Today, everything is much clearer. Profound truths have been surfacing. Almost 200 States, supposedly independent, constitute the political organization which in theory has the job of governing the destiny of the world.

Approximately 25,000 nuclear weapons in the hands of allied or enemy forces ready to defend the changing order, by interest or necessity, virtually reduce to zero the rights of billions of people.

I shall not commit the naiveté of assigning the blame to Russia or China for the development of that kind of weaponry, after the monstrous massacre at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ordered by Truman after Roosevelt’s death.

Nor shall I fall prey to the error of denying the Holocaust that signified the deaths of millions of children and adults, men or women, mainly Jews,  gypsies, Russians or other nationalities, who were victims of Nazism. For that reason the odious policy of those who deny the Palestinian people their right to exist is repugnant.

Does anyone by chance think that the United States will be capable of acting with the independence that will keep it from the inevitable disaster awaiting it?

In a few weeks, the 40 million dollars President Obama promised to collect for his electoral campaign will only serve to show that the currency of his country is greatly devalued, and that the US, with its unusual growing public debt drawing close to 20 quadrillion, is living on the money it prints up and not on the money it produces. The rest of the world pays for what they waste.

Nor does anyone believe that the Democratic candidate would be any better or worse than his Republican foes: whether they are called Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum. Light years separate the three characters as important as Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King. It is really unheard-of to observe such a technologically powerful nation and a government so bereft of both ideas and moral values.

Iran has no nuclear weapons. It is being accused of producing enriched uranium that serves as fuel energy or components for medical uses. Whatever one can say, its possession or production is not equivalent to the production of nuclear weapons. Dozens of countries use enriched uranium as an energy source, but this cannot be used in the manufacture of a nuclear weapon without a prior complicated purification process.

However, Israel, with the aid and cooperation of the United States, manufactured nuclear weaponry without informing or accounting to anybody, today not admitting their possession of these weapons, they have hundreds of them. To prevent the development of research in neighboring Arab countries, they attacked and destroyed reactors in Iraq and Syria. They have also declared their aim of attacking and destroying the production centers for nuclear fuel in Iran.

International politics have been revolving around that crucial topic in that complex and dangerous part of the world, where most of the fuel that moves the world economy is produced and supplied.

The selective elimination of Iran’s most eminent scientists by Israel and their NATO allies has become a practice that motivates hatred and feelings of revenge.

The Israeli government has openly stated its objective to attack the plant manufacturing Iran’s enriched uranium, and the government of the United States has invested billions of dollars to manufacture a bomb for that purpose.

On March 16, 2012, Michel Chossudovsky and Finian Cunningham published an article revealing that “A top US Air Force General has described the largest conventional bomb – the re-invented bunkers of 13.6 tones – as “fantastic” for a military attack on Iran.

“Such an eloquent comment on the massive killer-artifact took place in the same week that President Barack Obama appeared to warn against “easy words” on the Persian Gulf War.” Herbert Carlisle, deputy chief of staff for US Air Force operations added that probably the bomb would be used in any attack on Iran ordered by Washington.

“The MOP, also referred to as ‘The Mother of All Bombs’, is designed to drill through 60 meters of concrete before it detonates its massive bomb. It is believed to be the largest conventional weapon, non-nuclear, in the US arsenal.”

“The Pentagon is planning a process of wide destruction of Iran’s infrastructure and massive civilian victims through the combined use of tactical nuclear bombs and monstrous conventional bombs with mushroom-shaped clouds, including the MOABs and the larger GBU-57A/B or Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) that exceeds the MOAB in destructive capacity.

“The MOP is described as “a powerful new bomb that aims straight at subterranean Iranian and North Korean nuclear facilities. The giant bomb -longer than 11 persons shoulder to shoulder, or more than 6 meters from end to end’.”

I ask the reader to excuse me for this complicated military jargon.

As one can see, such calculations arise from the supposition that the Iranian combatants, numbering millions of men and women well-known for their religious zeal and their fighting traditions, surrender without firing a shot.

In recent days, the Iranians have seen how US soldiers occupying Afghanistan, in just three weeks, urinated on the corpses of killed Afghans, burned copies of the Koran and murdered more than 15 defenseless citizens.

Let us imagine US forces launching monstrous bombs on industrial institutions, capable of penetrating through 60 meters of concrete. Never has such an undertaking ever been conceived.

Not one word more is needed to understand the gravity of such a policy. In that way, our species will be inexorably led towards disaster. If we do not learn how to understand, we shall never learn how to survive.

As for me, I harbor not the slightest doubt that the United States is about to commit and lead the world towards the greatest mistake in its history.

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 21, 2012
7: 35 PM

As usual, the Bolivarian leader was gracious and respectful to all those present. When anyone asked for the floor to make a clarification, he granted it as soon as possible. When one of the members of parliament, who had warmly greeted Chávez as did other opposition members, asked to speak, in a great political gesture Chávez interrupted his report presentation and gave her the floor. What surprised me was the extreme severity of the rebuke, launched against the president with words that really put to test Chávez’ chivalry and cold blood. The MPs statement was undoubtedly an insult, although this was not her intention. He alone was capable of calmly responding to the offensive word ‘thief’ that she had used to judge the president’s conduct in terms of the adopted laws and measures.

