A dispatch from the DPA agency informs the following:

Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen will visit Haiti this Tuesday in what will be her first trip abroad since she was appointed chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives which is now in Republican hands, her office informed today in a press release.

During her stay in Port-au-Prince, the Cuban-born congresswoman said she hoped to receive a report on the ‘advances’ dealing with reconstruction of the devastated country, as well as on the ‘continued electoral controversy’ following the presidential elections of November 28th.

‘It is important for me to be able to go to Haiti, a country that is very close to and beloved by the United states’, stated the congresswoman from Florida, a state which is home to a great many Haitians.

‘It is very important for US interests and we have personal interest in seeing that stability, democracy and free enterprise take hold over there, she added.

I wonder whether the United States government is aware of the challenge to its moral authority the disturbing presence of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Haiti represents.

But that is not all; another dispatch, this time from the AP Agency coming from Port-au-Prince communicates the following:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)- Observers from the Organization of American States shall recommend that the governing-party candidate in the Haitian presidential elections be excluded from the second round in order to give up his spot to a popular musician who ended up in third place in the disputed first round of the elections, according to a copy of a report obtained by The Associated Press.

The OAS had scheduled the presentation of the document to President René Preval on Monday.

The report had not yet been made public, but AP obtained a copy and a diplomat familiar with its contents confirmed its recommendations. Another Foreign Affairs official said the document was in its last stage of being edited and translated into French, but affirmed that the conclusions would remain.

The Electoral Commission of Haiti will have to decide on how to answer the appeal, but the recommendations of the OAS team could bear a lot of weight. Three candidates consider they should be participating in the second round of elections. After the preliminary results of the first round were announced, the country was swept by a wave of unrest.

It is not foreseen that Preval would publically answer the report until after Wednesday, the one-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010.

The second round was scheduled for Sunday, but it was delayed in part to await the results of the OAS assessment that seeks to resolve the political impasse. Officials have stated that the elections will not be held until at least next month.

The country is completely calm. The fight against the epidemic is moving forward successfully. During the last 17 consecutive days the Cuban Medical Mission and the Henry Reeve Brigade have looked after 9,857 cholera patients without one single death.

President Preval had spoken with the diplomatic representatives, including the OAS representative, Brazilian writer Ricardo Seitenfus, about a political solution to the complicated problem.

According to news received, after that individual was suddenly fired by the OAS Secretary, the current problem came up. We hope that the representatives from Latin America and the countries accredited in the UN can avoid the chaos that might be created in Haiti if in the current situation the fight among rival parties is unleashed amid all the destruction, poverty and the epidemic that still mightily strikes at that nation.

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 10, 2011
9:50 p.m.

The United Nations Organization, at the instigation of the United States, the creator of poverty and chaos in the Haitian Republic, decided to send into Haiti its forces of occupation, the MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) which, by the way, introduced the cholera epidemic into that sister nation.

For his part, in early January 2009, the Secretary General of the OAS decided to appoint a Brazilian intellectual, Ricardo Seitenfus, his personal representative in Haiti. At that time Seitenfus was working in his country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Seitenfus enjoyed well deserved prestige in diplomatic and government circles in the Haitian capital on account of the seriousness and frankness with which he approached problems. In 1993, he had written a book entitled, Haiti: the Sovereignty of Dictators. He visited Haiti for the first time that year.

Two days ago, on December 25, the news agencies circulated the information that the OAS special representative had been abruptly dismissed from his post.

What prompted that drastic measure?

Interviewed a few days ago by Le Temps daily in Switzerland, Seitenfus replied to various questions from that newspaper, expounding his points of view with sincerity.

In a succinct synthesis I shall explain textually what happened according to information provided via Internet and translated from the French.

The first question from Le Temps was:

“In your view, 10,000 Blue Berets in Haiti is a contra-productive presence?

Ricardo Seitenfus’ reply:

“The system of dispute prevention within the framework of the UN system is not adapted to the Haitian context. Haiti is not an international threat. We are not in a civil war situation. […] the Security Council […] imposed the Blue Berets in 2004, after the departure of President Aristide. […] For the UN it was a question of freezing power and transforming Haitians into prisoners on their own island.”

“What is it that is impeding normalization in the Haitian case?

“Ricardo Seitenfus: For 200 years, the presence of foreign troops has alternated with that of dictators. It is force that defines international relations with Haiti and never dialogue. Haiti’s original sin, on the world stage, is its liberation. The Haitians committed the unacceptable in 1804: a treasonous crime for an impatient world. The West was then a colonialist, racist world of slavery, which based its wealth on the exploitation of conquered lands. Thus, the Haitian revolutionary model made the great powers fearful. The United States did not recognize the independence of Haiti until 1865 and France demanded the payment of a ransom in order to accept that liberation. From the beginning, its independence was compromised and the country’s development impeded. […] Nothing is being resolved, things are worsening. They want to make Haiti a capitalist country, an export platform for the American market; that is absurd. […] There are elements in this society which have managed to prevent violence from expanding unrestrained.”

Question 3.

“Is it not surrendering to see Haiti as a nation that cannot be assimilated, whose only future is to return to traditional values?

“Ricardo Seitenfus: One part of Haiti is modern, urban and oriented abroad. The number of Haitians living outside of its border is estimated at four million. It is a country open to the world. […] More than 90% of the education system and health are in private hands. The country does not have the public resources to make an official system function in a minimal manner. […] The problem is a socioeconomic one. When the unemployment rate has reached 80%, deploying a stabilization mission is intolerable. There is nothing to stabilize…”

Question 4.

“Haiti is one of the countries to receive most aid from the world; however, the situation has merely deteriorated over the last 25 years. Why?

“Ricardo Seitenfus: Emergency aid is effective; but when it returns to structural aid, when this replaces the state in all its missions, that brings about a lack of collective responsibility. […] The January 12 quake and subsequently the cholera epidemic have only accentuated this phenomenon. The international community is of the sentiment that every day it has to redo what it completed the day before. […] With the misfortune of January 12, I had the hope that the world was going to understand that it was mistaken over Haiti. […] Instead of striking a balance, even more soldiers were sent in. There is a need to build, to erect dams, to participate in state organization, in the judicial system. The UN says that it has no mandate for that. Its mandate in Haiti is to maintain the peace of the graveyard.”

Question 5.

“What role are the NGOs playing in this failure?

“Ricardo Seitenfus: Since the quake, Haiti has turned into an inevitable crossroads. For the transnational NGOs, Haiti has been transformed into a location of forced passage. I would even say something worse than that: of professional training. […] An evil or perverse relation exists between the strength of the NGOs and the debility of the Haitian state. Some NGOs only exist due to the Haitian misfortune.”

Question 6.

“What errors have been committed since the quake?

“Ricardo Seitenfus: In the face of the mass import of consumer goods to feed homeless people, the situation of Haitian agriculture has worsened. The country is offering free rein to all humanitarian experiments. It is unacceptable from the moral point of view to consider Haiti as a laboratory. The reconstruction of Haiti and the promise of $11 billion that we assigned is arousing envy. […] The Cuban doctors that Cuba is training… close to half… who should be in Haiti… are currently working in the United States, Canada or in France.”

