Glory be to his memory forever!

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 12, 2012
3:15 p.m.

The post Teofilo Stevenson appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

Of course I am not speaking about those who throughout the various millennia turned public affairs into instruments of power and wealth for the privileged classes, an activity where the real records of cruelty have been imposed during the last eight or ten thousand years about those we have certain traces of the social behaviour of our species, whose existence as thinking beings, according to scientists, barely covers 180,000 years.

It is not my purpose to get involved in such topics that would surely bore almost one hundred percent of the people continuously being bombarded with news across the media, going from the written word to three-dimensional images that are starting to be shown in  expensive cinemas. The day is not far away when they shall also predominate in the already fabulous television images per se. It is no accident that the so-called leisure industry has its headquarters in the heart of the empire that tyrannizes everybody.

What I would like to do is to rest on the current starting point of our species to speak of the march towards the abyss. I might even speak of an “inexorable” march and I would certainly be closer to reality. The idea of a Last Judgement is implicit in the most practiced religious doctrines among the inhabitants of this planet, without anyone classifying them for that as being pessimistic. On the contrary, I think it is a basic duty of all serious and sane persons, who number in the millions, to fight to postpone and perhaps to prevent that dramatic and imminent event in today’s world.

Numerous dangers threaten us, but two of them, nuclear war and climate change, are decisive and both are ever farther away from coming close to a solution.

Verbose demagoguery, the statements and speeches of the tyranny imposed upon the world by the United States and its powerful and unconditional allies, on both topics, do not admit the slightest doubt in that respect.

January 1st of 2012, the western and Christian New Year, coincides with the anniversary of the triumph of the Revolution in Cuba and the year celebrating the 50th anniversary of the October Crisis of 1962 that put the world on the brink of a nuclear world war and this forces me to write these lines.

My words would be lacking in meaning if they had the objective of blaming the American people, or on any other country which is an ally of the United States in the unusual adventure; they, like all the other peoples of the world, would be the inevitable victims of the tragedy.  Recent events happening in Europe and elsewhere show massive indignation by those who are led to protest by the unemployment, shortages, reductions in their incomes, debts, discrimination, lies and politicking and lead to brutal repressions by the guardians of established law and order.

With growing frequency one speaks of military technologies that affect the entire planet, the only satellite known to be inhabitable hundreds of light years away from any other that may perhaps be suitable if we were to move at the speed of light, three hundred thousand kilometres per second.

We should not ignore that if our marvellous thinking species should disappear, many millions of years would go by before another one capable of thinking would arise, by virtue of the natural principles that rule as a consequence of the evolution of the species, discovered by Darwin in 1859 and which today is acknowledged by all serious scientists, whether they are religious or not.

No other era in the history of mankind has known the dangers that today humanity faces. Persons like me, at 85 years old, had reached our 18th birthdays with high school graduation degrees before the first atomic bomb had been put together.

Today artefacts of this type, ready to be used – incomparably more powerful than those that produced the heat of the sun over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki─ add up to thousands.

Weapons of this kind that are kept in storage, added to those already deployed by virtue of agreements, reach figures that surpass twenty thousand nuclear missiles.

The use of just one hundred or so of those weapons would be enough to create nuclear winter that would cause a horrible death in a short time for all the human beings living on the planet, as the American scientist and Rutgers University professor Alan Robock has brilliantly explained along with computerized data.

Those used to reading news and serious international analyses know how the risks of the outbreak of war with the use of nuclear weapons increase as the tension grows in the Middle East, where in the hands of the Israeli government hundreds of combat-ready nuclear weapons are accumulated, and whose nature as a strong nuclear power is neither admitted or denied.  Likewise, tension grows around Russia, a country with unquestionable capacity for response, threatened by a presumed European nuclear shield.

The Yankee statement that the European nuclear shield is there to also protect Russia from Iran and North Korea is laughable. The Yankee position is so feeble in this delicate matter that its ally Israel does not even bother to guarantee prior consultations on measures that might unleash war.

