of the 3,553 equipment bought from Philips, 2,000 were of this type, and were being used in the Cuban Polyclinics as well as in the Venezuelan ‘Barrio Adentro’ Diagnostic Centers.

The 12 different Philips equipment which were bought at a price of 72,762,694 dollars, were all indispensable to offer high-quality services in Cuba and in the ‘Barrio Adentro’ No.1 and No. 2 programs in Venezuela, which were being implemented with the participation of Cuban doctors and specialists. Those equipment were bought and paid for by our country, as had been previously agreed.

The Siemens equipment, with the exception of some that were sent to Bolivia, were operating in Cuba and in the two Venezuelan programs. The total cost of the equipment bought from that firm amounted to 85,430,000 dollars. In addition to the two aforementioned companies, others from Europe and Japan supplied important additional equipment for the 27 High-Tech Diagnostic Centers of ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 2.

Philips does not question the data published. The complete discontinuation in the supply of spare parts started as from the end of the year 2006; almost three years have elapsed ever since.

That firm recognizes that the demands of the US government had been the reason behind the discontinuation of supplies until recently, when it paid a fine of 100,000 Euros, a ludicrous figure as compared to the 72 millions that were paid to that company for those equipment.

As far as we understood, there was no violation whatsoever of any of the rules imposed on the world by the empire. We were dealing with medical equipment, destined to save lives; those are not weapons.

In January, 2007, the Bush administration appointed John Negroponte -the scourge of the Nicaraguan people during the dirty war that was waged against that country, which began in 1981 from the Yankee base of Palmerola in Honduras- as Under-secretary of State. He had accumulated a sinister record during the wars of aggression against Vietnam and Iraq. He was the Director of the powerful National Intelligence Agency. He accompanied the US President at the White House Conference held by mid 2007, where so much was talked about education and health. They were both aware that our specialists offered their medical services using Philips equipment in Cuba and in Venezuela. They had exerted some pressures on the Dutch firm and managed to prevent this from supplying spare parts for those equipment.

Social programs in Venezuela emerged as a result of the Bolivarian Revolution. I do not need to praise the close historical links and the friendship ties that unite both peoples.

I already explained the decision taken by President Hugo Chavez which gave rise to our cooperation programs. Likewise, on the early days of 2007, he came across the idea of adding the ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 3 program to the already existing ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 1 and No. 2 programs. This new program would be carried out by Venezuelan doctors and the cost of the equipment would be covered by Venezuela.

Chavez, who knew very well about our experience in negotiating with the medical equipment manufacturing firms, and the excellent prices that we got, given the volume of the operations, asked our country to buy medical equipment, instruments and inputs hundreds of millions of dollars worth. The aim of such an investment was to incorporate a significant number of hospitals to the services that were being offered to the Venezuelan people through ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 1 and No. 2 programs; all of these were in addition to the program in Cuba to train thousands of Venezuelan youths for them to become doctors ready to offer their services anywhere, both inside or outside the country. The graduates from the Latin American School of Medicine are an encouraging proof of their spirit of sacrifice. Even in Venezuela we were helping to train more than 20,000 students of Medicine.

Our staff made contact again with the best firms that supplied medical equipment, components and furniture, with the exception -of course- of the US companies, which were completely banned from sending even the tiniest supply to Cuba.

Although the medical equipment manufactured by that country are of quality, their prices are quite often abusively high. In the international market there are specialized firms whose equipment are considered to be the world’s best. It is perfectly possible to dispense with the US equipment if you want to avoid the risks of a criminal blockade like the one that has been imposed on Cuba for 50 years. In the hospitals of Japan, a country whose population records the highest average life rates, the overwhelming majority of the medical equipment is Japanese; the rest are imported from Europe or the United States.

In the most industrialized countries of the old Europe, where the health rates are also higher than those in the United States, hardly 30 per cent of the equipment come from Japan or the United States. They rather use European equipment. In Japan as well as in Europe, quality standards are much stricter that in the United States.