Question 7:

“Haiti is unceasingly described as the edge of the world, do you see the country as a concentrate of our contemporary world?

“Ricardo Seitenfus: it is the concentrate of our dramas and the failures of international solidarity. We are not rising to the challenge. The world press comes to Haiti and describes the chaos. […] For it, Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. You have to go to Haitian culture, you have to go the native land. […] Nobody takes the time nor has the desire to try and understand what I would call the Haitian soul.”

Question 8.

“In addition to the recognition of failure, what solutions are you proposing?

“Ricardo Seitenfus: In two months, I will have completed my two-year mission in Haiti. In order to remain here and not feel overwhelmed by what I see, I had to create a series of psychological defenses for myself. I would have liked to continue being an independent voice despite of the burden of the organization that I represent. […] On January 12 I learned that there is an extraordinary potential of solidarity in the world. And one must not forget that, in the first few days, it was Haitians who, totally on their own, with empty hands, who tried to save their nearest. […] We have to think simultaneously of offering export opportunities to Haiti and also of protecting this family agriculture which is essential for the country. Haiti is the last paradise of the Caribbean as yet unexploited by tourism, with 1,700 kilometers of virgin coast. […] Two hundred years ago, Haiti illuminated the history of humanity and that of human rights. Now it is necessary to give the Haitians an opportunity to confirm their vision.”

One may or may not be in agreement with each and every one of the words of Brazilian Ricardo Seitenfus, but it is unquestionable that he voiced scathing truths in his replies.

I consider it appropriate to add, and also to clarify:

Our country not only sent hundreds of doctors to the neighboring sister people of Haiti, but has also sent thousands of them to other Third World peoples, particularly in situations of natural disaster, and has contributed to the training of tens of thousands of doctors in our homeland and abroad.

Medical cooperation with Haiti began 12 years ago, on December 4, 1998.

When the dictatorship of Duvalier and the Tonton Macoutes – imposed for decades by the United States – ceased to exist and a popularly elected government assumed the leadership of Haiti, Cuba sent 100 doctors to provide services in that country, and the first contingent of young Haitian high school graduates transferred to Cuba to begin their studies in Medicine in 1999.

Then, in 2001, we initiated collaboration with the University of Medicine created by President Jean Bertrand Aristide, to which we sent professors who also worked as doctors in the service of the Haitian people. When the yankees promoted a coup d’état, and the School of Medicine was converted into a headquarters for the coup leaders, approximately 270 students there were transferred to Cuba with the professors and continued their studies in our homeland.

The Cuban Medical Mission, nevertheless, continued providing its humanitarian services in Haiti, which had nothing to do with the internal political problems of a country under the occupation of coup soldiers, yankee troops or the MINUSTAH forces.

In August of 2005, the first 128 Haitian sixth year medical students returned to their country for their residencies, to work alongside the Cuban doctors providing services in Haiti.

From the second semester of 2006 through the second semester of 2010, 625 young Haitian doctors have graduated, whom we hold in extremely high regard. Of these, 213 are working in Haitian government medical institutions; 125 in Cholera Medical Control Centers or in the brigades going into the sub-communes, alongside Cuban and Latin American doctors graduated from ELAM who are combating the cholera epidemic; 72 are working in NGO and private medical centers; 20 in the so-called Mixed Centers; 41 are continuing their studies in a second specialty in Cuba; 27 recent graduates are already in Haiti awaiting placement; 14 are not working due to personal issues like pregnancy and motherhood; the location of another four is unknown; and one is deceased.

Finally, 104 are working abroad, basically in Spain, United States, Canada and France; one in Switzerland, and four in Latin American countries.

It would be incorrect to pass judgment on any of them given that their country is extremely poor, lacked resources and employment, and there is absolutely no confirmation of any of them refusing to serve their country. They are medical resources much in demand, cradled in Haiti and Cuba.

The official figure of cholera related deaths has risen to 2,707, giving a mortality rate of 2.1%.

For three consecutive days not one cholera patient among those treated by the Cuban Medical Mission has died. The mortality rate has already gone down to 0.57 out of the 47,537 patients treated by them. The epidemic could be eradicated, thus avoiding its becoming endemic.

In tomorrow’s “Roundtable” at 6:00pm, we will be hearing fresh and interesting news on the battle against cholera in Haiti, and voices with important news and authority on the subject.

I shall continue on Tuesday the 28th with the second point.

Fidel Castro Ruz
December 27, 2010
5:12 p.m.

As is known, the United Nations has sent a special envoy to Haiti.

Clinton – who was of course President after George H. W. Bush and before George W. Bush – prevented former President Carter from participating in immigration negotiations with Cuba for reasons of ridiculous political jealousy, promoted the Helms-Burton Act and was complicit with the Cuban-American National Foundation’s attacks on Cuba.

There is abundant evidence about this behavior, but we did not for that reason take it too seriously, nor were we hostile towards his activities related to the mission to which, for obvious reasons, the UN assigned him.

We had been cooperating with this sister country for many years in various fields, especially in the training of doctors and the provision of health services to the population, and Clinton didn’t bother us at all. If he was interested in any success, we saw no reason to limit our cooperation with Haiti in such a sensitive area. Then came the unexpected earthquake, bringing death and destruction, and subsequently, the epidemic.

Just two days ago, a meeting took place in the capital of the Dominican Republic about the reconstruction of Haiti, and has complicated things. Approximately 80 people, including several ambassadors, representing the donors of more than $100 million; many members of the Clinton Foundation, of the U.S. government and of that of Haiti participated in it.

Few people took the floor; among them the Venezuelan ambassador who, as one of the most important donors, spoke briefly, using heartfelt, clear and accurate words. Clinton took up almost all of the time in a meting which began at 5:30 pm and ended at midnight. The Cuban ambassador, as a key participant, was there silent witness at the request of Haiti and Santo Domingo. He was not conceded the right to say a single word, although he was a witness to a meeting that accomplished absolutely nothing. It was supposed to continue the following day. But none of that happened.

The meeting in the Dominican Republic was a deceptive maneuver. The indignation of the Haitians was absolutely justified. The country destroyed by the earthquake which occurred almost a year ago has been abandoned to its fate.

Today, Thursday, December 16, a dispatch from the U.S. agency AP published the following:

“Former U.S. President Bill Clinton declared his confidence in Haiti’s post-quake reconstruction effort Wednesday, making a one-day visit amid civil unrest, rampant disease and a seemingly intractable political crisis.

“The U.N. special envoy to Haiti travelled to the troubled country a day after the interim reconstruction commission of which he is co-chairman was forced to hold its meeting in the neighboring Dominican Republic after violence broke out following Haiti’s disputed Nov. 28 presidential election.

“Clinton visited a cholera clinic run by Doctors Without Borders that has treated some of the more than 100,000 people sickened in the epidemic that broke out in October. He then went to the main U.N. peacekeeping base for meetings with Haitian and international officials.

“The meeting a day before approved some $430 million in projects. But it was more notable for anger over the slow pace of reconstruction and a letter from frustrated Haitian members who said they were left out of decision-making and complained that approved projects do not advance the reconstruction of Haiti and long-term development.’”