After verifying the exact term that was used, Chávez responded to the individual challenge for debate with an elegant and sedated phrase, “An eagle does not hunt flies,” and without adding another word he calmly proceeded with his report.

It represented an insurmountable test of mental agility and self control. Another woman, of unquestionable humble origins, expressed her astonishment in moving and heartfelt words over what she had just witnessed and the overwhelming majority present broke out in applause. Judging by the sheer volume, the applause seemed to be coming from all of Chávez’ friends and many of his adversaries as well.

Chávez’ report lasted more than nine hours without the people ever losing interest. Maybe because of that incident, his words were heard by an immeasurable number of people. Many times I have given extensive speeches on difficult topics, always striving to make the ideas I was transmitting understandable. And I was really at a loss to explain how that soldier of humble origins was able to keep his mind so agile and his incomparable talent to deliver such an address without losing his voice or strength.

To me politics is an extensive and decisive battle of ideas. Publicity is the work of publicists, who perhaps know the techniques to get listeners, spectators and readers to do what they are told to do. If that science, or art, or whatever they call it is employed for the good of human beings, they deserve some respect; the same respect merited by those who teach people how to think.

Venezuela today is the site of a great battle. Internal and external enemies of the revolution prefer chaos—as Chávez has said—to the just, organized and peaceful development of the country. Being accustomed to analyzing the events that have occurred over more than half a century, and to observing, with greater foundations for judgment, the eventful history of our time and human behavior, one learns to almost predict the future development of events.

To promote a far-reaching Revolution in Venezuela was no easy task. Venezuela is a country full of glorious history, but extraordinarily rich in resources that are of vital importance to the imperialist powers that have, and continue to map out guidelines in the world.

Political leaders the likes of Romulo Betancourt and Carlos Andres Perez lack the most minimal personal qualities to carry out such a task. Furthermore, Betancourt was excessively vain and hypocritical. He had many opportunities to learn about the situation in Venezuela. As a young man he was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Costa Rica. He had a strong grasp of Latin American history and the role of imperialism, of poverty rates, and the ruthless plundering of natural resources in South America. He could not ignore that in a vastly rich country such as Venezuela, the majority of the people lived in extreme poverty. The archival footage is irrefutable proof of that reality of life.

As Chávez has explained many times, for more than half a century Venezuela was the world’s major oil exporter. At the beginning of the 20th century, European and Yankee warships intervened to support an illegal and tyrannical government that handed the country over to foreign monopolies. It is well known that incalculable funds flowed out of Venezuela to swell the wealth of monopolies and the Venezuelan oligarchy.

I remember when I visited Venezuela for the first time—after the triumph of the Revolution, to give thanks for the support and friendliness afforded to our struggle—, oil was worth barely two dollars a barrel.

Afterwards when I went to Venezuela to take part in the swearing-in ceremony for Chávez, the day he took an oath on the “dying constitution” held by Calderas, oil was worth seven dollars a barrel, despite 40 years having passed since my first visit and almost 30 years since the “distinguished” Richard Nixon had cancelled the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold and the US began to buy the world with pieces of paper. For a century, Venezuela was a supplier of cheap fuel to the empire’s economy and a net exporter of capital to developed and rich countries.

Why did these repugnant situations dominate for more than a century?

Latin American Armed Forces’ officials went to their privileged schools in the United States, where the Olympic champions of democracies gave them special courses on maintaining imperialist and bourgeois order. Coups d’état were always welcomed if their objective was to “defend democracies,” safeguarding and guaranteeing this repugnant system, in league with the oligarchies. Whether voters knew how to read and write, whether they had homes, employment, medical services and education were unimportant as long as the sacred right to property was maintained. Chávez brilliantly explains this situation. No one knows as well as him what happened in our countries.

Even worse was that the sophisticated nature of weapons, the complex workings and use of modern armaments that require years of learning, the training of highly qualified specialists, and the almost prohibitive cost of such weapons for the weak economies of the continent created a very strong mechanism of subordination and dependence. The US Government, employing mechanisms that did not require prior consultation with the other governments, set guidelines and policies for the military. The most sophisticated techniques of torture were passed on to the so-called security agencies to interrogate those who rebelled against the dirty and repugnant system of hunger and exploitation.

Despite all this, many honest officials, tired of so many indignations, bravely attempted to eradicate that embarrassing treason against the history of our independence struggles.

In Argentina, military official Juan Domingo Peron was able to design an independent and worker-based policy in his country. A bloody military coup overthrew him, expelled him from his country, and kept him in exile from 1955 to 1973. Years later, under the aegis of the Yankees, they once again attacked the government, murdering, torturing and disappearing tens of thousands of Argentines. They were not even able to defend the country during the colonial war that England carried out against Argentina with the conspiratorial support of the United States and henchman Augusto Pinochet with his cohort of fascists officers trained at the School of the Americas.

