Reflections of Fidel

This is not an ideological issue related to the irremediable hope that a better world is and must be possible.

It is known that homo sapiens has existed for approximately 200,000 years, equivalent to a minuscule space in the time that has passed since the first forms of elemental life on our planet emerged around three billion years ago.

Responses to the unfathomable mysteries of life and nature have basically been of a religious nature. It would lack sense to pretend that that was otherwise, and I have the conviction that it will always be like this. The more profound the explanations of science in relation to the universe, space, time, matter and energy, infinite galaxies and theories on the origin of constellations and stars, atoms and fractions of the same which gave rise to life and the brevity of the same, and millions and millions of combinations per second that govern its existence, the more questions humans will make in search of explanations that will be constantly more complex and difficult.
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I liked history, as most boys do. Wars as well, a culture that society sowed in male children. All the toys offered us were weapons.

In my childhood they sent me to a city where I was never taken to a movie theater. Television did not exist then, and there was no radio in the house in which I lived. I had to use my imagination.

In the first boarding school, I read with amazement about the Universal Flood and Noah’s Ark. Later on I came to the conclusion that maybe it was a vestige that humanity retained of the last climate change in the history of our species. It was possibly the end of the Ice Age, which is thought to have taken place thousands of years ago. (more…)

Dear Hugo:

Fifteen years ago to this day, on December 14, 1994 we met at the Main Hall of the University of Havana. The previous night I had waited for you at the steps of the plane that brought you to Cuba.

I was aware of your armed uprising against the pro-Yankee government of Venezuela. We had learned of your ideas when you were still in prison devoting your time –the same as we had done—to delve deeper into the revolutionary ideas which had led you to the uprising of February 4, 1992. (more…)

In the final paragraphs of a Reflection entitled “The Bells Are Tolling For the Dollar,” published two months ago, on October 9, I mentioned the climate change problem brought on humanity by imperialist capitalism. With regards to carbon emissions I said: “The United States is not making any real effort but accepting just a 4% reduction with respect to the year 1990.” At that moment, scientists were demanding a minimum of 25 to 40 percent by the year 2020. (more…)

The United States, in its struggle against the Revolution, had in the Venezuelan government its best ally: the choice specimen Mr. Romulo Betancourt Bello. We did not know it then. He had been elected President on December 7, 1958; he had not taken office yet when the Cuban Revolution triumphed on January 1st, 1959. Weeks later I had the privilege of being invited by the provisional government of Wolfgang Larrazabal to visit Bolivar’s homeland, which had been so supportive of Cuba.

Very seldom in my life had I seen a warmer people. The film images are still preserved. We drove down the broad highway that replaced the paved road I was taken through the first time I traveled to Venezuela in 1948 -from Maiquetia to Caracas- by the most reckless drivers I had ever seen.

That time I heard the noisiest, longest and most embarrassing booing of my life when I dared to mention the name of the recently elected President-to-be. The more radical masses of the heroic and combative Caracas had overwhelmingly voted against him.

The “illustrious” Romulo Betancourt was referred to with interest by Latin America and Caribbean political circles.

What was the explanation for that? He had been so radical when he was young that at the age of 23 he became a full member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Costa Rica and remained there from 1931 to 1935. Those were the hard times of the Third International. From Marxism-Leninism he learned about the class structure in a society, the exploitation of men by men throughout history and the development of colonization, capitalism and imperialism in recent centuries.

In 1941, together other leftist leaders, he founded the Partido Accion Democratica (Democratic Action Party) in Venezuela.

He acted as provisional president of Venezuela from October 1945 to February 1948 by virtue of a civic and military coup d’etat. He went again into exile when the eminent Venezuelan writer and intellectual, Romulo Gallegos, was elected Constitutional President and almost immediately after was ousted.

The well-lubricated machinery of his party elects him President during the elections held on December 7, 1958, after the Venezuelan revolutionary forces, led by Junta Patriotica (Patriotic Junta) that was headed by Fabricio Ojeda, overthrew the dictatorship of General Perez Jimenez.

