Reflections of Fidel

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

The festivities associated with the 7th ALBA Summit, held in the historic Bolivian region of Cochabamba, showed the rich culture of the Latin American peoples and the joy elicited in children, young people and adults in general by the singing, the dancing, the costumes and rich expressions of the human beings of all ethnic groups, colors and shades: aborigine, black, white and mixed people. We could see there thousands of years of human history and precious culture that explain the determination with which the leaders of various Caribbean, Central and South American peoples convened that summit.

The meeting was a great success. Bolivia was the venue. I recently wrote on the excellent prospects of that country, an heir to the Aymara-Quechua culture. A small group of peoples from that area are bent on proving that a better world is possible. The ALBA -created by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Cuba, inspired by Bolivar’s and Marti’s ideas, as an unprecedented example of revolutionary solidarity- has showed how much could be done in barely five years of peaceful cooperation. This started shortly after Hugo Chavez’s political and democratic victory. Imperialism underestimated him, and deliberately tried to oust him and remove him. The fact that for a good part of the 20th century Venezuela had been the world’s largest oil-producer, practically owned by the Yankee transnationals, made the chosen path particularly rough to pursue.

The powerful adversary had neoliberalism and the FTAA [Free Trade Area of the Americas]; two instruments of domination always used after the Cuban Revolution to crush resistance in the hemisphere.

It is irritating to think of the shameless and disrespectful way in which the US administration imposed the government of millionaire Pedro Carmona and tried to have elected President Hugo Chavez removed, at a time when the USSR had disappeared and the People’s Republic of China was a few years away from becoming the economic and commercial power it is today, after two decades of over 10 percent growth. The Venezuelan people, like that of Cuba, resisted the brutal thrust. The Sandinistas recovered, and the struggle for sovereignty, independence and socialism gained ground in Bolivia and Ecuador. Honduras, which had joined the ALBA, was the target of a brutal coup d’etat inspired by the Yankee ambassador and propelled from the US military base in Palmerola.

Today, there are four Latin American countries that have completely eradicated illiteracy: Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua. A fifth country, Ecuador, is quickly advancing towards that goal. The comprehensive healthcare programs are underway in the five countries at an unprecedented pace in the Third World. The programs of economic development with social justice have become projects of these five states, which already enjoy great prestige in the world for their brave position in the face of the empire’s economic, military and media power. Three English speaking Caribbean countries of black ancestry, determined to fight for their development, have also joined the ALBA.

This alone would be a great political merit if in today’s world that were the only big problem of man’s history.

The economic and political system that in a short historical period has led to the existence of more than one billion hungry people, and many more hundreds of millions whose lives are hardly longer than half the average of those in the wealthy and privileged countries, was until now the main problem for mankind. But, a new and extremely serious problem was strongly discussed at the ALBA Summit: climate change. A danger of such magnitude had never been known in human history.

As Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Daniel Ortega waved the people goodbye in the streets of Cochabamba yesterday, Sunday, that same day, according to news spread by BBC World, Gordon Brown was chairing in London a session of the Major Economies Forum mostly made up by the highest developed capitalist countries, the main culprits for the carbon dioxide emissions, that is, the gas causing the greenhouse effect.

The significance of Brown’s remarks is that they have not been made by a representative of ALBA or one of the 150 emerging or underdeveloped countries on the planet but of Great Britain, the country where industrial development started and one of those which have released most carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The British Prime Minister warned that if an agreement is not reached at the UN Summit in Copenhagen, the consequences will be ‘devastating.’

Some of the ‘catastrophic’ consequences would be floods, droughts and lethal heat waves claimed the environmental group Nature World Fund referring to Brown’s assertion. “The climate change will be out of control within the next five to ten years if the CO2 emissions are not drastically cut down. There will not be a plan B if Copenhagen fails.”

The same news source claims that: “BBC specialist James Landale has explained that not everything is happening as expected.”