Humanity, in contrast, does not enjoy any guarantee.  Cosmic space, in the vicinity of our planet, is overcrowed by US satellites destined to spy on what is going on even on the roofs of houses in any nation of the world. The lives and customs of any person or family became objects of espionage; listenning to hundreds of millions of cell phones and subjects of conversations by any user anywhere in the world stops being a private matter and becomes information material for the US secret services.

That is the right that is being left to the citizens of our world by virtue of the acts of a government whose constitution, approved by the Philadelphia Congress in 1776, established that men were born free and equal and the Creator has given them all those rights, which they now no longer have, not the Americans themselves or any citizen of the world, not even to communicate by phone with relatives and friends about their most private feelings.

Of course war is a tragedy that can happen and it is very probable that it will happen; however, if humanity were capable of delaying it for an indefinite length of time, another equally dramatic event is happening at an increasing pace: climate change. I shall restrict myself to point out what eminent scientists and world-class exhibiters have explained through documents and films that are questioned by nobody.

It is well-known that the US government was opposed to the Kyoto agreements on the environment, a line of conduct that didn’t even agree with its closest allies whose territories would suffer tremendously and some of which, such as Holland, would practically disappear.

The planet goes on today without a policy to solve this serious problem, while the levels of oceans rise, the enormous ice caps covering Antarctica and Greenland, where more than 90% of the world’s fresh water is accumulated, are melting at a growing pace, and now humanity, on November 30, 2011, officially reached the figure of 7 billion inhabitants which, in the poorest areas of the world grows in a sustained and inevitable manner. Could it be that those who have dedicated themselves to bombing countries and killing millions of persons in the last 50 years could be concerned about the fate of all the other peoples?

The United States today is not just the promoter of those wars, but it is also the greatest manufacturer and exporter of weapons in the world.

As it is well-known, that powerful country has signed a covenant to supply 60 billion dollars in the next few years to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where the transnationals of the US and its allies extract on a daily basis 10 million barrels of light oil, in other words, a billion dollars in fuel.  What will happen to that country and the region when those energy reserves should run dry? It is not possible that our globalized world will accept without a murmur the colossal wasting of energy resources that nature took hundreds of millions of years to create, and whose dilapidation increases essential costs. It would in no way be worthy of the intelligent nature attributed to our species.

In the last 12 months, that situation has worsened considerably because of new technological advances which, far from alleviating the tragedy coming from the squandering of fossil fuels, considerably make things worse.

World class scientists and researchers have been pointing out the dramatic consequences of climate change.

In an excellent documentary film by French director Yann Arthus-Bertrand, entitled Home, and filmed in collaboration with prestigious and well-informed international celebrities, published in mid-2009, he warns the world with irrefutable data about what is happening.  Using solid arguments, he shows the deadly consequences of consuming, in less than two centuries, the energy resources created by nature in hundreds of millions of years; but the worst of it is not the colossal squandering, but the suicidal consequences for the human species. Referring to the very existence of life, he admonishes the human species: “…You benefit from a fabulous legacy of 4,000 million years supplied by the Earth. You are only 200,000 years old but you have changed the face of the world.”

He didn’t blame nor could he blame anyone up to that time, he was simply pointing out an objective reality. However, today we have to blame ourselves for what we know and we are doing nothing to try to fix it.

In their images and concepts, the authors of that work include memories, data and ideas that we have the duty to know and take into account.

In recent months, another fabulous film was Oceans, made by two French film-makers, considered to be the best film of the year in Cuba; perhaps, in my opinion, the best film of this era.

This is amazing material because of the precision and beauty of the images never before filmed by any camera: 8 years and 50 million Euros were invested in the making of it.  Humanity must thank that proof for the way in which the principles of nature adulterated by man express themselves. The actors are not human beings: they are the inhabitants of the world’s oceans.  An Oscar for them!