By the end of 1959, when I spoke at Plaza del Silencio, where hundreds of thousands of people had gathered, and I mentioned, out of sheer courtesy, the name of Betancourt, there was this colossal booing that I mentioned earlier against the President-elect. To me that was a true lesson of political realism. Later I had to pay a visit to him, since he was the President-elect of a friendly nation. I found him to be an embittered and resentful man. He was already the model of “democratic and representative” government the empire needed. He collaborated as much as he could with the Yankees previous to the mercenary invasion through Giron.

Fabricio Ojeda, a sincere and unforgettable friend of the Cuban Revolution, whom I had the privilege to meet and with whom I talked extensively, told me later much about the political process in his homeland and the Venezuela he dreamed of. He was one of the many persons assassinated by that regime, which was totally to the service of the imperialism.

Almost half a century has gone by ever since. I can attest to the exceptional cynicism of the empire that we, the Revolutionary Cubans, the proud heirs of Bolivar and Marti, have indefatigably confronted.

During all these years, ever since the days of Fabricio Ojeda, the world has changed significantly. The military and technological power of that empire has grown bigger, and so have its experience and total absence of ethics. Its media is ever more costly and less committed to moral standards.

To accuse Hugo Chavez, the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, of inciting a war against the people of Colombia and unleash an arms race, to portray him as the mastermind and promoter of drug trafficking, and accuse him of repressing the freedom of expression, violating human rights and other similar misdeeds is a repugnant and cynical action, as everything else that the empire has done, still does and promotes. We can neither ever forget nor stop reiterating realities. Objective and well-reasoned truth is the most important weapon with which we should ceaselessly hammer into the conscience of peoples.

The US government -it is necessary to remind us of that- promoted and supported the fascist coup d’etat in Venezuela on April 11, 2002, and after it failed, it pinned all its hopes in an oil coup, supported with technical programs and resources capable of destroying any government, thus underestimating the people and the revolutionary leadership of that country.

Ever since then, the US government has ceaselessly plotted against the Venezuelan revolutionary process, just as it did and has continued to do against the Revolution in our Homeland for fifty years now. The United States is far more interested in controlling Venezuela -given its huge energy resources and the other raw materials it has, which are obtained at negligible prices, as well as the huge facilities and services owned by transnationals- than Cuba.

After violently crushing the Revolution in Central America and thwarting, by bloody and repressive coups, the democratic and progressive advances in South America, the empire could not resign itself to the construction of socialism in Venezuela. This is a real fact that could not be denied by or hidden from those with a minimum political education in Latin America or elsewhere in the world.

It is worthwhile remembering that not even after the coup promoted by the United States on April 2002 the Venezuelan government armed itself. One oil barrel was hardly 20 dollars worth, a currency that was already devalued since 1971, when Nixon suspended the gold standard mechanism, almost thirty years before Chavez became President. When he took office, the Venezuelan oil was hardly 10 dollars worth. Afterwards, when prices went up, he invested the country’s resources in social programs, development and investment projects and cooperation with several Caribbean and Central American nations and other poorer economies in South America. No other country had offered such a generous cooperation.

He did not buy a single rifle during the first years of his government. He even did something that no other country would have done at a time when his integrity was at stake: he legally suspended the obligation of every honest and revolutionary citizen to defend their country with the arms in their hands.

I would rather say that the Bolivarian Republic waited for too long to acquire new weapons. The infantry rifles they had were the same that existed more than 50 years ago, when the head of the Provisional Government, Admiral Larrazabal, presented me with an automatic FAL rifle on November 1958, the penultimate month of the war. Venezuela continued to use that kind of infantry weaponry for several years after Chavez took office.

It was the US government the one that decreed the disarmament of Venezuela, when it banned the supplies of spare parts for all the Yankee military equipment which it had traditionally sold to that country, including fighting planes, military transport aircraft and even communication equipment and radars. Accusing Venezuela of engaging in an arms build-up is an extremely hypocritical attitude.