Newsweek reported that “it seems more unlikely every day that the states will commit to something in Copenhagen.”

According to reports from the major American press outlet, the chairman of the session, Gordon Brown, said that “if no agreement is reached, there is no doubt that the damage of the uncontrolled emissions will not be repaired with a future agreement.” He then went on to mention such conflicts as “unchecked migration and 1.8 billion people afflicted by water shortage.”

Actually, as the Cuban delegation claimed in Bangkok, the United States led the highest industrialized countries most opposed to the necessary reduction of emissions.

At the Cochabamba meeting, a new ALBA Summit was convened. The timetable will be: December 6, elections in Bolivia; December 13, ALBA summit in Havana; December 16, participation in the UN Copenhagen Summit. The small group of ALBA nations will be there. The issue is no longer “Homeland or Death”; it is truly and without exaggeration a matter of “Life or Death” for the human race.

The capitalist system is not only oppressing and plundering our countries; the wealthiest industrial nations wish to impose to the rest of the world the bulk of the burden in the struggle on climate change. Who are they trying to fool with that? In Copenhagen, the ALBA and the Third World countries will be struggling for the survival of the species.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 19, 2009
6:05 PM

If Obama was awarded the Nobel for winning the elections in a racist society despite his being African American, Evo deserves it for winning them in his country despite his being a native, and his having delivered on his promises.

For the first time, in both countries a member of their respective ethnic groups has won the presidency.

I had said several times that Obama is a smart and cultivated man in a social and political system he believes in. He wishes to bring healthcare to nearly 50 million Americans, to rescue the economy from its profound crisis and to improve the US image which has deteriorated as a result of genocidal wars and torture. He neither conceives nor wishes to change his country’s political and economic system; nor could he do it.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to three American presidents, one former president and one candidate to the presidency.

The first one was Theodore Roosevelt elected in 1901. He was one of the Rough Riders who landed in Cuba with his riders but with no horses in the wake of the US intervention in 1898 aimed at preventing the independence of our homeland.

The second was Thomas Woodrow Wilson who dragged the United States to the first war for the distribution of the world. The extremely severe conditions he imposed on a vanquished Germany, through the Versailles Treaty, set the foundations for the emergence of fascism and the breakout of World War II.

The third has been Barack Obama.

Carter was the ex-president who received the Nobel Prize a few years after leaving office. He was certainly one of the few presidents of that country who would not order the murder of an adversary, as others did. He returned the Panama Canal, opened the US Interests Section in Havana and prevented large budget deficits as well as the squandering of money to the benefit of the military-industrial complex, as Reagan did.

The candidate was Al Gore – when he already was vice president. He was the best informed American politician on the dreadful consequences of climate change. As a candidate to the presidency, he was the victim of an electoral fraud and stripped of his victory by W. Bush.

The views have been deeply divided with regards to the choice for this award. Many people question ethical concepts or perceive obvious contradictions in the unexpected decision.

They would have rather seen the Prize given for an accomplished task. The Nobel Peace Prize has not always been presented to people deserving that distinction. On occasions it has been received by resentful and arrogant persons, or even worse. Upon hearing the news, Lech Walesa scornfully said: “Who, Obama? It’s too soon. He has not had time to do anything.”

In our press and in CubaDebate, honest revolutionary comrades have expressed their criticism. One of them wrote: “The same week in which Obama was granted the Nobel Peace Prize, the US Senate passed the largest military budget in its history: 626 billion dollars.” Another journalist commented during the TV News: “What has Obama done to deserve that award?” And still another asked: “And what about the Afghan war and the increased number of bombings?” These views are based on reality.

In Rome, film maker Michael Moore made a scathing comment: “Congratulations, President Obama, for the Nobel Peace Prize; now, please, earn it.”

I am sure that Obama agrees with Moore’s phrase. He is clever enough to understand the circumstances around this case. He knows he has not earned that award yet. That day in the morning he said that he was under the impression that he did not deserve to be in the company of so many inspiring personalities who have been honored with that prize.