In Santo Domingo, Colonel Francisco Caamaño Deño; in Peru, General Velazco Alvarado; in Panama, General Omar Torrijos; and in other countries captains and officers who gave their lives anonymously were the antithesis of the traitorous behavior embodied by Somoza, Trujillo, Stroessner and the cruel tyrannies in Uruguay, El Salvador and other countries in Central and South America. The revolutionary military personnel did not expound elaborate theories, nor was this to be expected. They were not academicians educated in political science, but rather men with a sense of honor who loved their country.

But how far can honest men—who deplore injustice and crime—go along the path of revolution?

Venezuela is an outstanding example of the theoretical and practical role that the military can play in the revolutionary struggle for the independence of our peoples, as they did two centuries ago under the brilliant leadership of Simon Bolivar.

Chávez, a Venezuelan military officer of humble origins, stepped into the political life of Venezuela inspired by the ideas of the Liberator of America. On Bolivar, an inexhaustible source of inspiration, Marti wrote: “he won sublime battles with soldiers barefoot and half naked [...] who never fought so much, nor fought better, in the world for freedom …”

“… Of Bolivar, he said, you can talk only after climbing up a mountain to use it as a platform [...] or after freeing a bunch of peoples united in one fist …”

“… what he did not do, still remains undone today, because Bolivar still has things to do in the Americas.”

More than half a century later the famous, award-winning poet Pablo Neruda wrote a poem on Bolivar which Chávez frequently quotes. The final stanza reads:

“I met Bolivar one long morning, in Madrid, at the head of the Fifth Regiment, Father, I said, you are or not or who you are? And looking at the Mountain Headquarters, he said:

‘I wake up every hundred years when the people awaken.’ ”

But the Bolivarian leader is not limited to theoretical elaborations. His concrete measures are implemented without hesitation. The English-speaking Caribbean countries, which have to contend with modern and luxurious Yankee cruise ships for the right to receive tourists in their hotels, restaurants and recreation centers, quite often foreign-owned, but at least they generate employment, will always welcome fuel from Venezuela, supplied by that country with special payment facilities, when the barrel reached prices that sometimes exceeded US $100.

In the tiny state of Nicaragua, the land of Sandino, the “General of Free Men”, the Central Intelligence Agency organized the exchange of guns for drugs through Luis Posada Carriles after he was rescued from a Venezuelan prison. This operation resulted in thousands of deaths and mutilations among that heroic people. Nicaragua has also received the solidarity support of Venezuela. These are unprecedented examples in the history of this hemisphere.

The ruinous Free Trade Agreement that the Yankees intend to impose on Latin America, as they did with Mexico, would turn Latin America and the Caribbean not only into the region with the world’s worst distribution of wealth, which already is. It will turn it into a huge market where corn and other staple foods that are traditional sources of plant and animal protein would be displaced by subsidized U.S. crops, as is already happening in Mexico.

Used cars and other goods are displacing Mexican industry manufactures; job opportunities are decreasing in both cities and the countryside; the drug and arms trades are escalating, growing numbers of youngsters aged 14 or 15 years are turned into fearsome criminals. Never before, buses or other vehicles full of people who even paid to be transported across the border in search of employment, have been kidnapped and mass murdered. Known figures grow from year to year. More than ten thousand people are now losing their lives each year.

It is impossible to analyze the Bolivarian Revolution without taking these realities into account.

The armed forces, in such social circumstances, are forced into endless and wearisome wars.

Honduras is not an industrialized, financial or commercial country, or even a major producer of drugs. However, some of its cities break the record of drug-related violent deaths. There instead stands the banner of a major base of the strategic forces of the United States Southern Command. What is happening there, and is already happening in more than one Latin American country, is the Dantesque picture painted above, from which some countries have begun to escape. Among them and first, Venezuela, not just because it has considerable natural resources, but because it has been rescued from the insatiable greed of foreign corporations and has sparked considerable political and social forces capable of great achievements. Venezuela today is quite another from that I went to only 12 years ago, which had already deeply impressed me, seeing it as a Phoenix rising again from the ashes of its history.

Mentioning the mysterious computer of Raul Reyes, in the hands of the U.S. and the CIA after the attack organized and supplied by them in full Ecuadorian territory, which killed Marulanda’s replacement as well as several unarmed American youths, a version has been released that Chávez supported the “narco-terrorist organization FARC.” The true terrorists and drug traffickers in Colombia are the paramilitaries that supplied drugs to American dealers to sell them in the largest drug market in the world: the United States.

I never spoke with Marulanda, but I did speak with honored writers and intellectuals who came to know him well. I discussed his thoughts and history. He was undoubtedly a brave and revolutionary man, which I do not hesitate to affirm. I explained that I did not agree with him on his tactics. In my view, two or three thousand men would have been more than enough to defeat a conventional army in the territory of Colombia. His mistake was to devise a revolutionary army with almost as many soldiers as the enemy. That was extremely expensive.

Today, technology has changed many aspects of war; the forms of struggle also change. In fact, the clash of conventional forces between powers possessing nuclear weapons has become impossible. We do not have to have the knowledge of Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and thousands of other scientists to understand that. It is a latent danger and the result is known or should be known. Thinking beings could take millions of years to repopulate the planet.

Nevertheless, I hold the duty to fight, which in itself is something innate in man, to find solutions that will enable a more reasoned and dignified existence.