Quite on the contrary, the United States has supplied billions of dollars worth in arms, means of combat, aircraft and training to the Armed Forces of the neighboring Colombia. The pretext was the struggle against the guerrillas. I can bear witness to the efforts made by President Hugo Chavez in his quest for the internal peace in that sister nation. The Yankees not only supplied weapons; they also instilled feelings of hatred against Venezuela among the troops they trained, as they did in Honduras, through the Task Force based in Palmerola.

Wherever the US has military bases, it supplies the combat units with the same type of uniform and equipment used by the interventionist troops of that country anywhere else in the world. The United States does not need soldiers of its own, as in Iraq, Afghanistan or the northern region of Pakistan, to plot acts of genocide against our peoples.

The imperialist extreme right, which holds the reins of power, resorts to brazen lies to mask its plans.

The Venezuelan-American lawyer and analyst, Eva Golinger has shown how the strategic arguments used in the message sent on May, 2009, to the United States Congress to justify an investment in the military base of Palanquero were absolutely altered in the agreement whereby the United States received that same base together with several other civil and military facilities. The document sent to the Congress on November 16 entitled “Addendum to reflect terms of the US-Colombia Defense Cooperation Agreement” that signed on October 30, 2009, has been completely altered, as was explained by the analyst. The document is no longer about “the mobility mission providing access to the entire South American continent with the exception of Cape Horn.” All references to global reach operations, security theaters and increased capability of the US Armed Forces to launch an expeditious warfare in the region have also been modified, according to the sharp and well informed analyst.

Furthermore, it is obvious that the President of the Bolivarian Republic is striving very hard to overcome the obstacles put by the United States against Latin American countries, among them, social violence and drug trafficking. The American society was not able to prevent drug trafficking and consumption, the consequences of which are affecting many countries of the region.

Violence has been of the most exported products by the United States capitalist society during the last half a century, through the increasing use of the media and the so called entertainment industry. Those are new phenomena that the human society did not know about before. Such means could be used to create new values in a more humane and just society.

Developed capitalism created the so called consumption societies and with that it also created problems that it is not able to solve today.

Venezuela is the country that has more rapidly been implementing the social programs that can counteract those extremely negative trends. The colossal successes achieved in the last Bolivarian Sport Games is a proof of that.

At the UNASUR meeting, the Foreign Minister of the Bolivarian Republic made a crystal-clear explanation about the problem of peace in the region. What is the position adopted by each country regarding the installation of Yankee bases in South America? This is an obligation not only of each and every State, but also a moral obligation of each and every conscious and honest man and woman of our hemisphere and the world. The empire should know that whatever the circumstances, Latin Americans will fight tirelessly for their most sacred rights.

There are far more serious and pressing problems affecting all peoples in the world: climate change is perhaps the worst and most urgent at this moment.

Before December 18, each State should adopt a decision. Once again the illustrious Peace Nobel Laureate, Barack Obama, should define his position regarding this thorny issue.

Since he accepted the responsibility of receiving the Prize, he will have to respond to the ethical request launched by Michael Moore when he heard the news: “now you should earn it!” I wonder if he could. At a time when there is a unanimous demand on the part of scientific circles to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by no less than 30 per cent of the levels attained in 1990, the United States is only offering to reduce 17 per cent of what it emitted in 2005, which hardly accounts for 5 percent of the minimum that Science demands from all the inhabitants of this planet by the year 2020. The United States consumes twice as much per inhabitant than Europe, and its emissions exceed those of China, despite its 1.338 billion inhabitants. An inhabitant of the society that consumes the most, emits tens of times more CO2 per capita that a citizen from a poor country of the Third World.

In only thirty more years, the no less than 9 billion human beings that will inhabit the planet will require that the carbon dioxide volumes emitted into the atmosphere be reduced to no less than 80 per cent of the 1990 levels. Such figures are being bitterly understood by an increasing number of leaders of rich countries. But the hierarchy that leads the most powerful and rich country in the planet, the United States, comforts itself by asserting that such predictions are scientific inventions.

Everybody knows that in Copenhagen, countries will, at best, agree on continuing discussions so that an agreement could be reached among the more than 200 States and institutions that should discuss about the commitments, among them, a very important one: which will be the rich countries that will contribute to the development and energy saving of the poorest countries and how much resources will they give?