I am pleased to see that the strategy followed by the Cuban enterprise specialized in the purchase of medical equipment has strictly observed the principles established in previous purchases.

More than 50 well known firms were considered. I will just mention the ones that competed in quality and price. The biggest volume was negotiated with the German firm Siemens -73,910,000 dollars; Drager, 37,277,000 dollars; Toshiba, 36,123,000 dollars; Nihon Kohden, 30,516,000 dollars. We also signed contracts with Olympus, Karl Storz, Aloka, Carl Zeiss, Pressure, and others well known to our specialists. All of them are representative of the revolutionary progress that has taken place in the field of medical technology in the last 20 years.

Considering the standards of quality and price, we would have bought from the Dutch company Philips, which was considered and included among the most important firms, a total value of 63,065,000 dollars. But that moment coincided with the discontinuation of the supplies of spare parts for the equipment already bought from that firm which were operating in Cuba and in Venezuela. We had no other choice but to suspend the drafting of the contract.

Not all of the equipment of the total amount agreed have been received in Venezuela, but the number of equipment, instruments and components received are worth 271 million dollars. This situation forced Venezuelans and Cubans to make a special effort to fully develop the important ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 3 program, which complements and articulates one of the most important social and human programs of the Bolivarian Revolution. Both countries are aware of that obligation.

In addition to that, we intend to make the necessary effort to take ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 1 and No. 2 programs to unheard-of levels by incorporating more than 2,500 advanced students of Medicine who are being trained in Cuba, so that they, together with the General Comprehensive Medicine specialists who teach them classes, can join the ‘Barrio Adentro’ project.

Optimal medical assistance to patients was always the raison d’etre of the doctors’ offices, the Diagnostic Centers and other services in which Cuba participates. The response given by the Cuban health collaborators to my former Reflection has been excellent. No wonder they reaffirm that the imperialism will not win this battle against Barrio Adentro.

No one can compete today with the United States in the manufacturing and trade of weapons destined to war and destruction. They control two thirds of the world’s arms trade; those are the fruits of the Industrial Military Complex. Today, that imperial power, with less than 5 per cent of the world’s population, not only consumes 25 per cent of the fossil energy; it pollutes the atmosphere, destroys the environment, threatens the world with its extermination weapons and is the biggest arms trader and manufacturer. However, it can not guarantee health to almost 25 per cent of its people.

We will not refuse to deal with any company willing to manufacture or trade in medical technologies. We will gladly accept any rectification. Humanity has to cope with very difficult problems. I wish our species is not faced with disaster, and many of us could have a clear conscience for having done our best to prevent it.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 10, 2009
3:11 p.m.

The United States owns the most patents in the world. It has stolen scientists from every country, developed or developing, who are undertaking research in a myriad of spheres, from the production of weapons of mass destruction to medicines and medical equipment. For that reason, the economic and technological blockade is not something that merely serves as a pretext for blaming the empire for our own difficulties.

Public healthcare is one of the most advanced fields in our country, despite the fact that the United States stole close to 50% of the doctors who had graduated from the only university in Cuba, a figure in excess of 5,000, many of whom lacked employment.

In that area, one of the most beautiful pages of international cooperation on the part of the Cuban Revolution was written, initiated thanks to a group of doctors who were sent to the recently-independent Algeria almost half a century ago. That policy has not ended, and in that highly humane field our country enjoys universal recognition.

No one supposes that it has been an easy task. The United States has done everything possible to prevent it from happening. During the time that has passed, it has made maximum efforts to sabotage it. It applied against Cuba all possible variants of its criminal economic blockade which, later on, in virtue of the Helms-Burton Act, acquired an extraterritorial nature during the administration of Bill Clinton.

When the socialist bloc collapsed and, months later, its principal bastion the Soviet Union disintegrated, Cuba decided to keep on fighting. By then, our people had acquired a high level of awareness and political culture.