Since I met Chávez, now as president of Venezuela, from the final stages of the Pastrana administration, I always saw him interested in promoting peace in Colombia. He facilitated meetings between the Colombian government and the revolutionaries that took place in Cuba, note well, on the basis of reaching a true peace agreement and not a surrender.

I do not recall ever having heard Chávez promote anything but peace in Colombia, nor mention Raul Reyes. We always addressed other issues. He particularly appreciates the Colombians, millions of them live in Venezuela and everyone benefits from the social measures taken by the Revolution, and the people of Colombia appreciate that almost as much as those of Venezuela.

I wish to express my solidarity and appreciation to General Henry Rangel Silva, Head of Strategic Operational Command of the Armed Forces, and newly appointed Minister of Defense of the Bolivarian Republic. I had the honor of meeting him when he visited Chávez in Cuba a few months ago. I could see in him an intelligent, well-meant, capable, and yet modest man. I heard his calm, brave and clear speech, which inspired confidence.

He led the organization of the most perfect parade of a Latin American military force that I have ever seen. We hope it will serve as encouragement and example to other brother armies.

The Yankees had nothing to do with that parade, and would not be able to do better.

It is extremely unfair to criticize Chávez for the resources invested in the excellent weapons which were displayed there. I’m sure they will never be used to attack a neighboring country. The weapons, resources and knowledge must go along the paths of unity to see America, as The Liberator dreamed, ”… the greatest nation in the world, greatest not so much by virtue of her area and wealth as by her freedom and glory..”

Everything unites us more than Europe or the United States itself, except the lack of independence imposed on us for 200 years.

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 25, 2012
8:32 p.m.

I had become gravely ill on July 26, 2006, a month and a half prior to the summit, and could barely sit up in bed. Many of the most distinguished leaders who participated in the event were kind enough to visit me. Chavez and Evo visited me several times. One afternoon four visitors came by whom I will always remember: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan; an old friend, Abdelaziz Buteflika, the president of Algeria; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran; and the vice minister of Foreign Affairs and current Foreign Minister of China, Yang Jiechi, on behalf of the leader of the Communist Party and the president of China, Hu Jintao. It was really an important time for me; I was in the midst of intense physiotherapy on my right hand that I had seriously injured when I fell in Santa Clara.

With all four I spoke about some of the difficulties facing the world at the time; problems that have become progressively more complex.

During our meeting yesterday, I noted that the Iranian president was absolutely calm and tranquil, completely unconcerned about the Yankee threats and, fully confident in the capacity of his people to confront any aggression and in the effectiveness of their arms —which, in large part, they produce themselves— to inflict an unpayable price on its aggressors.

In reality, we hardly spoke about the topic of war. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was focused on the ideas he had presented at the Main Hall of the University of Havana during his conference on the struggle of humankind: “Moving towards reaching and achieving peace, security, respect and human dignity as a fundamental desire of all human beings throughout history.”

I am convinced that Iran will not commit any rash actions that might contribute to setting off a war. If a war were to be unleashed, it would inevitably be completely as a result of the recklessness and congenital irresponsibility of the Yankee Empire.

I believe that the political situation surrounding Iran and the associated risks of a nuclear war that involves us all —regardless of whether one possess nuclear weapons— are extremely delicate because they threaten the very existence of our species. The Middle East has become the most troubled region on the planet, the same region that produces the energy resources vital for the world’s economy.

The destructive power and the mass sufferings caused by some of the weapons used in World War Two led to a strong movement to ban weapons such as asphyxiating gas and others. Nevertheless, conflicting interests and the huge profits made by arms manufacturers led to the production of crueler and more destructive weapons; modern technology has now added the means and material to build weapons that if used in a world war would lead to extinction.

I support the opinion, undoubtedly shared by all those with a basic sense of responsibility, that no country big or small has the right to possess nuclear weapons.

They never should have been used to attack two defenseless cities such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing and irradiating with horrible and long-lasting effects hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, in a country that had already been militarily defeated.

If fascism indeed forced the allied nations against Nazism to compete with this enemy of humanity in the production of such weapons, once the war ended and the United Nations was created, the first duty of this organization should have been to prohibit nuclear weapons without exception.

However, the United States, the strongest and richest power, forced the rest of the world to follow its lead. Today, they have hundreds of satellites that spy and monitor the entire world from outer space. Their naval, air and land forces are equipped with thousands of nuclear weapons; and they control the world’s finances and investments at their whim via the International Monetary Fund.

Analyzing the history of each Latin American nation, from Mexico to Patagonia, by way of Santo Domingo and Haiti, one can observe that each and every country, without exception, have suffered for 200 years, from the beginning of the 19th century up until today. And, in one way or another, they are increasingly suffering the worst crimes that power and force can commit against the rights of a people. Brilliant Latin American writers are emerging in an increasing number. One of them, Eduardo Galeano, author of the book Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent that describes the aforementioned, has just been invited to open the prestigious Casa de Las Americas Awards as a recognition to his outstanding body of work.