Is there any margin for hypocrisy and deceit?

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 29, 2009
7:15 p.m.

I know Chavez well, and no one could be more reluctant than him to allow a showdown between the Venezuelan and Colombian peoples leading to bloodshed. These are two fraternal peoples, the same as Cubans living in the east, center and west end of our island. I find no other way to explain the close relationship between Venezuelans and Colombians.

The slanderous Yankee accusation that Chavez is planning a war against neighboring Colombia led an influential paper of that country to run a story last Sunday, November 15, under the headline “War Drums.” It was a pejorative and insulting editorial against the Venezuelan President asserting, among other things, that “Colombia should take very seriously the gravest threat to its national security in more than seven decades as it comes from a President with a military background.”

It goes on to say that: “The reason is the growing potential for a provocation that can go from an incident along the border to an attack on civilian and military facilities in Colombia.” Further on the editorial claims it is likely “that Hugo Chavez intensifies his attacks against the ’scrawny’ -the sobriquet he applies to his oppositionists and tries to remove from regional and local governments those who contradict him. He already did it with the Mayor of Caracas and now he wants to try with the governors of the states sharing borders with Colombia who refuse to be under his rule – a clash with Colombian forces or the accusation that the paramilitary plan to conduct actions within Venezuelan territory could be the pretext required by Chavez’s regime to suspend constitutional rights.”

Such words can only serve to justify the United States’ aggressive plans and the blatant treachery of the Venezuelan oligarchy and counterrevolution to their Homeland.

Coinciding with the release of that editorial, the Bolivarian leader had published his weekly column known as “Chavez’s lines,” where he analyzed the shameless concession of seven US military bases in Colombia, a country that shares about 1,281 miles of border with Venezuela.

In his article, the President of the Bolivarian Republic was very clear and brave in explaining his position.

“I said it this Friday at the rally for peace and against the US military bases in Colombian territory: It is my duty to appeal to all of you, men and women, to defend Bolivar’s Homeland, our children’s Homeland. Our Homeland is free today and we shall defend it with our lives. Never again will Venezuela be anybody’s colony; never again will it kneel down before any invader or empire, the extremely serious and transcendental problem in Colombia cannot be overlooked by the Latin American governments.”

Later on, he added some important concepts: “the entire ‘gringo’ war arsenal included in the agreement responds to the concept of extraterritorial operations – it turns the Colombian territory into an enormous Yankee military enclave, the greatest threat to peace and security in the South American region and in Our America.”

“The agreement prevents Colombia from offering anyone security and respect; not even Colombian men and women. A country that has lost its sovereignty and become an instrument of the ‘new colonial power’ envisioned by our Liberator cannot offer such guarantees.”

Chavez is a true revolutionary, a profound and sincere thinker, a courageous and restless worker. He did not win power through a coup d’etat. He rebelled against the repression and genocide unleashed by the neoliberal governments that surrendered the country’s huge natural resources to the United States. He endured incarceration; he matured and developed his ideas. He did not win power with weapons despite his military background.

It is his merit to have taken the difficult path of a profound social Revolution starting out from the so-called representative democracy and an absolute freedom of expression, at a time when the most powerful media resources of the country were -they still are – in the hands of the oligarchy and at the service of the empire’s interests.

In just 11 years, Venezuela has achieved the greatest educational and social progress attained by any country in the world, despite the coup d’état and the destabilization plans and smearing campaigns implemented by the United States.

The empire did not decree an economic blockade on Venezuela, –as it did in the case of Cuba– after the failure of its sophisticated actions against the Venezuelan people because it would have meant blockading itself given its foreign energy dependence. But it has not abandoned its purpose to do away with the Bolivarian process and the generous support this gives the Caribbean and Central American peoples in terms of oil resources, and its extensive trade relations with South America, China, Russia and numerous countries of Asia, Africa and Europe. Large segments of the population in every continent sympathize with the Bolivarian Revolution whose relations with Cuba are especially upsetting for the empire which for half a century has sustained a criminal blockade against our country. Through the ALBA, Bolivar’s Venezuela and Marti’s Cuba are promoting a new type of relationship and exchange on rational and fair basis.