What inspired me with the duty to write these lines did not arise from the events referred to up till now, which in one way or another I have commented on previously, but others that, managed by the interests of the transnationals, have been coming to light sparingly in the last few months and in my opinion serve as definitive proof of the confusion and political chaos rife in the world.

Just a few months ago I read for the first time some news about the existence of shale gas. It was stated that the US had reserves to supply their needs for this fuel for 100 years. Since I now have time to do research on political, economic and scientific topics that could be really useful for our peoples, I discretely got in touch with several people living in Cuba or abroad. Oddly, none of them had heard a word about the matter.  Of course, this wasn’t the first time that happened. One is amazed about important facts that are hidden in a veritable sea of information, mixed in with hundreds or thousands of news items that circulate the planet.

Nevertheless, I persisted in my interest on the subject.  Only a few months have gone by and shale gas is no longer news. Just before the new year enough information was known to clearly see the world’s inexorable march towards the abyss, threatened by risks of such great seriousness as nuclear war and climate change. I have already spoken of the first of these; about the second one, in the interest of brevity, I shall restrict myself to reveal known data and some to be known, that no political cadre or sensible person should ignore.

I don’t hesitate saying that I am observing both facts with the serenity imparted by the years I have lived, in this spectacular phase of human history, that have contributed to the education of our brave and heroic people.

The gas is measured in TCF, which can be referred to in cubic feet or cubic metres – it is not always explained whether they are dealing with one or the other – it depends on the system of measurement that is used in certain countries. On the other hand, when they speak of billions they tend to refer to the Spanish billion that means a million millions; that figure in English is called a trillion, and we must keep that in mind when analyzing the references to the gas which tend to be copious. I shall try to point that out when necessary.

The American analyst Daniel Yergin, author of a voluminous classic on the history of oil stated, according to the IPS news agency, that now a third of all the gas produced in the US is shale gas.

“…exploitation of a platform with six wells can consume 170,000 cubic metres of water and even create harmful effects such as influencing seismic movements, polluting surface and groundwaters and affecting the landscape.”

The British BP group informs us that “proven reserves of conventional or traditional gas on the planet add up to 6,608 billion ―million millions― of cubic feet, some 187 billion cubic metres, […] and the largest deposits are in Russia (1,580 TCF), Iran (1,045), Qatar (894), and Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan with 283 TCF each”. We are dealing with gas that is being produced and marketed.

“An EIA study ―a US  government energy agency ― published in April of 2011 found practically the same volume (6,620 TCF or 187.4 billion cubic metres) of recoverable shale gas in just 32 countries, and the giants are: China (1,275 TCF), United States (862), Argentina (774), Mexico (681), South Africa (485) and Australia (396 TCF)”. Shale gas is gas de esquisto. Take note that according to what is known, Argentina and Mexico have almost as much as the United States. China, with larger deposits, has reserves that equal almost the double of those and 40% more than the United States.

“…countries secularly dependent on foreign suppliers shall count on an enormous base of resources in relation to their consumption, such as France and Poland which import 98 and 64 percent respectively of the gas they consume, and in shale or lutite rocks they would have reserves greater than 180 TCF each”.

“To extract it from the lutite ― IPS points out― they resort to a method called ‘fracking’ (hydraulic fracturing), with the injection of great amounts of water plus sand and  chemical additives. Carbon traces (proportion of carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere) are much greater than those generated in the production of conventional gas.

“Since we are dealing with bombarding layers of earth crust with water and other substances, the risk of damaging the subsoil, soil, surface and groundwater tables, the landscape and communication channels  is greater if the facilities for extracting and transporting the new wealth presents handling defects or errors.”

Suffice it to point out that among the numerous chemical substances that are injected with the water to extract this gas we have benzene and toluene, substances that are terribly carcinogenic.

Lourdes Melgar, expert from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores of Monterrey, has the opinion that:

“‘It is a technology generating much debate and they are resources located in zones where there is no water…”.

“Gas-bearing lutites ― IPS states― are unconventional hydrocarbon quarries, encrusted in rock that protects them, therefore fracking is used to release them on a grand scale.”