Events happen incredibly fast; but technologies report them to the public even faster. On any given day, like today, important news comes out a dizzying pace. A cable report dated from January 11 states: “The Danish presidency of the European Union confirmed on Wednesday that a new series of more severe European sanctions against Iran, because of its nuclear program, will be discussed on January 23. The new sanctions will not only target the oil industry but also the Central Bank.”

During a meeting with international journalists, Danish Foreign Minister Villy Soevndal said that “We will increase sanctions against the oil industry in addition to sanctions against financial structures.” This clearly demonstrates that, in order to impede nuclear proliferation, Israel can go on accumulating hundreds of nuclear warheads while Iran is not allowed to produce 20% enriched uranium.

Another article, from a respected British news agency, states that “China gave no hint on Wednesday of giving ground to U.S. demands to curb Iran’s oil revenues, rejecting Washington’s sanctions on Tehran as overstepping …”

The sheer tranquility with which the United States and civilized Europe carry out this campaign with incredible and systematic acts of terrorism is enough to shock anybody. Just look at these lines reported by another important European news agency: “The murder on Wednesday of Iranian nuclear specialist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan [a scientist at the Natanz nuclear plant] was the fourth attack to kill a leading scientist in the country in almost exactly two years.”

On January 12, 2010: “Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at Tehran University is killed when a booby-trapped motorcycle explodes outside his home in the capital.”

On November 29, 2010: “Two attacks target leading Iranian nuclear scientists on the same day. Majid Shahriari, a key member of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, is killed in Tehran by a limpet bomb attached to his car. His colleague Fereydoon Abbasi Davani is also targeted by a bomb attached to his car, but escapes.” The car was parked in front of the Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran where both men worked as professors.

On July 23, 2011: “Gunmen shoot dead Dariush Rezaei-Nejad, a senior scientist who is reportedly associated with the defense ministry, and wound his wife as they waited for their child outside a Tehran kindergarten.”

On January 11, 2012 —the same day that Ahmadinejad travelled from Nicaragua to Cuba to give a conference at the University of Havana—, scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, “a deputy director at the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, is killed in a car bomb blast outside the [Allameh Tabatabai] University in east Tehran.” As in previous years “Iran once again accused the United States and Israel.”

The killings represent a systematic and selective slaughter of brilliant Iranian scientists. I have read articles by known Israeli sympathizers who write about crimes carried out by Israeli intelligence services in cooperation with the United States and NATO as if they were the most normal occurrence.

At the same time, Moscow news agencies report that “Russia warned that in Syria a similar scenario is developing as to that in Libya, and added that this time the attack will be launched from neighboring Turkey.

“The secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, said the West wants to ‘punish Damascus not as much for repressing the opposition, but because it is unwilling to sever ties with Tehran.’”

“…NATO members and some Persian Gulf states, operating according to the Libya scenario, intend to move from indirect intervention in Syrian affairs to direct military intervention…This time the main strikes forces will not be provided by France, the U.K. or Italy, but possibly by neighboring Turkey.”

“Washington and Ankara are now assumed to be negotiating a “no-fly” zone over Syria, where Syrian armed insurgents can be trained and concentrated, added Patrushev.”

News is not only coming out of Iran and the Middle East, but also from other parts of Central Asia near the Middle East. These reports show the great complexity of the problems that can arise from this dangerous region.

The United States has been led by its contradictory and absurd imperial policy to get involved in serious problems in countries such as Pakistan, whose borders with Afghanistan were drawn up by the colonialists without taking into account culture or ethnicities.

In Afghanistan, which defended its independence against English colonialism for centuries, drug production has multiplied in the wake of the Yankee invasion. Meanwhile, European soldiers, supported by drone airplanes and armed with sophisticated US weapons, carry out deplorable massacres that increase the people’s hatred and ward off any possibilities of peace. All this and other dirty actions are also reported by Western news agencies.

“WASHINGTON, January 12, 2012 – US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta called the actions of four U.S. marines who urinated on corpses in Afghanistan “utterly deplorable” The video of the act was circulated in the Internet.

“’I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable…’

“’This conduct is entirely inappropriate for members of the United States military and does not reflect the standards of values our armed forces are sworn to uphold…’”

In reality, Panetta neither confirms nor denies the action, and anyone, including the Secretary of Defense himself, may harbor doubt.

But it is also extremely inhumane that men, women and children, or an Afghani combatant fighting against the foreign occupation, be murdered by bombs dropped by drone planes. Another very serious incident: dozens of Pakistani soldiers and officials who safeguarded the country’s borders have been killed by these bombs.

Afghani President Karzai stated that the outrage committed against the bodies was “simply inhumane.” He asked for the US government “to urgently investigate the video and apply the most severe punishment to anyone found guilty in this crime.”

Meanwhile Taliban spokespersons declared that “over the last ten years, hundreds of similar acts have been carried out that were not reported…”

One even feels sorry for those soldiers, thousands of kilometers away from their family, friends and country, sent to fight in countries that they might not have even heard of during their school days, where they are assigned the task of killing or dying to enrich transnational companies, arms manufacturers and unscrupulous politicians who each year squander funds needed to feed and educate the uncountable millions of hungry and illiterate people around the world.

Many of these soldiers, victims of the trauma suffered, end up taking their own lives.

