Reflections of Fidel

I confess that many times I have meditated on the dramatic story of John F. Kennedy. It was my fate to live through the era when he was the greatest and most dangerous adversary of the Revolution. It was something that didn’t play a part in his calculations. He saw himself as the representative of a new generation of Americans who were confronting the old-style, dirty politics of men of the sort of Nixon whom he had defeated with a tremendous display of political talent.

Pressure against the U.S. blockade of Cuba was so great that on the day Raúl categorically declared that our country would not join the OAS, the secretary of the discredited institution began to prepare the terrain for Cuba’s participation in an eventual future Summit of the Americas. His recipe is to abolish the resolution which decided the expulsion of the Island for ideological reasons. Such an argument is truly laughable when important countries such as China and Vietnam, which the world today cannot do without, are being lead by Communist parties that were created on the same ideological foundations.

Daniel’s appearance on the National Television Round Table program went as I hoped. He spoke eloquently and he was persuasive, calm and irrefutable.

Some of the things Daniel [Ortega, President of Nicaragua] told me would be difficult to believe if they weren’t being told by him and if they weren’t happening at a Summit of the Americas.

Yesterday I referred to what was funny about the “Declaration of Commitment of Port of Spain”.

It is not known how many people in the United States write to Obama and how many different topics are presented to him. It’s clear that he cannot read all the letters and deal with everything because he wouldn’t be able to fit it into a 24-hour day or a 365-day year. What is certain is that his advisors, backed up by their computers, electronic equipment and cell, answer all the letters. Their contents are recorded and there are pre-written answers supported by the multiple declarations of the new president during his campaign to be nominated and elected.

Today I spoke frankly about the atrocities committed against the peoples of Latin America. The peoples of the Caribbean were not even independent when the Cuban Revolution triumphed. Exactly on April 19th, the day when the Summit of the America finishes, it will be 48 years since the Cuban victory at Bay of Pigs. I was cautious when referring to the OAS; I didn’t say a single word that might be interpreted as an offence to that very old institution even though everyone knows how repugnant it is to us.

Forty eight years ago mercenary troops in the service of a foreign power invaded their own homeland, escorted by a United States squadron, including an aircraft carrier and dozens of fighter planes. That date cannot be forgotten. The great power to the North can apply the same recipe to any Latin American country. It has already happened many times throughout our hemisphere’s history. Is there any declaration guaranteeing that such an action will never repeat again, either directly or through the very armies of other countries, as it occurred in the Dominican Republic, Panama, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela and others?