“Generation of shale gas involves high volumes of water and the excavation and fracking generates great amounts of liquid waste that may contain dissolved chemicals and other pollutants that require treatment before they are disposed.”

“Production of shale leaped from 11,037 million cubic metres in 2000 to 135,840 million in 2010. In the event of expansion following this pace, in 2035 it will cover 45 percent of the demand of general gas, according to EIA.

“Recent scientific research has warned on the negative environmental profile of lutite gas.

“Professors Robert Howarth, Renee Santoro and Anthony Ingraffea from Cornell University in the US have concluded that this hydrocarbon is a greater pollutant than oil and gas, according to the study ‘Methane and the traces of greenhouse effect gases from natural gas coming from shale formations’ published in April last year in the Climatic Change review.

“‘Carbon trace is greater than that from conventional gas or oil, seen on any time horizon, but particularly within the lapse of 20 years. Compared to carbon, it is at least 20 percent greater and perhaps more than double in 20 years’, the report underlined.”

“Methane is one of the most polluting greenhouse effect gases, responsible for the rise in the planet’s temperature.”

“‘In active extraction areas (one or more Wells in one kilometre) average and maximum concentrations of methane in wells of drinking water increased with proximity to the closest gas well and were a danger for potential explosion’, states the text written by Stephen Osborn, Avner Vengosh, Nathaniel Warner and Robert Jackson, from Duke State University.

“These indicators put into question the industry argument that shale could replace carbon in generating electricity and, therefore be a resource for mitigating climate change.

“‘It is an adventure that is far too premature and risky’.”

“In April of 2010, the US State Department started up the Shale Gas Global Initiative to help countries seeking to use that resource in order to identify and develop it, with the eventual economic benefit for US transnationals.”

I have been inevitably extensive, I had no other option. I write these lines for the Cubadebate website and for Telesur, one of the most serious and honest channels in our long-suffering world.

In order to deal with the subject, I let the holidays of the old and the New Year slip by.

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 4, 2012.
9:15 p.m.

The post The March Towards the Abyss appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

In that country, these are the people who work at the toughest jobs and live under the constant fear of arrest and forced deportation. Despite the drastic measures, every year the number of those dying in the attempt grows and there are hundreds of thousands of them who are annually deported to their countries of origin.

The number of Americans opposed to that abuse is also growing, such as those who supported and, for the third time, elected the young congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

At the present time, the state of Arizona is one of the wealthiest because of the minerals taken from its soil, especially copper and molybdenum; great productions of cotton and beef that use up vast areas of its land; the beauty of its landscape, such as the famous Grand Canyon carved by the Colorado River, considered to be one of the most beautiful on the planet and, one of the three great native communities. The state is visited annually by 30 million domestic and foreign tourists. Approximately 30% of its population is of Hispanic-American origin.

On the other hand, the Tea Party, made up of the most reactionary and politically backward elements of society, tries to drag the Republican Party to extremist and warmongering positions, that in the middle of the crisis and the disillusionment about the promises that Obama hasn’t wanted or hasn’t been able to fulfil, would lead the country to the abyss. From the debate that will have to come out of this, one can draw the pertinent conclusions.

On the congresswoman’s health, this morning, Monday the 10th, the Spanish digital version of El Mundo published the following information:

The bullet entered the rear of the Democratic congresswoman’s head, […] crossing the left hemisphere of the brain and exiting from the front. After a two-hour operation during which the remains of the bullet were removed, along with part of the dead brain tissue and approximately half of the cranium, – which is being kept to be re-attached later on – the Tucson University Medical Center surgeons […] showed ‘cautious optimism’.

Surgery appears to have gone well, according to the head of the hospital Traumatology Unit, Dr. Peter Rhee, who explained that, in spite of the patient being under sedation and respiratory assistance, thus not allowing her to speak, she has been able to communicate with signs and to respond to simple commands, ‘such as squeezing a hand or lifting two fingers’, something that indicates that ‘brain function’ exists.