Is it an exaggeration to say that world peace is hanging by a thread?

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 12, 2012
9:14 p.m.

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.

Perú is a major exporter of silver, copper, zinc, tin and other minerals. It has huge reserves of uranium that powerful transnationals are hoping to exploit. Enriched uranium can be used to produce the most terrible weapons ever known by humankind as well as the fuel of electronuclear power stations which, despite every warning by the ecologists, was being manufactured at an increasing pace in the United States, Europe and Japan.

Of course, it would not be fair to blame Perú for all this. Peruvians did not invent colonialism, capitalism or imperialism. Neither can we blame the people of the United States, who are also victims of the system that has begotten the craziest politicians ever known in the planet.

On April 8 last, the masters of the world published their traditional annual report about “human rights violations”, which led to a thorough analysis on the website ‘Rebelión’ by the Cuban Manuel E. Yepe, based on a response given by the Council of State of China. The document lists several facts that show the disastrous situation of such rights in the United States.

“…the United States is the country that attacks human rights the most both inside its own territory and in the entire world. Is one of the nations that offers less guarantees to the life, property and personal security of its inhabitants.

“Every year one out of every five people is a victim of a crime in the United States. No other nation on Earth has a rate that is higher. According to official figures, persons above the age of 12 have suffered from 4.3 million violent actions.

“Crime has surged in an alarming way in the four most important cities of the country (Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York). Notorious increases as compared to the previous year have also been reported in other big cities (Saint Louis and Detroit).

“The Supreme Court has ruled that the possession of firearms for self-defense purposes is a constitutional right that can not be ignored by state governments. Ninety million persons -out of the 300 million inhabitants in the country- have 200 million firearms.

“A total of 12 000 homicides caused by firearms were recorded in the country, while 47 per cent of robberies were equally perpetrated with the use of firearms.

“Under the “terrorist activities” section of the Patriot Act, torture and extreme violence to obtain confessions from suspicious persons are common practices. Unjust sentences are evidenced in the 266 persons -17 of them are already on death row- who have been acquitted thanks to the DNA tests.

“Washington advocates for freedom in the Internet to turn the network of networks into an important diplomatic tool of pressure and hegemony, but imposes strict restrictions in cyberspace within its own territory and tries to put up a legal siege to deal with the challenges posed by Wikileaks and its leaks.

“With a high unemployment rate, the number of US citizens living in poverty sets new records. One out of every eight citizens resorted to the food stamp program last year.

“The number of families welcomed in homeless shelters increased by 7 per cent. Those families had to stay longer in those shelters. Violent crimes against these homeless families are increasing nonstop.

“Racial discrimination is permeating every aspect of the social life. Minority groups are discriminated against at their work places; they receive a humiliating treatment and are not taken into account for promotions, benefits or any labor selection process. One third of blacks suffered discrimination at their work place although only 16 per cent dared to submit a complaint.

“Unemployment rate among whites is 16.2 per cent, among Hispanics and Asians is 22 per cent and among blacks is 33 per cent. Afro-Americans and Latin account for 41 per cent of the inmate population. The rate of Afro-Americans serving life sentences is 11 times higher that that of whites.

“Ninety per cent of women have suffered some type of sexual discrimination at their work place. Twenty million women are victims of rape. Almost 60 000 female inmates have suffered some kind of sexual assault or violence.

One fifth of female university students are sexually assaulted and 60 per cent of rapes at the university campus occur at the ladies dorms.

“Nine out of every 10 homosexual, bisexual or transsexual students are harassed at schools.

“The report devotes one chapter to remind us of the human rights violations that the US government is responsible for outside its borders. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, led by the United States, have produced sky-rocketing figures of victims among the civil population in these countries.

“The US anti-terrorist actions have included serious scandals of abuses against prisoners, indefinite detentions without any indictment or trial in detention centers like that in Guantánamo and elsewhere in the world, which were created to interrogate the so called “high value detainees”, where the worst tortures are applied.

“The Chinese document also reminds us that the United States has violated the Cuban people’s right to exist and develop in disregard of the world’s opinion, expressed by the United Nations General Assembly during 19 consecutive years regarding the “necessity to put an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba”.

“The United States has failed to ratify several international human rights conventions such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“The data contained in the report by the Chinese government show that the nefarious performance of the United States in this field disqualifies it as “judge of human rights in the world”. Its ‘human rights diplomacy’ is sheer double standards hypocrisy to the service of its strategic imperialist interests. The Chinese government advises the government of the United States to take concrete measures to improve its own human rights situation examine and rectify its activities in that field and stop its hegemonic actions whereby it uses human rights to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.”

In our view, the important thing about this analysis is that such denunciation is contained in a document issued by the Chinese government, a country of 1 341 million inhabitants, whose monetary reserves amount to two trillion dollars. Without China’s commercial cooperation the empire would sink. I though it was important for our people to know the accurate data contained in the document issued by the Chinese Council of State.

Had Cuba said this, it would not be so important. We have been denouncing those hypocrites for more than 50 years.

Martí had said in 1895, 116 years ago: “…the road that is to be closed, and is being closed with our blood, annexing our
American nations to be brutal and turbulent North that despises us…”

“I have lived inside the monster and I know its entrails.”