In 1992, Hugo Chávez led a military uprising against the bourgeois oligarchic government of the Punto Fijo pact that had pillaged Bolívar’s homeland for more than three decades. He suffered imprisonment, just as we did. He visited Cuba in 1994 and years later, with the full support of his people, he assumed the presidency and initiated the Bolivarian Revolution.

The Venezuelan people, like that of Cuba, soon had to confront the hostility of the United States, which planned the fascist coup d’état in 2002 that was defeated by the people and revolutionary military personnel. Months later, came the oil coup, creating the most difficult moment and one in which, once again, the leader, the people and the Venezuelan military were outstanding. Chávez and Venezuela offered us total solidarity in the midst of the Special Period and we have given them ours.

At that time, our country had no less than 60,000 specialized doctors, more than 150,000 experienced teachers and a people who had written brilliant internationalist pages. After the oil coup, the river of our cooperative workers in education and healthcare programs began to flow, and they cooperated with the Bolivarian Revolution in one of the most profound and rapid social programs undertaken in any Third World country.

I cite these precedents because they are indispensable when it come to judging the treachery of imperialism and comprehending the issue that I am tackling today: the abandonment and betrayal of Cuba and Venezuela by what was a well-known and relatively prestigious European multinational: the Dutch transnational Philips, which specializes in the manufacture of medical equipment.

I wrote a Reflection on this subject two years ago – July 14, 2007 – but I did not want to mention that company by name. I still held out the hope that the situation would be rectified.

We had cooperated with the Venezuelan people in order to create one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Tens of thousands of specialized doctors and other Cuban healthcare professional had lent their services there. President During one of his visits to Cuba, Hugo Chávez, satisfied with the work of the first contingents who traveled to Venezuela to work within Barrio Adentro – the program aimed at providing healthcare services in the country’s poorest urban and rural areas – asked us to create a program that could benefit every sector of Venezuelan society, working class, middle class or the rich. This led to the emergence of the Advanced Technology Diagnosis Centers; these would complement the task of the 600 Comprehensive Diagnosis Centers which, like polyclinics with a wide range of services, with their laboratories and equipment, would support the Barrio Adentro doctors’ offices. A significant number of rehabilitation centers would assume the humane task of attending to any patient with physical or learning disabilities.

In virtue of this request from the president, we acquired the relevant equipment for 27 Advanced Technology Diagnosis Centers distributed throughout the 24 states of Venezuela, three of which possess two each because of the size of their populations.

It is standard practice for us to always purchase medical equipment from the most prestigious and advanced companies at world level. We even try to ensure the participation of at least two of the most specialized companies in the supply of the most complex equipment.

In this way, the most sophisticated and costly medical imaging equipment, such as multi-slice computed tomography (CT), nuclear magnetic resonance, diagnostic ultrasound and other similar machines were purchased from the German firm Siemens and the Dutch company Philips. Neither of the two produces all of the equipment but they do manufacture some of the most complex and sophisticated equipment. Both are in competition with each other in terms of quality and price. We acquired diagnostic equipment from the two companies for Venezuela and for Cuba, where we were developing a similar plan for medical services that had received very few resources in the most difficult years of the Special Period.

For more than 10 different specialties, we acquired equipment from the two companies for services in the two countries. I will not mention those of the German firm Siemens, which met its commitments. I will confine myself to Philips; this company supplied equipment for 12 specialties sharing the provision of the most important and costly items with the other company: 15 40-slice CT machines, 28 0.23 Tesla Nuclear Magnetic Resonance machines, eight tele-command stations for Urology, 37 3D diagnostic ultrasound machines, two neurological angiograms, two cardiology angiograms, two polygraphs, one double-headed gamma camera, three single-head gamma cameras, 250 mobile X-ray machines, 1,200 non-invasive monitors and 2,000 cardioversion monitors.

In total, 3,553 machines at a value of $72,762,694.