The Bolivarian Revolution has been particularly generous with the Caribbean countries in times of an exceptionally grave energy crisis.

In the current new stage, the Venezuelan Revolution is facing entirely new problems which did not exist almost exactly 50 years ago, when our Revolution triumphed in Cuba.

At that time, drug-trafficking, organized crime, social violence and the paramilitaries were barely known. The United States had yet to become the huge drug market that capitalism and the consumer society have turned it into. It was not so difficult for the Revolution to fight drug-trafficking in Cuba and to prevent the country from being drawn to its production and consumption.

Today, such scourges have brought to Mexico, Central America and South America a growing tragedy which is far from beaten. The unequal terms of trade, protectionism and the plundering of their natural resources has been compounded by drug-trafficking and the violence of organized crime that underdevelopment, poverty, unemployment and the huge US drug market have created in the Latin American societies. The incompetence of that imperial and wealthy nation to prevent drug-trafficking and abuse has paved the way for the cultivation in many places of Latin America of plants whose value as raw material for drug production often exceeds that of the rest of the farm products, thus creating a very serious social and political quagmire. In Colombia, the paramilitary is today imperialism’s frontline force to combat the Bolivarian Revolution.

It is precisely thanks to his military background that Chavez knows that the struggle against drug-trafficking is a vulgar pretext used by the United States to justify a military agreement that fully responds to the US post-cold war strategic concept of extending its world domination.

The air bases, the means, the operational rights and total impunity granted to the Yankee military and civilian personnel by Colombia in its own territory have nothing to do with fighting drug cultivation, production and trafficking. This is currently a world problem spreading not only to South American countries, but also to Africa and other regions. It already prevails in Afghanistan despite the massive presence of the Yankee troops.

Drugs should not be used as a pretext to set up bases, invade countries and bring violence, war and plundering to Third World nations. This is the worst environment to sow good qualities among the people and to bring education, healthcare and development to other nations.

Those who think that division between Venezuelans and Colombians can lead to the success of their counterrevolutionary plans are deceiving themselves. Many of the best and most humble workers in Venezuela are Colombians; the Revolution has given them and their immediate family education, healthcare, employment, the right to citizenship and other benefits. Together, Venezuelans and Colombians shall defend the great Homeland of the Liberator of the Americas; together, they shall fight for peace and freedom.

The thousands of Cuban doctors, educators and other collaborators carrying out their internationalist duty in Venezuela shall be with them!

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 18, 2009
2:30 PM

Yesterday, Carmen Nordelo Tejera passed away. She was the selfless mother of Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, a Hero of the Republic of Cuba who is unjustly serving two life-sentences plus 15 years of imprisonment.

What’s incredible is that only 12 days ago the Yankee legal system released Santiago Alvarez Fernandez-Magriña, who at the moment of his arrest was in possession of 1500 war weapons, hand grenades and other means to be used in terrorist actions against our people.

It was the second batch of weapons supplied to the CIA agent who, at the service of the US government, has dedicated a large part of his life to terrorism against Cuba.

It would be worthwhile that Barack Obama’s advisors, who so often broadcast his speeches on television, request and show to the president a copy of the Cubavision Round Table which analyzed the ridiculous four-year sentence in a minimum security prison given to Santiago Alvarez for the weapons seized from him. Worse still, his sanction was reduced after he surrendered to the US Attorney’s office another batch of weapons larger than the previous one. The man had also sent a group to infiltrate into Cuba with instructions to, among other things, blast an explosive charge inside the always crowded Tropicana Cabaret. There is irrefutable material evidence of such instructions.

Another terrorist of Cuban descent, Roberto Ferro, an ally of the Posada Carriles’ and Santiago Alvarez’s terrorist Mafia, was arrested on July 1991 with a cache of 300 fire arms, detonators and plastic explosive. He was sentenced to two years in jail. In April 2006, the authorities found in hidden compartments in his house 1571 hand weapons and grenades. He was given a five-year prison sentence.