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 23, 2011
7:32 p.m.

Doing so was a duty that I did not hesitate for a second to fulfill.

I knew that the state of my health was serious, but I felt tranquil: the Revolution would continue advancing; it was not in its most difficult moment after the USSR and the socialist camp had disappeared. Bush had been on the throne since 2001, and had designated a government for Cuba; but once again, mercenaries and members of the bourgeoisie remained in their golden exile with their suitcases and trunks.

In addition to Cuba, the Yankees now had another Revolution in Venezuela. The close cooperation between these two countries will also go down in the history of the Americas as an example of the vast revolutionary potential of the peoples of the same origin, with the same history.

Among the many points covered in the draft report to the 6th Congress of the Party, one of those which most interested me was the one related to power. Textually it states: “…we have come to the conclusion that it is advisable to recommend that tenure in fundamental political and state positions be limited to a maximum of two consecutive five-year terms. This is possible and necessary under the current conditions, quite different from those prevailing in the first decades of the Revolution, not yet consolidated and moreover, already the target of constant threats and aggression.”

I liked the idea; it was an issue on which I had meditated a lot. Accustomed from the early years of the Revolution to read news agency cables every day, I knew about the development of events in our world, the wise moves and errors of parties and human beings. Examples during the past 50 years abound.

I will not quote any in order not to extend myself too much or bruise anyone’s sensitivity. I am convinced that the fate of the world would be very different at this moment if it weren’t for the errors committed by revolutionary leaders who were distinguished by their talent and merits. Neither do I delude myself that the task will be easier in the future, on the contrary.

I am simply saying what, in my view I consider it an elementary duty of Cuban revolutionaries. The smaller a country and the more difficult the circumstances, the more obliged it is to avoid errors.

I have to confess that I was never really bothered about the time that I would be exercising the role of president of the Councils of State and Ministers and the first secretary of the Party. Since we landed I was also, Comandante en Jefe of the little troop which later grew so much. Since the Sierra Maestra I had resisted acting as provisional president of the country in the wake of the victory while I focused attention on our forces, still very modest in 1957; I did so because ambitions in relation to that position were already obstructing the struggle.

I was practically obligated to occupy the position of Prime Minister in the initial months of 1959.

Raúl knew that, at the present time, I would not accept any position within the Party; it was always him who described me as first secretary and Comandante en Jefe, functions which, as is known, I delegated in the abovementioned proclamation when I became gravely ill. I never attempted to undertake them nor could I physically have done so, even when I had considerably recovered the capacity to analyze and write.

However, he always conveyed the ideas he planned to introduce to me.

Another problem came up: the organizing committee was discussing the total number of Central Committee members to be proposed to the Congress. With very good judgment, the committee supported the idea sustained by Raúl of the need for an increased presence of women and descendants of African slaves in the heart of the Central Committee. Both these sectors were the poorest and most exploited by capitalism in our country.

At the same time, there were some compañeros who, given their age or health, would be unable to provide many services to the Party, but Raúl thought that it would be very harsh to exclude them from the list of candidates. I didn’t hesitate to suggest to him that those compañeros should not be excluded from such an honor, and added that the most important thing was that I not appear on that list.

I think that I have received too many honors. I never thought that I would live so long; the enemy did everything possible to prevent it; trying to eliminate me on innumerable occasions, and many times I “collaborated” with them.

The Congress was advancing at such a rate that I had no time to send a single word on the matter before receiving the ballot.

Around midday, Raúl sent me a ballot with his aide, and thus I was able to exercise my vote as a delegate to the Congress, an honor conceded me by Party members in Santiago de Cuba, without me knowing anything about it. I did not do so mechanically. I read the biographies of the new members proposed. They are excellent people, a number of whom I met during the launch of a book on our revolutionary war in the University of Havana’s Aula Magna, during contacts with the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, in meetings with scientists, with intellectuals and in other activities. I voted and even asked for photos of the moment when I exercised that right.

I also recalled that I still have a lot to write on the history of battle at the Bay of Pigs. I am working on that and I am committed to delivering it soon; moreover, I have it in mind writing about another important event that came afterwards.

All of that before the end of the world!

What do you think?

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 18, 2011
4:55 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

Also, on this same day, the 6th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba began.

I very much enjoyed the detailed commentary, the music, gestures, faces, intelligence, and our people’s martial and combative expressions; Mabelita in her wheelchair with a happy face and children and adolescents from La Colmenita multiplied various times.

It is worthwhile having lived for today’s spectacle and it is worthwhile to always remember those who died to make it possible.

This afternoon, at the beginning of the 6th Congress, the same sentiment of pride could be appreciated in the words of Raúl and on the faces of the delegates to the maximum event of our Party.

I could have been in the Plaza for an hour under the sun and prevailing heat, perhaps, but not for three hours. Drawn by the human warmth present there, it would have created a dilemma for me.

Believe me, I felt profoundly sad when I saw some of you looking for me on the platform. I thought that everyone understood that I can no longer do what I did on so many occasions.

I promised you that I would be a soldier of ideas, and I can still fulfill that duty.