Notice what he said later in a press conference, according to the dispatch.

“’I share their frustration…’”

“… Hundreds of thousands of Haitians would find new permanent housing next year and many more would move out of the tent and tarp camps that have been home to more than 1 million people since the Jan. 12 earthquake.

“But such promises have been made before. The house-less believed they would start getting new homes — or at least sturdier temporary shelters — months ago. Only $897 million of the more than $5.7 billion pledged for 2010-11 has been delivered.”

The $897 million mentioned is nowhere to be seen.

It constitutes, moreover, a total disregard for the truth to assert that 100,000 people have been treated in a clinic administered by “Doctors without Borders.”

In a statement to the press by Dr. Lea Guido, representing the Pan American Health Organization-World Health Organization (PHO/WHO) in Haiti, reported today that the number affected through December 11 had reached 104,918 people, a truly unprecedented number of people who could not have been treated in a “Doctors without Borders” clinic.

It is clear, and Clinton knows full well that Europe, the United States and Canada drain doctors, nurses, therapists and other health technicians from Caribbean countries, which lack the personnel needed to carry out that task, with a few honorable exceptions.

Obviously, with his lies, Clinton is presuming to ignore the work of more than 1,000 Cuban and Latin American doctors, nurses and technicians bearing the brunt of the battle against the epidemic in the only way possible, that is by reaching the most remote corners of the country. Half of Haiti’s 10 million inhabitants live in rural areas.

Such a great number of people, under such conditions, would not have been treated without the support of the eminent Latin American woman who represents the WHO in Cuba and Haiti.

Our country has committed to mobilizing the human resources needed to complete this noble task.

As she stated, “The human resources Cuba is sending are, at this moment, moving to the most isolated areas of the country. And this is very timely.”

They are arriving now and very soon the necessary personnel will be there.

Yesterday, the Cuban Medical Brigade treated 931 patients, with two deceased, for a mortality rate for the day of 0.2%.

Fidel Castro Ruz
December 16, 2010
9:14 p.m.

The first impression, if one doesn’t get any additional information, is that this deals with a rumour born out of the hatred caused by any occupying army.

How could this be proven? Many of us were not aware of the characteristics of cholera and how it is transmitted. A few days later the protests ceased in Haiti and nobody said anything else about the matter.

The epidemic followed its inexorable course, and other problems, such as the risks from the electoral battle, took up our time.

Today we are getting reliable and believable news about what really happened. The Haitian people had reason aplenty to express their indignant protests.

The AFP news agency textually reported that: “The renowned French epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux led research in Haiti last month and came to the conclusion that the epidemic was generated by an imported strain and spread from the Nepalese base” of the MINUSTAH.

Another European agency, EFE, reported that: “The origin of the disease is in the small town of Mirebalais, in the centre of the country, where Nepalese soldiers had set up their camp, and it appeared a few days after their arrival, thus proving the origin of the epidemic…”

“Up to the present time, the UN Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has denied that the epidemic entered along with the blue helmets.”

“…French doctor Renaud Piarroux, considered to be one of the main specialists in the world in the study of the cholera epidemic, leaves no doubts about the origin of the disease…”

“The study was ordered by Paris at the request of Haitian authorities, a French diplomatic spokesman declared.”

“…the appearance of the disease coincides with the arrival of Nepalese soldiers who, moreover, come from a country where there is a cholera epidemic.

“There is no other way to explain the sudden and powerful outbreak of cholera in a small town with a few dozen inhabitants.

“The report also analyzes the way the illness spreads, since the fecal waters in the Nepalese camp were draining into the same river from which the townspeople were getting their drinking water.”

The most surprising thing, according to the abovementioned agency, the UN did was to “…send a research mission into the Nepalese camp, and it concluded that it couldn’t be the origin of the epidemic.”

Haiti, in the midst of the destruction by the earthquake, the epidemic and poverty, cannot now dispense with an international force cooperating with a nation ruined by foreign interventions and the exploitation of the transnationals. The UN not only must fulfill the elementary duty of fighting for reconstruction and development in Haiti, but also of mobilizing the necessary resources to eradicate an epidemic which threatens to spread to the neighbouring Dominican Republic, the Caribbean, Latin America and other similar countries in Asia and Africa.

Why did the UN insist on denying that MINUSTAH brought the epidemic to the Haitian people? We are not blaming Nepal which in the past was a British colony, and whose men were used in their colonial wars and today seek employment as soldiers.

We inquired among the Cuban doctors who are today providing their services in Haiti and they confirmed to us the news transmitted by the abovementioned European news agencies with remarkable precision.

I make a brief summary of what was communicated to us by Yamila Zayas Nápoles, a specialist in comprehensive general medicine and anesthesiology, director of a medical institution with 8 basic specialties and the diagnostics of the Cuba-Venezuela Project inaugurated in October 2009 in the urban area of Mirebalais with 86,000 inhabitants in the North Department.

On Saturday October 15, 3 patients were admitted with symptoms of diarrhea and acute dehydration: on Sunday the 16th , 4 more were admitted with similar characteristics, but all from the same family, and they made the decision to isolate them and communicate what happened to the mission; on Monday the 17th, 28 patients were admitted, surprisingly, with the same symptoms.

The Medical Mission urgently sent a group of epidemiologists who took blood, vomit, stool samples and information that was sent immediately to the national Haitian laboratories.

On October 22nd the labs informed that the isolated strain corresponded to the one prevalent in Asia and Oceania, the most severe type. The UN blue-helmeted Nepalese unit is located on the banks of the Artibonite River which flows through the small town of Méyè, where the epidemic broke out, and Mirebalais, where it spread later very quickly.

Despite the sudden form in which cholera appeared in the small but excellent hospital that is at the service of Haiti, of the first 2,822 patients initially looked after in its isolation areas, only 13 people died, for a death rate of 0.5%; later on, when the Cholera Treatment Centre was created separately, of 3,459 patients, 5 of the very serious cases died, for a rate of 0.1%.

The total figure for persons ill from cholera in Haiti today, Tuesday December 7th, comes to 93,222 persons, and the death rate reached 2,120. Among those looked after by the Cuban Mission it went to 0.83%. The death rate in the other hospital institutions it is 3.2%. With experience acquired, proper measures and the reinforcement of the Henry Reeve brigade, the Cuban Medical Mission, with the support of Haitian authorities has offered the assistance to any of the 207 isolated subcommunes, so that no Haitian citizen is lacking care in confronting the epidemic, and many thousands of lives can be saved.

Fidel Castro Ruz
December 7, 2010
6:34 p.m.

The current period in Haiti is grave, and the urgently required aid is little. Every year, our agitated world invests $1.5 trillion in arms and wars; Haiti – a country which less than one year ago suffered the brutal earthquake that resulted in 250,000 dead, 300,000 injured and enormous destruction – according to expert calculations, requires $20 billion for its reconstruction and ascending development, just 1.3% of what is spent in one year to those ends.