No matter how much is said it will never be enough to describe the cynical US policy that includes Cuba in the list of terrorist countries and applies the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act only to our nation, which it targets with an economic blockade preventing even the sale of medical equipment and medicines. Yesterday, our TV Round Table listed Santiago Alvarez crimes while it showed Miami broadcasts where a notorious US agent, Antonio Veciana, related the plans they had to use explosives and bullets to murder Cuban leaders, including Camilo and Che, who were with me at a massive rally of hundreds of thousands of people in front of the old Presidential Palace, or to murder me during a press conference in Chile when I visited President Salvador Allende. Ultimately, as the mercenary himself confessed, the CIA hirelings were overcome by fear. And these were only two of the many assassination plans conceived by the government of that country.

Such misdeeds can be remembered in cold blood except when, as it is the case now, their description coincides with the news of the death, after a lengthy illness, of an honest and brave mother like Carmen Nordelo Tejera whose son has been unfairly given two life-sentences plus 15 years of isolated and cruel incarceration in a high security prison. What pain could be tougher for her than the unjust life-sentence given to his son for crimes he never committed?

It is impossible to lay a wreath on her grave without denouncing once again the repugnant cynicism of the empire.

This combines with another terrible news received this same afternoon: the official signing of the agreement allowing the United States to establish seven military bases in the heart of Our America to threaten not only Venezuela but also every other people in the Center and South of our hemisphere. This is not the action of the Bush Administration; it is Barack Obama who’s signing that agreement, in violation of legal, constitutional and ethical norms, at a moment when the fruits of the nefarious Yankee military base of Palmerola, in Honduras, are still there for the world to see. The military coup d’etat in that Central American country was dealt under the current administration.

Never before had the peoples of this hemisphere been so despised.

A country like Cuba is well aware that after the United States has established one of its military bases it only leaves if it wants to or it forcibly stays as it has done in Guantanamo, for over one hundred years. It was there that the US established the hateful torture center whose dungeons with numerous prisoners our distinguished Nobel Prize has not been able to remove. As soon as the return of the Manta base in Ecuador became effective, the seven military bases imposed to the Colombian people were made official. The pretext was the fight on drug-trafficking which, like the scourge of the paramilitaries, came up from the enormous US market for cocaine and other drugs. The Yankee military bases in Latin America came into existence long before the drugs did only to be used as an instrument of interventionism.

For half a century, Cuba has proven that it is possible to fight and to resist. The US President and his advisors are wrong to carry on that sordid and contemptuous policy towards the peoples of Latin America. We do not hesitate to take sides with the Bolivarian people of Venezuela, its President Hugo Chavez and his minister of Foreign Affairs, in denouncing the infamous military pact imposed to the Colombian people, a pact whose expansionist provisions its authors have not even dared to make public.

Cuba shall continue to cooperate with the healthcare, education and social development programs of the fraternal peoples that despite obstacles, advances and setbacks will be increasingly free and unbeatable.

As Lincoln said: “you cannot deceive all of the people all of the time.”

We shall not only take flowers to the grave of Carmen Nordelo. We shall keep on restlessly struggling to free Gerardo, Antonio, Fernando, Ramon and Rene, exposing the endless hypocrisy and cynicism of the empire, and defending the truth!

This is the only way to honor the memory of the legions of mothers and women like her in Cuba who have sacrificed the best and most precious in their lives for the Revolution and for Socialism.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 3, 2009
12:35 pm

Significant events have taken place in our country lately.

On October 28, at 7:30 am, the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the physical disappearance of Camilo Cienfuegos; the sad event occurred one stormy evening as he was traveling in a light aircraft from Camaguey to the capital, along the north of Cuba.

He had fought his last victorious battle against the tyranny in Yaguajay, at the end of December 1958. The mausoleum was dedicated in that area where the remains of those who fell during the war in the Las Villas North Front or after January 1st, 1959 have been laid to rest; they will later be joined by those who fought with his Invading Column or connected with it in the center of the island, and who are still alive. Somebody then called him the Hero of Yaguajay and the title stuck to him. But he was more than that: he was the Hero of the Antonio Maceo Invading Column. The brave commander was advancing with his light column towards Pinar del Rio, and he would have reached its mountains if he had not received an order from the Sierra Maestra to stay in the center of the island and fight there with Che under his command. It was not necessary to put him at risk in that mission which was an incorrect interpretation of the historic circumstances. On January 2, he started with Che the historic march to the capital. There is so much to research and to reflect on that event!