It is said that the celebrated committee that assigns the Nobel Peace Prize is made up of five persons who are all members of the Swedish Parliament. A spokesman said it was a unanimous vote. One wonders whether or not the prizewinner was consulted and if such a decision can be made without giving him previous notice.

The moral judgment would be different depending on whether or not he had previous knowledge of the Prize’s allocation. The same could be said of those who decided to present it to him.

Perhaps it would be worthwhile creating the Nobel Transparency Prize.

Bolivia is a country with large oil and gas depots as well as the largest known reserves of lithium, a mineral currently in great demand for the storage and use of energy.

Before his sixth birthday, Evo Morales, a very poor native peasant, walked through The Andes with his father tending the llama of his native community. He walked with them for 15 days to the market where they were sold in order to purchase food for the community. In response to a question I asked him about that peculiar experience Evo told me that “he took shelter under the one-thousand stars hotel,” a beautiful way of describing the clear skies on the mountains where telescopes are sometimes placed.

In those difficult days of his childhood, the only alternative of the peasants in his community was to cut sugarcane in the Argentinean province of Jujuy, where part of the Aymara community went to work during the harvesting season.

Not far from La Higuera, where after being wounded and disarmed Che [Guevara] was murdered on October 9, 1967, Evo – who had been born on the 26th of that same month in the year 1959 – was not yet 8 years old. He learned how to read and write in Spanish in a small public school he had to walk to, which was located 3.2 miles away from the one-room shack he shared with his parents and siblings.

During his hazardous childhood, Evo would go wherever there was a teacher. It was from his race that he learned three ethical principles: don’t lie, don’t steal, and don’t be weak.

At the age of 13, his father allowed him to move to San Pedro de Oruro to study his senior high school. One of his biographers has related that he did better in Geography, History and Philosophy than in Physics and Mathematics. The most important thing is that, in order to pay for school, Evo woke up a two in the morning to work as a baker, a construction worker or any other physical job. He attended school in the afternoon. His classmates admired him and helped him. From his early childhood he learned how to play wind instruments and even was a trumpet player in a prestigious band in Oruro.

As a teenager he organized and was the captain of his community’s soccer team.

But, access to the University was beyond reach for a poor Aymara native.

After completing his senior high school, he did military service and then returned to his community on the mountain tops. Later, poverty and natural disasters forced the family to migrate to the subtropical area known as El Chapare, where they managed to have a plot of ground. His father passed away in 1983, when Evo was 23 years old. He worked hard on the ground but he was a born fighter; he organized the workers and created trade unions thus filling up a space unattended by the government.

The conditions for a social revolution in Bolivia had been maturing in the past 50 years. The revolution broke out in that country with Victor Paz Estensoro’s Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR, by its Spanish acronym) on April 9, 1952, that is, before the start of our armed struggle. The revolutionary miners defeated the repressive forces and the MNR seized power.

The revolutionary objectives in Bolivia were not attained and in 1956, according to some well-informed people, the process started to decline. On January 1st, 1959, the Revolution triumphed in Cuba, and three years later, in January 1962, our homeland was expelled from the OAS. Bolivia abstained from voting. Later, every other government, except Mexico’s, severed relations with Cuba.

The divisions in the international revolutionary movement had an impact on Bolivia. Time would have to pass with over 40 years of blockade on Cuba; neoliberalism and its devastating consequences; the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and the ALBA; and above all, Evo and his MAS in Bolivia.

It would be hard to try summing up his rich history in a few pages.

I shall only say that Evo has prevailed over the wicked and slanderous imperialist campaigns, its coups and interference in the internal affairs of that country and defended Bolivia’s sovereignty and the right of its thousand-year-old people to have their traditions respected. “Coca is not cocaine,” he blurted out to the largest marihuana producer and drug consumer in the world, whose market has sustained the organized crime that is taking thousands of lives in Mexico every year. Two of the countries where the Yankee troops and their military bases are stationed are the largest drug producers on the planet.