But now, it is not about that, which would constitute a simple dream. The UN is not only appealing for modest economic aid that could be resolved in a few minutes, but also for 350 doctors and 2,000 nurses, not possessed by the poor countries and whom the rich countries generally snatch from the poor ones. Cuba responded immediately, volunteering 300 doctors and nurses. Our Cuban Medical Mission in Haiti is treating close to 40% of those affected by cholera. In the wake of the call from that international organization, they rapidly took on the task of discovering the concrete causes of the high mortality rate. The low mortality rate of the patients whom they are treating is less than 1% – is reducing and will continue reducing every day – as compared to the 3% of persons treated in other health centers operating in the country.

It is evident that the number of deaths is not confined to the 1,800-plus people recorded. That figure does not include those who die without having gone to the existing doctors and heath centers.

Inquiring into the causes of those arriving in the most serious condition at the centers combating the epidemic and treated by our doctors, they observed that they came from the most distant sub-communes with the least communication. Haiti’s land surface is mountainous, and many isolated points can only be reached by moving over rugged ground.

The country is divided into 140 urban or rural communes, and 570 sub-communes. In one of the isolated sub-communes, where approximately 5,000 live – according to the Protestant pastor there – 20 people had died as a result of the epidemic without having attended a health center.

According to urgent investigations on the part of the Cuban Medical Mission in coordination with the national health authorities, it has been confirmed that 207 Haitian sub-communes in the most remote areas lack access to the centers fighting cholera or providing medical attention.

The abovementioned United Nations meeting ratified the need highlighted by Ms. Valerie Amos, UN Under-secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, who made an urgent two-day visit to the country and calculated the figure of 350 doctors and 2,000 nurses. It was necessary to know the human resources existing in the country in order to calculate the number of personnel needed. That factor also depends on the hours and days devoted by the personnel fighting against the epidemic. One important fact to bear in mind is not only the time that they devote to their work, but the hour. The analysis of the high mortality rate reveals that 40% of deaths take place in nighttime hours, which points to affected patients not receiving the same attention to their disease during those hours.

Our mission estimates that the optimum use of personnel would reduce the abovementioned total. By mobilizing the available human resources of the Henry Reeve Brigade and the ELAM graduates that it has, the Cuban Medical Mission is convinced – even in the midst of the tremendous adversities originating from the earthquake destruction, the hurricane, unforeseeable heavy rainfall and the poverty – that the epidemic can be dominated and the lives of thousands of people who will inexorably die in the current circumstances, can be saved.

Sunday 28th was the date of elections for the presidency, the totality of the Chamber of Representatives and part of the Senate, a tense and complex event that seriously concerned us, given that it is related to the epidemic and the traumatic situation in the country.

In his statement on December 3, the UN secretary general stated textually: “Whatever the complaints or reservations about the process, I urge all political actors to refrain from violence and to start discussions immediately to find a Haitian solution to these problems – before a serious crisis develops,” an important European news agency reported.

According to the same news agency, the secretary general appealed to the international community to complete the handover of $164 million, of which only 20% has been forthcoming.

It is not right to direct oneself to a country like someone who is scolding a little child. Haiti is a country that, two centuries ago, was the first in this hemisphere to end slavery. It has been the victim of all kinds of colonial and imperialist aggressions. It was occupied by the government of the United States barely six years ago after the latter promoted a fratricidal war. The existence there of a foreign occupation force, in the name of the United Nations, does not deprive that country of the right to respect for its dignity and its history.

We consider the position of the UN secretary general in appealing to Haitian citizens to avoid confrontations among themselves as correct. On November 28, at a relatively early hour, the opposition parties endorsed a call for street protests, thus provoking demonstrations and creating notable confusion within the country, particularly in Port-au-Prince; but, above all, outside of the country. Nevertheless, both the government and the opposition managed to avoid acts of violence. The following day the nation was calm.

The European agency stated that Ban Ki-moon had stated in relation to “last Sunday’s elections in Haiti […] that the ‘irregularities’ registered ‘now seem more serious than initially thought.’

Anyone who has read all the news coming in from Haiti and the latest statements of the main opposition candidates would find it impossible to understand that the person appealing for averting fratricidal fighting in the wake of the confusion created among voters in the run-up to the results of the count which will determine the two rival candidates in the January elections, is now saying that the problems were more serious than he initially thought, which is tantamount to fuelling the flames of political antagonisms.

Yesterday, December 4, was the 12th anniversary of the arrival of the Cuban Medical Mission in the Republic of Haiti. Since them, thousands of Cuban public health doctors and technical personnel have been providing services in Haiti. We have experienced with its people times of peace, or of war, earthquakes, hurricanes and cyclones. We will be with them in these times of intervention, occupation and epidemics.

The president of Haiti, the central and local authorities, whatever their religious or political ideas, know that they can count on Cuba.

Fidel Castro Ruz
December 5, 2010
8:12 p.m.

However, at this moment, our country is immersed in a battle against cholera in Haiti which, in its way, is becoming a threat for the rest of nations of Latin America and others in the Third World.

In the midst of the consequences of an earthquake that killed or wounded more than half a million people and caused enormous destruction, the epidemic broke out and, almost immediately, was aggravated by the calamity of a hurricane.

The number of persons affected by the disease rose yesterday, November 29, to 75,888, of whom 27,015 have been treated by the Cuban Medical Brigade, with 254 deaths, or 0.94%. The other state hospital facilities, NGOs and private, treated 48,875 people, of whom 1,721 died, indicating 3.03%.

Today, November 30, the Cuban Medical Mission which, incidentally, includes 201 graduates from the Latin American School of Medicine, treated 521 cholera patients, adding up to a total of 27,536.

Last Sunday, November 28, 18 people in a very critical condition arrived at the Cholera Treatment Center attached to the community reference hospital located in the L’Estère commune in Artibonite Department. They had come from a sub-commune called Plateau, and were immediately treated by the 11 doctors and 12 nurses from the Cuban Medical Brigade working there. Fortunately, they were able to save the lives of all of them.

On Monday 29th, 11 more patients arrived from the same sub-commune, among them, a child of five whose parents had died of cholera. Once again, their lives were saved.

Given that situation, Dr. Somarriba, head of the Medical Mission, decided to send an all-terrain vehicle with five doctors, two women nurses, one male nurse and a recovery therapist to the sub-commune, with the necessary resources for urgent attention to cases.

Of the five doctors, four are ELAM graduates: a Uruguayan, a Paraguayan, a Nicaraguan, a Haitian, and the head of the Cuban brigade in Artibonite department.

To reach the commune, they drove six kilometers by road, six more by causeway and, finally another two kilometers over rugged ground with all the equipment and resources on board to reach the commune.

Plateau is situated among five mountains with modest homes grouped at three points; the number of inhabitants is estimated at close to 5,000. There are no streets, nor electricity, nor businesses, as they informed us, and only one Protestant church.

The extremely poor population basically devotes itself to cultivating peanuts, corn, beans and squash.

When they reached Plateau, the church pastor offered to organize a treatment center within the church itself, with six cots and four pews of the faithful, which would allow the emergency admittance of 10 people.

Today eight were admitted, three in critical condition.

The neighbors say that around 20 people have died. That information does not appear in the official count of the dead. During the night they will work using the lamps they brought with them.