Dr. Francisco Villarejo, head of Neurosurgery at the Niño Jesús Hospital and the La Luz Clinic, experienced in this kind of surgery, explained to El Mundo that the most dangerous thing for the congresswoman at this time is that the brain should swell, since the bullet as it went through dragged along bone fragments with it, and this could produce inflammation. A risk increasing even more after surgery since the area is highly sensitive’.

We hope that world public opinion can know the real condition of the congresswoman, clearly and precisely, and as soon as possible. It is a matter of interest to everyone.

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 10, 2011
7:11 p.m.

The post The Crime Against the Democratic Congresswoman appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

I felt a desire to know more about the life of Fayad Jamís. Barely two hours after that International Workers Day “Reflection” was published, I set myself to read some material. The first that I saw, by chance, was a message from our dear friend Stella Calloni. Through her we learned in detail of the conspiracies, the horrific crimes committed by U.S. governments as the promoters and allies of the bloodiest dictatorships that the peoples of this continent have ever known. But in this concrete case, it was to talk to us about Fayad Jamís, the author of the poem, and to transmit to us her impressions concerning realities that are sometimes bitter, without anything, in spite of that, dampening her enthusiasm.

I pass on here the exact text of the message that I had the honor of receiving that May Day night.

“Dear Comandante:

“I was very moved that you quoted Fayad, whom I knew in Mexico and to whom I was linked in a beautiful friendship and comradeship. He was a friend to all the exiles. An excellent poet, painter and an artist with a great love of his land. At that time he was a cultural attaché. Marvelous in everything that he did. I even wrote him a little poem. But what was beautiful for me is that you have rescued the ‘giving one’s everything,’ because it is so necessary to repeat that today, when we are being invaded by what I call the ‘fatal attraction’ of a neoliberal lack of culture that has prospered to a large degree. The postmodernism of underdevelopment, which has done so much damage and helped to justify so many individualisms, is pathetic.

“The I, I, I before we, that of always seeing how we can beat the other, is something at a total remove from that giving everything. And it has advanced like a pandemic that destroys everything in its path, old friendships and loyalties, roads walked together. To make it more effective, there is also the recourse to the cynicism of mocking those who maintain their principles, their faith in humanity, in human beings, in justice, in dignity.
“Cuba has been an example of giving everything, even to those who were unable to see that as the most revolutionary act of the Revolution – excuse the repetition – which is constant solidarity, like a cloak sheltering others.

“It seems to me that these are the times to recover magic and poetry, because revolutions are made of all of that. If it wasn’t for all of that, tell me how you would have embarked on the Granma, for example. How would Cuba have resisted and defended itself and, at the same time have created culture, education, ballet, everything that was being born in the embers of a genuine Revolution. Even now, when one sees those old documentaries of boys and girls going to the mountains and sierras as part of the literacy campaign, that was and is that giving everything, because they went with that spirit and are going with that spirit .

“I experienced that in the literacy campaigns in Nicaragua, or in Bolivia very recently when, moved to tears, I was there on the day that that country was declared free of illiteracy (and, in this case, also in original languages). Who could do this if they did not have the spirit of giving everything?

“And the examples are so many, but sometimes, as they are not seen as a whole, they are not seen. They are isolated and cold news items. I saw the Cuban doctors in a barrio in Venezuela and a woman, arriving with her children to have them vaccinated, told me, ‘You know, they give their everything here.’ And what to say about the Five? They have given everything in order to protect their country. The rest is trifling, passing, rootless.

“One day I said to you, moreover, that we have to write among all of us the history of solidarity, because on that day we are going to realize that the enemy that appears so great, so immense, is nothing more than an empty shell. Those who know what ‘giving everything’ is, are invincible, because they keep on and keep on giving across time, casting light like the beloved CHE.

“An immense embrace and thank you, because you are still giving everything.
“Stella.”

Beautiful words from Stella for those who know the real history of our epoch, which can never be erased with the stroke of a pen!