The deadly trap of drug-trafficking has failed to catch Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador, revolutionary countries members of ALBA like Cuba which are aware of what they can and should do to bring healthcare, education and wellbeing to their peoples. They do not need foreign troops to combat drug-trafficking.

Bolivia is fostering a wonderful program under the leadership of an Aymara president with the support of his people. Illiteracy was eradicated in less than three years: 824,101 Bolivian learned how to read and write; 24,699 did so also in Aymara and 13,599 in Quechua. Bolivia is the third country free of illiteracy, following Cuba and Venezuela.

It provides free healthcare to millions of people who had never had it before. It is one of the seven countries in the world with the largest reduction of infant mortality rate in the last five years and with a real possibility to meet the Millennium Goals before the year 2015, with a similar accomplishment regarding maternal deaths. It has conducted eye surgery on 454,161 persons, 75,974 of them Brazilians, Argentineans, Peruvians and Paraguayans.

Bolivia has set forth an ambitious social program: every child attending school from first to eighth grade is receiving an annual grant to pay for the school material. This benefits nearly two million students.

More than 700,000 persons over 60 years of age are receiving a bonus equivalent to some 342 dollars annually.

Every pregnant woman and child under two years of age is receiving an additional benefit of approximately 257 dollars.

Bolivia, one of the three poorest nations in the hemisphere, has brought under state control the country’s most important energy and mineral resources while respecting and compensating every single affected interest. It is advancing carefully because it does not want to take a step backward. Its hard currency reserves have been growing, and now they are no less than three times higher than they were at the beginning of Evo’s mandate. It is one of the countries making a better use of external cooperation and it is a strong advocate of the environment.

In a very short time, Bolivia has been able to establish the Biometric Electoral Register and approximately 4.7 million voters have registered, that is, nearly a million more than in the last electoral roll that in January 2009 included 3.8 million.

There will be elections on December 6. Surely, the people’s support for their President will increase. Nothing has stopped his growing prestige and popularity.

Why is he not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?

I understand his great disadvantage: he is not the President of the United States of America.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 15, 2009
4:25 PM

The Empire has ruled the world through economy and deceit rather than force. At the end of WWII, it had attained the privilege of minting the convertible hard currency, the monopoly over the nuclear weapon and the possession of most of the gold in the world while it was the only large-scale producer of manufactured equipment, consumer goods, food and services worldwide. However, there was a limit to the printing of paper money: the gold standard at a regular price of 35 dollars a troy ounce. This was the situation for over 25 years, until August 15, 1971, when an executive order issued by President Richard Nixon led the United States to unilaterally call off that international arrangement thus defrauding the world. I’ll never tire out of repeating it. That was how it threw on the world economy its military buildup and war adventure expenses, especially the Vietnam War, which according to conservative estimates cost no less than 200 billion dollars and the lives of over 45 thousand American youths.

More bombs were dropped on that small Third World nation than were used in the latest world war. Millions of people were killed or maimed. The suspension of the gold standard turned the US dollar into a hard currency that could be printed at will by the US government without the backing of a regular value.

The Treasury bonds and bills continued to circulate as convertible hard currencies. The states’ reserves continued feeding on that paper money that, on the one hand, could be used to buy raw material, properties, goods and services anywhere in the world while on the other favored American exports with respect to the rest of the economies of the world. Both, politicians and academics repeatedly mention the true cost of that genocidal war admirably portrayed in Oliver Stone’s film. Sometimes in their calculations people tend to overlook the fact that the millions of dollars of 1971 are not the same as the millions of dollars of 2009.

One million of dollars today, when the price of gold — a metal whose value has been the most stable through centuries– exceeds one thousand dollars a troy ounce, is worth about 30 times its value when Nixon suspended the convertibility. Therefore, 200 billion dollars of 1971 amount to 6 trillion dollars of 2009. If this is not taken into account the new generations will not have an idea of the imperialist barbarity.