The Mission decided to set up a Cholera Treatment Center in that remote community, which will have 24 beds. All the resources will be sent tomorrow, including a generating plant.

They also informed that photo reporters came to the commune to see what was going on.

There were no deaths today, and another center, more to the north, has been opened, making for a total of 38 cholera treatment centers and units.

I am relating the case to explain the circumstances and methods of those waging the battle there against the epidemic which, with dozens of deaths every day, is already approaching 2,000 fatal victims.

With the working methods being implemented and the programmed reinforcement, it is unlikely that the number of dead will continue at the previous rate.

Knowing the passion with which the traditional electoral processes develop, aside from the typical abstentionism that characterizes many of them, we were concerned about what might happen in Haiti in the midst of the destruction and the epidemic. One basic and never violated principle is respect for the laws, parties and religious beliefs of the countries in which our doctors or the Henry Reeve Brigade are providing services.

Nevertheless, we were concerned about versions widely circulated by the international media presenting a scenario of generalized violence in the country, which was far from being the reality. The international observers were surprised at that news being divulged abroad, when in reality, for them, the events that did take place were isolated ones, affecting only a reduced percentage of citizens who exercised their vote.

The very leaders who called the people out onto the streets understood that, in the midst of the tragic situation in the country, it was not right to undertake actions that could provoke violent confrontations that would make it impossible to control and defeat the epidemic. If that objective is not achieved, it could become endemic and give rise to a health disaster in Haiti and a constant threat to the Caribbean, as well as to Latin America, where millions of poor people are accumulating in cities in growing numbers; and also for many other poor nations of Asia and Africa.

Moreover, do not ever forget that Haiti must be reconstructed from its foundations, with the help and cooperation of all. That is what we hope for its noble and selfless people.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 30, 2010
9:34 p.m.

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.
The more that human beings immerse themselves in seeking for answers to such profound and complex tasks related to intelligence, the more worthwhile are efforts to lift them out of their colossal ignorance of the real possibilities that our intelligent species has created and is capable of creating. Living and ignoring that is a total negation of our human condition.

However, one thing is absolutely certain; very few imagine how close the disappearance of our species could be. Twenty years ago, in a World Summit on the Environment in Rio de Janeiro [the Earth Summit], I spoke of that danger before a select audience of heads of state and government, who listened with respect and interest, although with no concern about the risk that they perceived at a distance of centuries, perhaps millennia. For them, without any doubt, technology and science, plus an elemental sense of political responsibility, would be capable of confronting it. That significant Summit ended happily with a large photograph of important figures. There was no danger of any kind.

Climate change was barely mentioned. George Bush Senior and other luminaries of the Atlantic Alliance enjoyed the victory over the European socialist camp. The Soviet Union was disintegrated and ruined. A vast hoard of Russian money passed into Western banks, its economy fell apart, and its defense shield against NATO military bases had been dismantled.

The former superpower that contributed the lives of more than 25 million of its sons in World War I, was left only with the strategic response capacity of nuclear power, which it had been obliged to create after the United States secretly developed the atomic weapon launched on two Japanese cities, when the adversary, defeated by the uncontainable advance of the allied forces, was no longer in combat conditions.

Thus began the Cold War and the manufacture of thousands of thermonuclear weapons, constantly more destructive and precise, capable of annihilating the population of the planet several times over. Nevertheless, the nuclear confrontation continued, weapons became still more precise and destructive. Russia is not resigned to the unipolar world that Washington is trying to impose. Other nations like China, India and Brazil are emerging with uncommon economic force.

For the first time, the human species, in a globalized world replete with contradictions, has created the capacity to destroy itself. That is compounded by unprecedented weapons of cruelty, such as bacteriological and chemical weapons, napalm and live phosphorus, which are used against civilian populations and enjoy total impunity, electromagnetic weapons and other forms of extermination. Not one corner in the depths of the earth or sea would remain beyond the reach of the current military means.

It is known that, in these ways, tens of thousands of nuclear artifacts, including those of a portable nature, have been created.

The greatest danger is derived from the decision of leaders with such decision- making faculties, in that error and insanity, so frequent in human nature, could lead to incredible disasters.

Almost 65 years have gone by since the first nuclear artifacts were exploded, resulting from the decision of a mediocre subject who, after the death of Roosevelt, remained in command of the powerful and rich U.S. power. Now eight countries – in their majority with the support of the United States – have those weapons, and a number of others have the technology and resources to manufacture them in a minimum space of time. Terrorist groups, alienated by hatred, could be capable of turning to them, in the same way that terrorist and irresponsible governments would not hesitate to use them, given their genocidal and uncontrollable conduct.

The military industry is the most prosperous of all and the United States is the largest exporter of weapons.

If our species should be liberated from all the abovementioned risks, another and even greater, or at least inescapable, one exists: climate change.

Humanity today has seven billion inhabitants and soon, within a space of 40 years, it will reach nine billion, a total nine times greater than barely 200 years ago. In the times of Ancient Greece, I venture to suppose that we were approximately 40 times less throughout the planet.

The most astounding aspect of our era is the contradiction between imperialist bourgeois ideology and the survival of the species. It is no longer about justice existing among human beings, today more than possible and something that cannot be renounced, but of the right and possibility of our very survival.

While the horizon of knowledge is extending to limits never imagined, the closer the abyss into which humanity is being led is approaching. All suffering known to date is barely a shadow of what could lie ahead for humanity.

Three events have taken place within a space of just 71 days, which humanity cannot overlook.

On December 18, 2009, the international community suffered the greatest disaster in history in its attempt to find a solution to the gravest problem that is threatening the world at this moment: the need to bring to an end, with all urgency, the greenhouse gases that are provoking the gravest problem confronted to date by humanity. All hopes had been placed on the Copenhagen Summit after years of preparation subsequent to the Kyoto Protocol, which the government of the United States – the largest contaminator in the world – had afforded itself the luxury of ignoring. The rest of the international community, 192 countries, this time including the United States, had committed itself to promoting a new agreement. The U.S. attempt to impose its hegemonic interests, in violation of elemental democratic principles, by establishing unacceptable conditions for the rest of the world in an anti-democratic manner, in virtue of bilateral commitments with a group of the most influential countries of the United Nations, was utterly shameful.

The states comprising that international organization were invited to sign a document that is nothing more than a joke, and which merely mentions theoretical future contributions to halt climate change.

Not even three weeks had gone by when, at dusk on January 12, Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere and the first to put an end to the odious system of slavery, suffered the worst natural disaster in the known history of this part of the world: an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale, at just 10 kilometers of depth and at a very short distance from the shores of its coast, struck the capital of the country, in whose flimsy houses made of mud the vast majority of people who were killed or missing lived. A mountainous and eroded country of 27,000 square kilometers, where firewood constitutes virtually the only source of domestic fuel for nine million people.

If there is one place on the planet where a natural disaster has constituted an immense tragedy it is Haiti, a symbol of poverty and underdevelopment, inhabited by the descendants of those transported from Africa by the colonialists to work as slaves for white masters.