Following a decision of the Party and the Government, as of this 50th Anniversary his steel silhouette shines together with that of the Heroic Guerrilla from the Revolution Square, guarding the statue of Our National Hero Jose Marti.

Also on October 28, at 9:00 in the morning, as fate would have it, the debate started on the resolution introduced by Cuba against the economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed by the US to our homeland. Numerous leaders from Third World countries spoke moving words that gave testimony of their appreciation for the indomitable and supportive country that for half a century has faced the ruthless and genocidal empire which emerged in the proximity of our island. A great number of countries felt that Cuba’s resistance was a struggle for their own right to sovereignty.

The discreet and supportive work of our people from the first years of the Revolution, and its heroic resistance despite the United States cruel blockade, was not forgotten by the overwhelming majority of the 192 sovereign states of the world.

The irrefutable arguments of our Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez sounded like a terrible pounding in that room sitting at the very heart of New York, and very close to Wall Street.

For the first time in many years of debate, every UN member state took part in the discussion of the thorny and compromising issue.

Even the European allies –members of NATO– and the developed, consumer-oriented and rich countries that make up the European Community felt obliged to express their disagreement with the economic blockade of Cuba. Our foreign minister gave a vigorous reply to the justifying and plaintive remarks of the US representative.

When the President of the Assembly took a vote on the resolution, of the 192 states present only three delegations voted against Cuba: the United States and its ally in the Palestinian holocaust, Israel, and the island of Palau. An American lawyer with Israeli citizenship, the representative of Palau, –a 281.2 sq. miles territory in the Pacific Ocean which spent nearly fifty years under the Yankee administration– sided with the United States at the UN. Two other states abstained and 187 condemned the blockade.

However, as fate would have it, these were not the only remarkable events for Cubans that day. That evening marked the end of the visit to our Homeland of Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), accompanied by Mirta Roses, Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Both represent the two most important international agencies taking responsibility for that crucial task. Last Tuesday I had the honor of meeting with them.

Since the issue of the A H1N1 influenza epidemic is of such great interest to every nation, especially those of the Third World, which have been the most affected by the consequences of plundering and exploitation, I asked them to make space in their tight schedule to have this meeting.

Despite the concern and efforts of our ministry of Public Health and its information programs intended for our people, I felt it could be advisable to delve into the epidemic subject.

Public health was one of the causes that made a Revolution necessary in Cuba. It is not my intention to relate the progress obtained which has turned us into the country with the largest number of medical doctors per capita in the world -an example of what can be done for other peoples even when this nation has been blockaded and attacked for half a century by the mighty empire. Our Homeland was not only the victim of a ruthless brain drain but also a target of biological aggressions by the US administration that not only used viruses and bacteria against plants and animals but also against the population. The dengue fever afflicted more than 300 thousand people. Actually, serotype 2 was introduced in Cuba and the hemisphere when it was not present as an epidemic in any other country.

Leaving out many data to make the story short, suffice it to remember in this Reflection that the dengue is transmitted by the mosquito but the A H1N1 influenza spreads more easily and directly through the respiratory tract.

Our people should know that at the end of World War I, an influenza epidemic took the lives of tens of millions of people at a time when the population of the planet hardly exceeded 1.5 billion. On the other hand, humanity had much less scientific and technical resources available than today.

This reality, however, should not lead us to be overconfident. When such epidemics break out, resources are needed to prevent and fight them, as it was the case with yellow fever, polio, tetanus and others, and the vaccines that for years have protected children and the population at large from many extremely harmful diseases.

Today, there are also other types of vaccines, especially those protecting the people from various flu viruses, which are given to those cases at greater risk due to permanent or temporary causes.

Our people should be mindful that it is more difficult to have vaccines against certain viruses because of their genetic mutations, as it is the case of those related to the A H1N1 flu and others.