Likewise, when reference is made to the 20 billion dollars invested in Europe after the end of WWII –through the Marshall Plan to rebuild and control the economies of the main European powers which had the necessary labor force and technical culture for a fast development of production and services — people usually do not take notice of the fact that the real value of what the empire invested at that time amounts to 600 billion dollars at the current international value. They don’t realize that 20 billion dollars would hardly cover today the construction of three large oil refineries with a capacity of 800 thousand barrels of gasoline a day, in addition to other oil by-products.

The consumer societies and the absurd and whimsical waste of energy and natural resources that today threaten the survival of the human species could not be explained in such a short historical period without knowing the irresponsible way in which developed capitalism, in its highest stage, has governed the destiny of the world.

Such amazing waste explains why the debt of the two most industrialized countries in the world, the United States of America and Japan, amounts to approximately 20 trillion dollars.

Of course, the US economy is reaching an annual Gross Domestic Product of 15 trillion dollars. The capitalist crises are cyclical as the history of the system unequivocally shows but this time it is something else: it is a structural crisis, as Professor Jorge Giordani, Venezuelan minister of Planning and Development, explained last night to Walter Martinez in his Telesur program.

The press dispatches released today, Friday October 9, bring some additional irrefutable data. An AFP dispatch from Washington indicates that the US budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 amounts to 1.4 trillion dollars, that is, 9.9 percent of the GDP, “something unseen since 1945, after World War II,” it added.

In the year 2007, the deficit had already been one-third of that figure, and high deficits are expected in 2010, 2011 and 2012. That huge deficit has practically been mandated by the US Congress and government to bailout that country’s large banks, to prevent unemployment from rising beyond 10 percent and to release the United States from the recession. It is only natural that if they inundate the nation with dollars, the big stores will sell more goods, the industries will increase their outputs, less people will lose their housing, the wave of unemployment will subside and the Wall Street stocks will see their value grow. It was the classical way to solve the crisis. But, the world will never be the same. Paul Krugman, a celebrated Nobel laureate in Economics, has just said that international commerce has sustained its worst fall, worse even than that of the Great Depression, and expressed his doubts of a speedy recovery.

It is not possible to also inundate the world with dollars and believe that the paper money without a gold backing can retain its value. Other sounder economies have emerged. The US dollar is no longer the hard currency reserve of every state; actually, those who still have it wish to distance from it albeit trying, as much as possible, to prevent its devaluation before they can get rid of it.

The European Union Euro, the Chinese Yuan, the Suisse Franc, the Japanese Yen — despite this country’s debt — and even the Pound Sterling and other hard currencies have come to take the place of the US dollar in international commerce. Once again the metal gold is becoming a significant international reserve currency.

This is not a whimsical personal opinion, nor do I wish to slander that currency.

Another Nobel laureate in Economics, Joseph Stiglitz, has said –according to a press dispatch– that it is most likely that the green bill continues to be downcast, that politicians do not determine the exchange rates neither do speeches. He said this on October 6, at the IMF and World Bank Joint Annual Assembly held in Istanbul. The meeting was received with smashed shop windows and fires caused by Molotov cocktails.

Other news related that the European countries were afraid of the negative effect of the dollar’s weakness with respect to the Euro and its consequences for the European exports. The US secretary of the Treasury said that his country was interested in a strong dollar. Stiglitz laughed at the official statement and said –according to EFE– that in the case of the United States the money has been wasted and the reason has been the multimillion bailout of banks and wars like that of Afghanistan. Again according this press agency, the Nobel Laureate insisted that instead of investing 700 billion to help the bankers, the US could have used part of that money to help the developing countries and this would have encouraged global demand.

The president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, had sounded an alarm a few days before and warned that the dollar would not be able to endlessly preserve its status as the reserve currency.

An outstanding professor of Economics at Harvard University, Kenneth Rogoff, has said that the next big financial crisis will be that of the public deficits.