The event moved the world in all corners of the planet, shaken by film footage circulated that bordered on the incredible. The wounded, bleeding and gravely injured moved among the corpses pleading for help. Under the rubble were lying the lifeless bodies of their loved ones. The number of fatal victims, according to official sources, is in excess of 200,000 people.

The country was already under the control of the MINUSTAH forces that the United Nations sent in to restore the order undermined by Haitian mercenary forces which, at the instigation of the Bush government, attacked the government elected by the Haitian people. Some of the buildings in which soldiers and chiefs of the peace forces were resident also collapsed, causing distressing victims.

Official reports estimate that, apart from the dead, around 400,000 Haitians were injured and several million, almost half of the total population, were affected. It was a veritable test for the world community which, in the wake of the shameful Denmark Summit, had the duty to show that the developed and rich countries were capable of confronting the threats of climate change to life on our planet. Haiti must constitute an example of what  the rich countries should do for the Third World nations in the face of climate change.

One can believe it or not, defying the data, in my judgment irrefutable, of the most serious scientists of the planet and the vast majority of the most instructed and serious people in the world, who think that, at the current rate of global warming, greenhouse gases will raise the temperature not only by 1.5 degrees, but up to 5 degrees, and that the average temperature is now the highest in the last 600,000 years, far before human beings  existed as a species on the planet.

It is totally unthinkable that the nine billion human beings who will inhabit the earth in 2050 could survive such a disaster. The hope remains that science itself can find a solution to the energy problem which currently obliges the consumption in 100 years the rest of the gaseous, liquid and solid fuels that nature took 400 million years to create. Perhaps science can find a solution to the necessary energy. The question is to know how much time and at what cost human beings can confront the problem, which is not the only one, given that many other non-renewable minerals and grave problems require solutions. But we can be sure of one thing; on the basis of all the concepts known today: the closest star is at four light years from our Sun, at a velocity of 300,000 kilometers per second. A spaceship could possibly cover that distance in thousands of years. Human beings have no alternative but to live on this planet.

It would have seemed unnecessary to approach the issue if, just 54 days after the Haiti earthquake, another incredible quake of magnitude 8.8 on the Richter scale, whose epicenter was at 150 kilometers distance and 47.4 depth northeast of the city of Concepción, had not caused another human disaster in Chile. It was not the largest in the history of that sister country; it is said that another one had a magnitude of 9 degrees, but this time it was not just a seismic phenomenon; while in Haiti a seaquake that did not materialize was anticipated, in Chile the earthquake was followed by an enormous tsunami, which appeared on its coast from 30 minutes to one hour afterward, according to the distance and data that is not as yet known with precision, and whose waves extended to Japan. If it had not been for Chilean experience in the face of earthquakes, its more solid constructions and its greater resources, the natural phenomenon would have cost the lives of tens of thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of people. At any rate, it caused around 1,000 fatalities, according to official data, thousands of injured and possible more than two million people suffered material damage. Almost the totality of its population of 17.94 million inhabitants suffered terribly and are still suffering from the consequences of the quake, which lasted for more than two minutes; its reiterated aftershocks; and the terrible scenes and suffering left by the tsunami along its thousands of kilometers of coast. Our homeland is in full solidarity and is morally supporting the material effort that the international community has the duty to offer Chile. If it was in our hands, from the human point of view, the people of Cuba would not hesitate to do so for the sister people of Chile.

I believe that the international community has a duty to inform with objectivity the tragedy suffered by both peoples. It would be cruel, unjust and irresponsible not to educate the peoples of the world on the dangers that are threatening us.

Let the truth prevail above the ignoble acts and lies with which imperialism deceives and confuses the peoples!

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 7, 2010
9:27 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

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.

As one might imagine, later I avidly read the histories of Alexander the Great, Caesar, Hannibal, Bonaparte and, of course, any book that came into my hands on Maceo, Gómez, Agramonte and other great soldiers who fought for our independence. I did not possess sufficient culture to understand what lay behind history.

Later on, I centered my interest in Martí. In reality I owe my patriotic sentiments to him and the profound concept that “Homeland is humanity.” The audacity, the beauty, the value and the ethics of his thinking helped to convert me into what I believe I am: a revolutionary. Without being a follower of Martí one cannot be a follower of Bolívar; without being a follower of Martí and Bolívar, one cannot be a Marxist and, without being a follower of Martí, Bolívar and a Marxist, one cannot be anti-imperialist; without being those three things a Revolution in Cuba in our epoch could not have been conceived.

Almost two centuries ago, Bolívar wanted to send an expedition under the command of Sucre to liberate Cuba, which really needed it, in the 1820s, as a Spanish sugar and coffee colony, with 300,000 slaves working for their white owners.

With its independence frustrated and converted into a neo-colony, the full dignity of human beings could never be attained without a revolution that would end the exploitation of people by other people.

“…I want the first law of our republic to be the veneration of Cubans for the full dignity of human beings.”

With his thinking, Martí inspired the valor and conviction that led our [26th of July] Movement to the assault on the Moncada Garrison, which would have never entered our heads without the ideas of other great thinkers like Marx and Lenin, who made us see and understand the very distinct realities of the new era that we were experiencing.

Throughout centuries, the odious latifundia ownership and its slave workforce, preceded by the extermination of the former inhabitants of these islands, was justified in the name of progress and development.
Martí said something marvelous and worthy of Bolívar and his glorious life:
“…what he did not leave done, remains undone to this day: because Bolívar has still much to do in America.”

“Let Venezuela show me how to serve her: she has a son in me.”

In Venezuela, as others did in the Caribbean, the colonial power planted sugar cane, coffee, and cacao, and likewise took men and women from Africa as slaves. The heroic resistance of its indigenous peoples, using nature and the vast Venezuelan soil, prevented the annihilation of the original inhabitants.

With the exception of one part of the northern hemisphere, the vast territory of Our America remained in the hands of two kings of the Iberian Peninsula.

Without fear it can be affirmed that, for centuries, our countries and the fruits of the labor of our peoples have been plundered and continue being plundered by the large transnational corporations and the oligarchies that are in their service.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries; in other words, for almost 200 years after the formal independence of Ibero-America, nothing changed in essence. The United States, starting with the Thirteen English colonies that rebelled, expanded west and south. It purchased Louisiana and Florida, snatched more than half of its territory from Mexico, intervened in Central America and took possession of the area of the future Panama Canal, which would link the great oceans east and west of the continent via the point where Bolívar wished to create the capital of the largest of the republics that would be born from the independence of the nations of America.

In that epoch, oil and ethanol were not traded in the world, nor did the WTO exist. Sugar cane, cotton and corn were cultivated by slaves. Machines were still to be invented. Industrialization based on coal was strongly advancing.

Wars gave impulse to civilization, and civilization gave impulse to wars. These changed in nature, and became more terrible. They finally became world conflicts.

Finally, we were a civilized world. We even believed in it as a question of principles.

But we do not know what to do with the civilization attained. Human beings have equipped themselves with nuclear weapons of unbelievable accuracy and annihilation potency while, from the moral and political point of view, they have ignominiously retrogressed. Politically and socially, we are more underdeveloped than ever. Automatons are replacing soldiers; the mass media, educators, and governments are beginning to be overtaken by events without knowing what to do. In the desperation of many international political leaders one can appreciate an impotency in the face of the problems that are accumulating in their offices and steadily more frequent international meetings.