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 4, 2009
3:17 p.m.

The post Giving Everything appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

The Cuban artists’ performance was great. For a moment I thought that the production had required the cooperation of dozens of Angolans. There are scenes that from the humane point of view tear to pieces the contemptuous and racist way in which the imperialists have traditionally approached African culture and habits. There are really unforgettable images of houses in flames after being hit by the rockets with which the South African rulers armed an African ethnic group to fight their Angolan brothers.

The exploits of our compatriots fighting together with the Angolans in that battlefield were really moving. Their heroic resistance saved them all from death.

Those who perished did not do so in vain. The South African Army had been defeated in 1976 when Cuba had sent up to 42 thousand combatants to prevent that the Angolan independence, for which that fraternal people had long been fighting, would succumb to the treacherous invasion launched by the apartheid regime whose soldiers were forced to pull out back to the border that had been their point of departure: the colonized Namibia. Shortly after the end of the war and the beginning of the progressive withdrawal of the Cuban combatants under pressure from the Soviet leadership, the South Africans went back to their old ways against Angola.

The battle of Cuito Cuanavale, four years after that of Kangamba –its real name—and the dramatic situation experienced at that place were the result of a wrong Soviet strategy advised to the Angolan high command. We had always favored preventing the apartheid regime’s army from intervening in Angola. Likewise, at the end of the 1976 war, we were in favor of demanding the independence of Namibia.

The Soviet Union supplied the weapons while we trained the Angolan combatants and advised their almost neglected brigades involved in fighting the UNITA bandits. This was the case of the 32nd Brigade operating in Cuanza, near the central border to the east of the country.

We had systematically refused to take part in the offensives carried out almost every year on the hypothetical or real commanding post of Jonas Savimbi, chief of the counterrevolutionary UNITA. This was over 625 miles away from the capital, in the remote Southeast corner of Angola, where they used brigades equipped with shining new Soviet weapons, tanks and sophisticated armored transportation vehicles. The Angolan soldiers and officers were thus uselessly killed when they were deep in the enemy’s territory and the South African air force, long-range artillery and troops intervened.

This time, after sustaining great losses, the brigades had retreated to a place located 12.5 miles from Cuito Cuanavale, a former NATO air base. It was at that point that our forces in Angola were ordered to send a tank brigade to that place and when the decision was made, on our own, to definitely put an end to the intervention of the South African forces. We then reinforced our troops in Angola sending from Cuba military units equipped with their weapons and the necessary means to accomplish their mission. This time the number of Cuban combatants exceeded the figure of 55 thousand.

The battle of Cuito Cuanavale, starting on November 1987, was combined with the units already moving towards the Angolan border with Namibia where the third most important war action would take place.

When an even more dramatic film than Kangamba is made, the movie story will show even more impressive episodes where the massive heroism of Cubans and Angolans shone up to the humiliating defeat of apartheid.

It was at the end of the last battles when the Cuban combatants took the risk of being hit –this time together with their Angolan brothers—by the nuclear weapons that the US Administration provided to the hateful apartheid regime.

It would be most appropriate to eventually produce a third film like Kangamba which is presently being shown to our people in the movie theaters of Cuba.

Meanwhile, the empire is stuck with an economic crisis unparalleled in its decadent history and Bush shouts his head off making absurd speeches. This is what is mostly discussed these days.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 30, 2008
7:40 p.m.

The post Kangamba appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

Benedict XVI paid special attention to April 13 when, 65 years ago, over 1,000 prisoners were incinerated in the town of Gardelegen; this became a day remembered in the martyrology suffered by the Jewish people in Nazi Germany, a human tragedy that lasted for years.

Bush welcomed him at Andrews Air Force Base in the United States, an unusual gesture. As a German bishop, Benedict XVI was a conservative and allergic to changes in social policies and in internal regulations governing his Church. Initially, the U.S. mainstream press was relentless, due to the irregularities committed contrary to standards established to guide the faithful. It even described the Roman Catholic Church as a decadent religion.