The World Bank has stated that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had showed that the world central banks had accumulated fewer dollars during the second semester of 2009 than at any other time during the past ten years while increasing the amount of Euros.

On October 6, the AFP published that gold had reached the record figure of 1,045 dollars for one ounce due to the weakening of the dollar and fear of inflation.

The London daily Independent reported that a group of oil-producing countries were considering the replacement of the dollar in commercial transactions by a pool of hard currencies including the Yen, Yuan, Euro, gold and a future common currency.

The news, either leaked or deduced with impressive logic, was denied by some of the countries supposedly interested in that protective measure. They do not want it to collapse, but they neither want to continue to accumulate a currency that has lost 30 times its value in less than three decades.

I cannot avoid mentioning a dispatch from EFE, that cannot be accused of being anti-imperialist press agency and that in the present circumstances carries especially interesting opinions:

“Experts in economics and finances agreed in New York today that the worst crisis since the Great Depression has resulted in a less significant role for that country in world economy.”

“Recession has changed the way in which the world looks at the US. Now our country is less significant than before and this is something we should admit, said David Rubenstein, president and founder of the Carlyle Group, the largest risk capital firm in the world, in his address to the World Business Forum.”

“The financial world will be less focused in the US. New York will never again be the financial capital of the world, a role it will have to share with London, Shanghai, Dubai, Sao Paulo and other cities, he said.”

“He described the problems the US will face once it leaves behind a major recession that will still be around for a couple of months.”

“The huge public debt, inflation, unemployment, the dollar’s loss of value as a reserve hard currency, the energy prices.”

“The government should reduce public expenses to cope with the debt problem and do something it does not like much: raise taxes.”

“Columbia University economist and special UN advisor Jeffrey Sachs has agreed with Rubenstein that the US economic and financial predominance is fading.”

“We have left a system focused on the United States for one which is multilateral.”

“Twenty years of irresponsibility, first by Bill Clinton’s administration and then by George W. Bush’s, caved in to Wall Street pressures.”

“The banks negotiated with ‘toxic assets’ to obtain easy money, Sachs explained.”

“What is important now is to recognize the unprecedented challenge of achieving a sustainable economic development that is consistent with the basic rules of physics and biology on this planet.”

On the other hand, the reports coming directly from our delegation in Bangkok, capital of Thailand, were absolutely not encouraging:

Our ministry of Foreign Affairs literally reported that:

“[W]hat was under discussion was basically whether or not to ratify the concept of common but differentiated responsibilities among the industrial nations and the so-called emerging economies, essentially China, Brazil, India and South Africa, and the underdeveloped countries.

“China, Brazil, India, South Africa, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the ALBA countries are the most active. In general, most nations in the Group of 77 are holding correct and firm positions.

“The figures of carbon emissions reductions under discussion do not correspond with those scientifically calculated to keep the rise in temperature under 2 degrees Celsius, 25-40 percent. At the moment, the negotiation is moving around a reduction of 11-18 percent.

“The United States is not making any real effort but accepting just a 4 percent reduction with respect to the year 1990.”

In the morning of this Friday 9, the world woke up to the news that “the good Obama” of the riddle — as explained by Bolivarian President Hugo Chavez Frias at the United Nations — had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I do not always agree with the positions of that institution but I must admit that, at this moment it was, in my view, a positive action. It compensates the setback sustained by Obama in Copenhagen when Rio de Janeiro, and not Chicago, was chosen as the venue of the 2016 Olympics, a choice that elicited heated attacks from his right-wing adversaries.

Many will feel that he has yet to earn the right to receive such an award. Rather than a prize to the President of the United States, we choose to see that decision as a criticism of the genocidal policy pursued by more than a few presidents of that country who took that nation to the crossroads where it is today. That is, as a call for peace and for the pursuit of solutions conducive to the survival of the species.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 9, 2009
6:11 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 24, 2009
1:23 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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