In those circumstances, an unprecedented disaster is taking place in Haiti, while on the other side of the planet, three wars and an arms race are continuing their development, in the midst of the economic crisis and growing conflicts, which is consuming more than 2.5% of the global GDP, a figure with which all the Third World countries could be developed in a short period of time and possibly evade climate change by devoting the economic and scientific resources that are essential to that objective.

The credibility of the world community has just received a harsh blow in Copenhagen, and our species is not demonstrating its capacity for surviving.

The tragedy of Haiti allows me to expound on this point of view based on what Venezuela has done with the countries of the Caribbean. While the large financial institutions vacillate over what to do in Haiti, Venezuela did not hesitate for one second to cancel that country’s economic debt of $167 million.

Throughout close to one century the major transnationals extracted and exported Venezuelan oil at infinitesimal prices. Over the decades, Venezuela became the largest world exporter of oil.

It is known that when the United States spent hundreds of billions on its genocidal war on Vietnam, killing and mutilating millions of the sons and daughters of that heroic people, it also unilaterally broke the Bretton Woods Agreement by suspending the conversion of gold into dollars, as the agreement stipulated, and launching the cost of that dirty war on the world. The U.S. currency was devalued and the hard currency income of the Caribbean countries was not sufficient to pay for oil. Their economies are based on tourism and exports of sugar, coffee, cacao and other agricultural products. A stunning blow threatened the economies of the Caribbean states, with the exception of two of them that are exporters of energy.

Other developed countries eliminated preferential tariffs for Caribbean agricultural exports, like bananas; Venezuela made an unprecedented gesture: it guaranteed the majority of those countries secure supplies of oil and special payment facilities.

On the other hand, nobody was concerned about the destiny of those peoples. If it were not for the Bolivarian Republic a terrible crisis would have hit the independent states of the Caribbean, with the exception of Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados. In the case of Cuba, after the USSR collapsed, the Bolivarian government promoted an extraordin
ary growth in trade between the two nations, which included the exchange of goods and services, which permitted us to confront one of the harshest periods of our glorious revolutionary history.

The finest ally of the United States and, at the same time the basest and vilest enemy of the people, was the fraudster and simulator Rómulo Betancourt, president-elect of Venezuela when the Revolution triumphed in Cuba in 1959.

He was the principal accomplice of the pirate attacks, acts of terrorism, aggressions against and the blockade of our homeland.

When Our America most needed it, the Bolivarian Revolution finally broke out.

Invited to Caracas by Hugo Chávez, the members of the ALBA committed themselves to lend maximum support to the Haitian people at the saddest moment in the history of that legendary people, who carried out the first victorious social Revolution in world history, when hundreds of thousands of Africans, in rising up and creating in Haiti a republic thousands of miles away from their native lands, undertook one of the most glorious revolutionary actions of this hemisphere. In Haiti, there is African, Indian and white blood; the Republic was born from the concepts of equality, justice and liberty for all human beings.

Ten years ago, at a point when the Caribbean and Central America lost tens of thousands of lives during the tragedy of Hurricane Mitch, the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) was created in Cuba to train Latin American and Caribbean doctors who, one day, would save millions of lives, but especially and above all, would serve as an example in the noble exercise of the medical profession. Together with the Cubans, dozens of young Venezuelans and other Latin American graduates of ELAM will be in Haiti. News has arrived from all corners of the continent of many compañeros who studied at ELAM and now want to collaborate with them in the noble task of saving the lives of children, women and men, young and old.

There will be dozens of field hospitals, rehabilitation centers and hospitals, in which more than 1,000 doctors and students in the final years of medical school from Haiti, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile and other sister countries will be providing services. We have the honor of already being able to count on a number of American doctors who also studied in ELAM. We are prepared to cooperate with those countries and institutions which wish to participate in these efforts to provide medical services in Haiti.

Venezuela has already contributed tents, medical equipment, medicine and foodstuffs. The Haitian government has given full cooperation and support to this effort to bring health services free of charge to the largest possible number of Haitians. It will be a consolation for everybody in the midst of the greatest tragedy that has taken place in our hemisphere.

Fidel Castro Ruz

February 7, 2010
8:46 p.m.

“The head of our medical brigade has informed that the situation is difficult but we are already saving lives.”

Hour after hour, day and night, the Cuban health professionals have started to work nonstop in the few facilities that were able to stand, in tents, and out in the parks or open-air spaces, since the population feared new aftershocks.

The situation was far more serious than was originally thought. Tens of thousands of injured were clamoring for help in the streets of Port-au-Prince; innumerable persons laid, dead or alive, under the rubbled clay or adobe used in the construction of the houses where the overwhelming majority of the population lived. Buildings, even the most solid, collapsed. Besides, it was necessary to look for the Haitian doctors who had graduated at the Latin American Medicine School throughout all the destroyed neighborhoods. Many of them were affected, either directly or indirectly, by the tragedy.

Some UN officials were trapped in their dormitories and tens of lives were lost, including the lives of several chiefs of MINUSTAH, a UN contingent. The fate of hundreds of other members of its staff was unknown.

Haiti’s Presidential Palace crumbled. Many public facilities, including several hospitals, were left in ruins.

The catastrophe shocked the whole world, which was able to see what was going on through the images aired by the main international TV networks. Governments from everywhere in the planet announced they would be sending rescue experts, food, medicines, equipment and other resources.

In conformity with the position publicly announced by Cuba, medical staff from different countries -namely Spain, Mexico, and Colombia, among others- worked very hard alongside our doctors at the facilities they had improvised. Organizations such as PAHO and other friendly countries like Venezuela and other nations supplied medicines and other resources. The impeccable behavior of Cuban professionals and their leaders was absolutely void of chauvinism and remained out of the limelight.

Cuba, just as it had done under similar circumstances, when Hurricane Katrina caused huge devastation in the city of New Orleans and the lives of thousands of American citizens were in danger, offered to send a full medical brigade to cooperate with the people of the United States, a country that, as is well known, has vast resources. But at that moment what was needed were trained and well- equipped doctors to save lives. Given New Orleans geographical location, more than one thousand doctors of the “Henry Reeve” contingent mobilized and readied to leave for that city at any time of the day or the night, carrying with them the necessary medicines and equipment. It never crossed our mind that the President of that nation would reject the offer and let a number of Americans that could have been saved to die. The mistake made by that government was perhaps the inability to understand that the people of Cuba do not see in the American people an enemy; it does not blame it for the aggressions our homeland has suffered.

Nor was that government capable of understanding that our country does not need to beg for favors or forgiveness of those who, for half a century now, have been trying, to no avail, to bring us to our knees. Our country, also in the case of Haiti, immediately responded to the US authorities requests to fly over the eastern part of Cuba as well as other facilities they needed to deliver assistance, as quickly as possible, to the American and Haitian citizens who had been affected by the earthquake.

Such have been the principles characterizing the ethical behavior of our people. Together with its equanimity and firmness, these have been the ever-present features of our foreign policy. And this is known only too well by whoever have been our adversaries in the international arena.