The highly developed and rich countries have quite sophisticated and costly laboratories. Even Cuba, despite underdevelopment and the Yankee blockade, has been able to establish several labs for the production of vaccines and medications.

Internationally, there is a logical fear of the above-mentioned flu, given its dissemination capacity and its effects on certain more vulnerable persons. Aside from the aspects related to the international cooperation offered by our doctors, who have given Cuba great moral authority and prestige, I was interested in examining with the Director General of the WHO the issue of the A H1N1 epidemic. She confirmed to me that the difficulty with the vaccine is that laboratories with the capacity to produce them in Europe, the United States and Canada are turning out a much lower volume of vaccines than are required; there was a great demand in the developed nations and the first vaccines will not be available to the rest of the countries until the end of the year; at the same time, their prices show a marked growing trend. She has included Cuba among the countries which have been given a priority due to its international cooperation and its capacity to immediately vaccinate the most vulnerable through its network of hospitals.

Dr. Chan knows that wherever the Cuban doctors are, they will cooperate in the speedy vaccination of the people.

These are obviously positive news for our compatriots. However, we must bear in mind certain circumstances.

It will be several weeks or maybe two or three months before the first vaccines get here.

The main concern of the WHO is that the mutation capacity of the virus may quickly overtake the effect of the vaccines and then it would be necessary to start again the search for another effective vaccine. In my view, this determines the importance of an adequate network of medical services as we have in our country and of the systematic orientation to a population with high educational levels to obtain its cooperation in the relevant actions.

The lack of adequate medical services in many countries, including the United States where nearly 50 million people do not have access to medical care, raises considerably the number of potential victims. That country has declared a state of Health Emergency. Two days ago, I listened to a report that between November and March the A H1N1 flu could be the cause of 90 thousand deaths in the United States since winter favors the development of the epidemic. I wish such estimates are wrong and there is no such damage. With a population that is at least 27 times that of Cuba, it would be tantamount to over 3 thousand deaths in our country, and many million people in the world, in spite of the scientific breakthroughs.

The initial symptoms of the A H1N1 appeared in Mexico in the first quarter of the current year, and almost simultaneously in the United States and Canada. From there it extended to Spain, one of the first European countries where the epidemic spread.

When the current US President lifted the restrictions to Cuban Americans for travelling to Cuba, the epidemic had already extended to many states of the union. Thus, the four countries where the largest number of tourists and other travellers originate were precisely those where the epidemic had mostly spread in the world.

The first carriers of the virus here were travellers from overseas. Relatively few people were infected in our country and for months we had no virus-related deaths but as the virus extended to every province, mainly those with a higher number of relatives resident in the United States, it became necessary to purchase new laboratory equipment for the Pedro Kouri Tropical Medicine Institute and to multiply our efforts, while still fighting dengue.

So, we were faced with the intriguing situation that, on the one hand, the United States authorized the travelling of the largest number of virus carriers while, on the other, it banned the acquisition of equipment and medication to fight the epidemic. Of course, I don’t think it was the intention of the US administration, but it is the reality resulting from the absurd and shameful blockade imposed to our people.

With the equipment purchased elsewhere we are in a position to know, with absolute precision, the total number of people affected by the epidemic and those whose death may be related to the presence of the virus.

Fortunately, in addition to the services and the well-trained medical personnel in our country, there is in the international market an antiviral medication particularly effective when given to the people with clear symptoms of carrying the virus and to those providing direct care to them.

We have that antiviral and also the necessary raw material to continue producing a similar amount to that available; additionally, we shall spare no effort to have the indispensable doses.

Even if many countries fail to provide the international agencies with the relevant information about the epidemic, for lack of networks of services and medical personnel, we know that our government is determined to communicate with absolute accuracy to such agencies the number of cases and deaths related to the epidemic, as we have always done with the public health data of Cuba.

Fortunately, our country has an extensive network of healthcare services. The possibility to provide immediate care to those afflicted by the disease is real; we also have a sufficient number of medical doctors with quality training, many of whom have fulfilled honorable and unforgettable internationalist missions.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 30, 2009
2:52 pm