I personally participated in negotiations with these two companies for these purchases.

The prices discussed for each piece of equipment implied significant price reductions, given the quantity – the items for both Cuba and Venezuela together – and the fact that they were to be paid for in cash. It would not be possible to urgently acquire the goods as required, particularly in that country, given the accumulated needs of the poorest sectors of its total population, which numbered 27 million people at that time.

The most complex equipment were destined for the Advanced Technology Centers, the less sophisticated and plentiful items for the Barrio Adentro Diagnosis Centers, although they were not the only ones to use this equipment. Almost all of them were purchased at the beginning of 2006.

I became seriously ill at the end of July of that year. Philips supplied items until the end of 2006. In 2007, it stopped completely: not a single item was supplied.

In March of that year, a Cuban delegation was sent to Brazil where the Philips headquarters for Latin America – the branch that negotiated with Cuba – is located. They began to explain their difficulties. The Bush government had requested detailed information on equipment supplied to Cuba by their company, alleging that some of them contained programs and, occasionally, components bearing a yanki patent, and Philips provided the information requested on the purchases made by Cuba and Venezuela. There had never been any problem with that before.

The director of Philips in Brazil textually informed the Cuban delegation: “There is brutal intransigence on the part of the U.S. government in relation to regulations regarding equipment and the request for permits with respect to Cuba.

“I know that the problem is affecting the Comandante’s plan. Our organization is being affected and threatened. All our organizations are very scared.” He immediately reiterated: “They are very scared.”

Finally, they added that they wished to cooperate and find solutions.

In mid-July 2007, in a so-called White House Conference on the Americas, Bush, the secretary of state, and other U.S. government leaders “talked nineteen to the dozen” according to an AP report, on issues of education and healthcare. It seemed unreal. They were promising to distribute healthcare services throughout Latin America.

They placed special emphasis on the Confort, a former aircraft carrier converted into the “biggest hospital boat in the world,” according to the report, which was to visit each country in this hemisphere south of the United States for 10 days at a time. That was their healthcare program. What they did not say at the time, was that, in Venezuela, they were sabotaging the most serious healthcare program ever proposed for a Third World country.

Despite the coincidence of the timing, at that moment I did not wish to directly tackle the Philips problem. The company had promised to resolve the problem the following March. I still held out the hope that it could be rectified.

I limited myself to writing in that very Reflection: “The problem is that the United States cannot do what Cuba is doing. On the contrary, it is brutally pressuring the manufacturing companies of the excellent medical equipment that is being supplied to our country to prevent them from replacing certain computer programs or providing some spare parts that are under U.S. patents. I could cite concrete cases and the names of the companies. It is repugnant…”

Despite Philips’ solemn promise to Cuba, the rest of 2007 passed by, as well as the whole of 2008 and half of 2009 without a single piece of equipment arriving from that company.

In June 2009, after paying a fine of 100,000 euros to the Barack Obama government, not so distant from the practices of his illustrious predecessor, Philips deigned to communicate that it was about to provide equipment for Cuba.

On the other hand, nobody has recompensed the Cuban people, or the Venezuelan patients of our doctors in the Barrio Adentro program and those attending the Advanced Technology Diagnostic Centers for the human damages that have occurred.

As is logical, we have not acquired a single piece of equipment from Philips since the last purchase in early 2006.

On the other hand, we have cooperated with Venezuela in purchasing medical equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars for its national healthcare network, with a wide range of sophisticated state of cutting-edge equipment from other prestigious European and also Japanese companies. I wanted to believe that that company would make an effort to meet its commitment.

Venezuela now possesses modern equipment in its public hospital network; the richest private clinics will only have been able to acquire some of them. Now, all the rest will depend on the country’s efficiency in its services. The Venezuelan president is seriously interested in achieving this objective. I believe that it will do so very well if it mitigates the Venezuelan custom of purchasing U.S. medical equipment, not on account of its quality – which is very good although with less demanding regulations than those of Europe – but because of what lies at the heart of the policy of this country, capable of blocking the supply of equipment as it did with Cuba.