Cuba will firmly stand by the opinion that the tragedy that has taken place in Haiti, the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, is a challenge to the richest and more powerful countries of the world.

Haiti is a net product of the colonial, capitalist and imperialist system imposed on the world. Haiti’s slavery and subsequent poverty were imposed from abroad. That terrible earthquake occurred after the Copenhagen Summit, where the most elemental rights of 192 UN member States were trampled upon. In the aftermath of the tragedy, a competition has unleashed in Haiti to hastily and illegally adopt boys and girls. UNICEF has been forced to adopt preventive measures against the uprooting of many children, which will deprive their close relatives from their rights. There are more than one hundred thousand deadly victims. A high number of citizens have lost their arms or legs, or have suffered fractures requiring rehabilitation that would enable them to work or manage their own.

Eighty per cent of the country needs to be rebuilt. Haiti requires an economy that is developed enough to meet its needs according to its productive capacity. The reconstruction of Europe or Japan, which was based on the productive capacity and the technical level of the population, was a relatively simple task as compared to the effort that needs to be made in Haiti. There, as well as in most of Africa and elsewhere in the Third World, it is indispensable to create the conditions for a sustainable development. In only forty years time, humanity will be made of more than nine billion inhabitants, and right now is faced with the challenge of a climate change that scientists accept as an inescapable reality.

In the midst of the Haitian tragedy, without anybody knowing how and why, thousands of US marines, 82nd Airborne Division troops and other military forces have occupied Haiti. Worse still is the fact that neither the United Nations Organization nor the US government have offered an explanation to the world’s public opinion about this relocation of troops.

Several governments have complained that their aircraft have not been allowed to land in order to deliver the human and technical resources that have been sent to Haiti.

Some countries, for their part, have announced they would be sending an additional number of troops and military equipment. In my view, such events will complicate and create chaos in international cooperation, which is already in itself complex. It is necessary to seriously discuss this issue. The UN should be entrusted with the leading role it deserves in these so delicate matters.

Our country is accomplishing a strictly humanitarian mission. To the extent of its possibilities, it will contribute the human and material resources at its disposal. The will of our people, who takes pride in its medical doctors and cooperation workers who provide vital services, is huge, and will rise to the occasion.

Any significant cooperation that is offered to our country will not be rejected, but its acceptance will fully depend on the importance and transcendence of the assistance that is requested from the human resources of our homeland.

It is only fair to state that, up until this moment, our modest airc
rafts and the important human resources that Cuba has made available to the Haitian people have arrived at their destination without any difficulty whatsoever.

We send doctors, not soldiers!

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 23, 2010
5:30 p.m.

Originally posted at Prensa Latina

At first, a feeling of surprise, astonishment, and commotion set in. A desire to offer immediate assistance came up in the farthest corners of the Earth. What assistance should be sent—and how—to a Caribbean nation from China, India, Vietnam, and other countries that are tens of thousands of kilometers away? The magnitude of the earthquake and the poverty that exists in that country generated at first some ideas about probable needs, which gave rise to all types of pledges about possible resources, which people then tried to bring to Haiti through every possible way.

We Cubans understood that the most important thing at that moment was to save lives, and we are trained not only to cope with catastrophes like that, but also to cope with other natural catastrophes related to human health.

Hundreds of Cuban doctors were working there, along with quite a number of young Haitians of humble origin, who had become well-trained health professionals, an area in which, for many years now, we have been cooperating with that neighboring sister nation. Some of our compatriots were on vacations, while other Haitians were being trained or studying in Cuba.

The destruction caused by the earthquake exceeded all calculations: the humble clay and adobe houses—in a city with almost two million inhabitants—could not withstand. The solid government facilities collapsed; entire blocks of houses crumbled over their tenants who, at that time of the day — almost at dusk — were inside their homes; and they were all buried, dead or alive, under the rubble. The streets were filled with people clamoring for help. The MINUSTAH — the UN contingent — the government and the police were left without leaders or headquarters. Soon after the earthquake, the main task of those institutions made up of thousands of personnel was to know who were still alive and where they were.

The immediate decision adopted by the dedicated Cuban doctors who were working in Haiti, as well as by the young health professionals from Haiti who had graduated in Cuba, was to establish contact among them, know about each other’s fate, and figure out what were the resources available to assist the Haitian people in the midst of that tragedy.

The Cuban doctors who were on vacation in Cuba as well as the Haitian doctors who were taking specialized courses in our homeland immediately readied themselves to leave for Haiti. Other Cuban surgery experts, who had accomplished difficult missions, volunteered to accompany them. Suffice it to say that in less than 24 hours our doctors had already assisted hundreds of patients. Today, January 16, only three and a half days after the tragedy, there are thousands of injured people who have already been assisted by them.

Today, Saturday, at noontime, the head of our medical brigade reported to us, among other data, the following:

…[T]he work that is being done by our comrades is really commendable. The general opinion is that the Pakistani earthquake has been put in the shade — that was another huge earthquake, and some of these doctors worked there. In that country, many a time our doctors assisted patients with fractures, including poorly consolidated fractures, or patients who had been crushed. But here reality has exceeded the imaginable: amputations abound, surgeries are being performed virtually out in the public. This is the image they envisaged of a war.”

…The ‘Delmas 33 Hospital’ is already operational. It has three operating rooms, its own power generation plants, doctors’ consultation rooms, etcetera, but is absolutely full.

…Twelve Chilean doctors have joined in. One of them is an anesthesiologist. There are also eight Venezuelan doctors and nine Spanish nuns. It was expected that, at any moment, 18 Spaniards, to whom the UN and the Haitian Public Health authorities had handed over the control of the hospital, would come, but they lacked some emergency supplies that had not arrived, so they have decided to join us and start working immediately.

…Thirty-two Haitian resident doctors were sent in; six of them were going straight to Carrefour, a place that was totally devastated. Traveling with them were also the three Cuban surgical teams that arrived here yesterday.

…[W]e are operating the following medical facilities at Port-au-Prince:
The Renaissance Hospital.
The Social Insurance Hospital.
The Peace Hospital.

…Four Comprehensive Diagnostics Centers are already working.

This information gives only an idea of the work that is being carried out by the medical staff from Cuba and those from other countries working with them, who were among the first to arrive in that nation. Our medical personnel are ready to cooperate and join forces with all other health specialists who have been sent to save lives in that sister nation. Haiti could become an example of what humankind can do for itself. The possibility and the means exist; but willingness is missing.

The longer it takes to bury or incinerate the corpses and to distribute food and other vital supplies, the higher the risks of epidemics and social violence will be.

Haiti will put to test how much the spirit of cooperation can endure before egoism, chauvinism, petty interests, and contempt for other nations prevail.

The whole humankind is now threatened by climate change. The earthquake at Port-au-Prince, hardly three weeks after the Copenhagen conference, is reminding all of us how selfishly and arrogantly we behaved then.

Countries are taking a close look at all that is happening in Haiti. The world’s public opinion and peoples’ criticisms will be ever harsher and unforgiving.

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 16, 2010
7:46 p.m.

Translation by El Habanero, edited for republication at MRzine.  En español.