His visit also coincided with his 81st birthday. Bush, solicitous and indulgent, sang Happy Birthday to him, right on the 16th.

The Pope was undoubtedly intelligent. He counterattacked from the beginning of his visit. In spite of the 81 years that he would be celebrating a few hours later, he descended from the plane, barely touching the handrails of the steep steps, and by the time he reached the last treads, he was not even doing that. He is a short man who appears to weigh about half of what Bush weighs. He has a light step. He never, for one single minute, abandoned his smile and the sparkle in his eyes, and he immediately set out to follow a schedule that would have exhausted any 18-year-old visitor. Television coverage went wild.

The Pope visited universities, a Catholic cultural centre built just for the occasion; he met with representatives from hundreds of Catholic schools and universities across that huge country. The leader of the empire would not dare to ask the Vatican State for “a new constitution and free elections” like those that he has dreamed up for Cuba.

As the leader of a Church in the midst of the war unleashed by the United States against the Muslims, his message was ecumenical and favorable to peace.

He met with representatives of religions whose churches have influence over billions of people. Jewish leaders received him warmly. Of course, they idealized the capitalist system of the United States. One of the rabbis from Miami said that 90 percent of Cuban Jews had moved to that city; he should have made it clear that that did not happen because we were persecuting them or because they were granted U.S. visas, but because they opted for the right to travel legally as offered by the Revolution and, just like many Cubans from other ethnic groups, they were in search of material advantages that they had been unable to attain in colonial Cuba.

Jewish synagogues have remained open and respected here, and their representatives, together with the rest of the churches, have meetings with leaders of the Party and the Revolutionary Government, including at the highest levels.

In the United States, the Pope’s visit to the synagogue was greatly praised. It is the third time that a Pope has visited those Jewish religious centers. The first time was when John Paul II visited a synagogue in Poland; then, Benedict XVI visited another in Germany; and this one, in New York City, was the first time in this country.

It is particularly important to demand, in the name of the right to believe, the right to live. In his capacity as the religious leader of a powerful church deeply rooted among many peoples of the world, Benedict XVI addressed the United Nations Organization:

“…the desire for peace, the quest for justice, respect for the dignity of persons, humanitarian cooperation and assistance – express the just aspirations of the human spirit…”

“…development goals, reduction of local and global inequalities, protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate, require all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet…”

“Here our thoughts also turn to the way the results of scientific research and technological advances have sometimes been applied.”

“[these rights] are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations.”

“…the saying: Do not to others what you would not want them to do to you ‘cannot in any way vary, whatever the different understandings that have arisen in the world…”

“My presence at this Assembly is a sign of esteem for the United Nations, and it is intended to express the hope that the Organization will increasingly serve as a sign of unity among states and an instrument of service to the entire human family.”

When he concluded, he exclaimed in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian: “Peace and prosperity with God’s help!”

Although it is not easy to decipher the Vatican’s thinking on the thorny issues approached in a world where the president of the United States and his rich and developed allies have imposed a bloody war on the culture and religion of more than one billion persons in the name of the fight against terrorism, and where torture, pillage and conquest by force of hydrocarbons and raw materials reigns supreme, what the Pope stated is the antithesis of the policy of brutality and force applied by the singer of Happy Birthday.

In the next few days, the peoples of Latin America will be on the verge of confronting two tragedies: that of Paraguay and that of Bolivia. One of them, through the elections that are being held today, on Sunday April 20, where a former Catholic bishop carries the overwhelming majority of popular support, according to serious surveys, and the rejection of electoral fraud is certain; the other, through the threat of the real disintegration of its territory which would lead to fratricidal struggles in that long-suffering country.

Today, Benedict XIV returns to Rome. The lovely, impressive hymns have ceased in the temples. Now we shall continue to hear the odious and never-ending explosions of weapons.

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 20, 2008
7:42 p.m.

The post Peace and prosperity appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.