Of course, we have dispatched to the Venezuelan Diagnosis Centers, the Advanced Technology Centers and others where our doctors are in attendance, equipment of known international makes such as Siemens, Carl Zeiss, Drager, SMS, Schwind, Topcon, Nihon Kohden, Olympus and other European and Japanese companies, some of which were founded more than 100 years ago.

Now that Bolívar’s homeland, which Martí asked to serve, is more threatened than ever by imperialism, the organization, work and efficiency of our efforts must be greater than ever; not just in the healthcare sector, but in all the fields of our cooperation.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 6, 2009
7.17 p.m.

On occasions direct news coming from the United States prompts indignation and sometimes repugnance.

Of course, a large volume of recent reports have referred to problems associated with the grave international economic crisis and its consequences in the heart of the empire. Naturally, they are not the only ones in reference to that powerful country. Any page of the bulky volume of news proceeding from any continent, region or country of the world is generally related to the policy of the United States. There is no point on the planet where the domineering presence of the empire is not experienced.

Logically, for close to 10 years, news of its brutal wars has occupied significant press space and even more so when a presidential election was in the equation.
However, nobody could have imagined the appearance, in the midst of the drama of the wars of conquest, of news on secret prisons and torture centers, a shameful and well-guarded secret of the government of the United States.
The author of the grotesque policy which led to that point had usurped the presidency in the elections of November 2000, by means of electoral fraud in the southern state of Florida where the battle was decided.

After usurping power, W. Bush not only dragged the country into a politics of war, but failed to sign the Kyoto Protocol, thus denying the world, during 10 years of struggle for the environment, the support of the nation that consumes 25% of fossil fuels, which could inflict irreparable damage on the human species. Climate change is already present in the increase of global warming that the pilots of executive aircraft can observe via tornadoes of growing strength forming in the early hours of the afternoon along their tropical routes and which could be a potential danger for their modern jets. The causes of the accident of Air France passenger plane, which disintegrated in full flight, are still unknown.

Nothing would be comparable with the consequences of the melting of the enormous accumulated volume of water over the Antarctic continent, combined with that melting over Greenland. I maintained my point of view on the responsibility that falls on Bush in a recent meeting with the U.S. film director Oliver Stone, commenting on his movie “W,” referring to the penultimate president of the United States.

I will confine myself to noting that after the political errors and horrors of George W. Bush, former Vice President Cheney, who was his advisor, is brandishing the idea that the acts of torture ordered by the CIA to obtain information were justified in terms of saving U.S. lives, thanks to information obtained in that way.
Of course that did not save the lives of the thousands of Americans who died in Iraq, nor those of close to one million Iraqis, nor those dying in Afghanistan in increasing numbers. Nor do we know what will be the consequences of the hatred accumulated by the genocides that are being committed or could be committed in those ways.

Let us be clear, it is an elemental problem of political ethics: “the end does not justify the means.” Torture does not justify torture; crime does not justify crime.
That principle was debated and maintained for centuries. In virtue of it humanity has condemned all wars of conquest and all the crimes committed. It is extremely grave that the most powerful empire and the most colossal superpower ever to have existed should proclaim such a politics. Of even more concern is the fact that not only the vice president and the principal inspirer of such a perfidious politics, is overtly proclaiming it, but that an elevated number of citizens of that country, possibly more than half, support it. In that case, it would be evidence of the moral abyss to which developed capitalism, consumerism and imperialism can lead. If that is the case, it should be openly proclaimed and the rest of the world should be asked its opinion.

However, I think that the most aware citizens of the United States will be capable of waging and winning that moral battle as they comprehend the painful truth. No honest person in the world would wish for them, or for any other country, the death of innocent people, victims of any form of terror, wherever it may come from.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 2, 2009
7:34 p.m.