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 16, 2011
7:14 p.m.

The Aztecs, Maya and other pre-Columbian human groups in Mexico and Central America, for example, were excellent farmers and didn’t even know about growing coca.

The Quechua and Aymara were capable of producing nutritious foods on perfect terraces that followed the mountain level curves. On the high plateaux that often exceeded three or four thousand metres in altitude, they grew quinua, a cereal rich in protein, and potatoes.

They knew about and also grew the coca plant whose leaves they chewed from time immemorial in order to lessen the ravages of high altitudes. This is an ancient custom that the peoples practiced along with products such as coffee, tobacco, liquor and others.

Coca originated on the steep slopes of the Amazonian Andes. The settlers there knew about it from times that predated the Inca Empire whose territory, at the height of its splendor, stretched over the area covered today by southern Colombia, all of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, eastern Chile and north-eastern Argentina; it totaled about two million square kilometers.

Consumption of coca leaves became a privilege of the Inca emperors and the nobility at the religious ceremonies.

When the Empire disappeared after the Spanish invasion, their new masters encouraged the traditional habit of chewing leaves in order to prolong the natives’ working hours, a right that lasted until the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs prohibited the use of coca leaves other than for medical or scientific purposes.

Almost every country signed it. They hardly discussed any topic regarding health. Cocaine trafficking then was not as huge as it is today. In the years that ensued extremely serious problems have been created that require profound analysis.

On the thorny issue of the relationship between drugs and organized crime, the UN itself delicately states that “Latin America is inefficient in combating the crime.”

Information printed by different institutions varies due to the fact that the matter is a sensitive one. Data at times are so complicated and varied that they might lead to confusion. What we can be absolutely sure of is that the problem is rapidly getting worse.

Almost one and a half months ago, on February 11, 2011, a report published in Mexico City by the Citizen Council for Public Security and Justice of that country, provided interesting data on the 50 most violent cities in the world in terms of the number of murders that occurred in the year 2010. The report states that Mexico has 25% of the cities. For the third year in a row, the number one spot belongs to Ciudad Juárez on the United States border.

It goes on to explain “…that year the Juárez murder rate was 35% higher than that of Qandahar, Afghanistan, number two on the list, and 941 % higher than in Baghdad…”, in other words, almost ten times greater than the capital of Iraq, the city occupying the number 50 spot on the list.

Almost immediately it adds that the city of San Pedro Sula, in Honduras, occupies third spot with 125 murders per 100,000 inhabitants; it is exceeded only by Ciudad Juárez in México, with 229; and Qandahar, Afghanistan,, with 169.

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, occupies the sixth spot with 109 murders per every 100,000 inhabitants.

Thus one can see that Honduras, where the Yankee air base of Palmerola is located, where a coup d’état was produced already during the presidency of Obama, has two of the cities among the six where the most murders are committed in the world. Guatemala City has 106.

According to that report, the Colombian city of Medellín, with 87.42, also rates among the most violent cities in the Americas and the world.

The speech of American President Barack Obama in El Salvador, and his subsequent press conference, led me to the duty of printing these lines on the subject.

In my Reflection of March 21st, I criticized his lack of ethics in not mentioning even the name of Salvador Allende in Chile, a symbol of dignity and courage for the world, a man who died as the result of the coup d’état promoted by a president of the United States.

Since I was aware that on the following day he would be visiting El Salvador, a Central American country that is the symbol of the struggles of the peoples of Our America that has suffered the most as a consequence of US policy in our hemisphere, I said: “There he is going to have to be quite inventive because, in that sister nation in Central America, the weapons and training received from the governments of his country spilt much blood.”

I wished him a good trip and “a bit more good sense.” I have to admit that in his long trek, he was a little more careful in the home stretch.

Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero was a man admired by all Latin Americans, whether they are religious or not, just as the Jesuit priests who were cowardly murdered by the henchmen trained, supported and armed to the teeth by the United States. In El Salvador, the FMLN, a militant leftist organization, fought one of the most heroic struggles on our continent.

The Salvadoran people granted victory to the Party that emerged from the heart of those glorious combatants; it is not yet time to construct their profound story.

What is urgently needed is to face up to the dramatic dilemma El Salvador is living, just as Mexico and the rest of Central and South America.

Obama himself stated that around 2 million Salvadorans are living in the United States; this is equivalent to 30% of that country’s population. The brutal repression unleashed against the patriots, and the systematic pillage of El Salvador imposed by the United States, forced hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans to immigrate to that country.

What is new is that added to the desperate situation of Central Americans is the fabulous power of the terrorist gangs, the sophisticated weapons and the demand for drugs, originating in the US market.

In his brief speech that preceded that of his visitor, the president of El Salvador stated, verbatim: “I insisted to you that the subject of organized crime, narco-activity, citizen insecurity, should not be a subject that only concerns El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras or Nicaragua, and not even Mexico or Colombia; it is a subject that concerns us as a region, and that is why we are working on building a regional strategy, through the CARFI Initiative.”

“…I insisted to you that this is a matter that should not only be dealt with from the viewpoint of persecuting a crime, through the strengthening of our policies and our armies, but also by emphasizing our policies of crime prevention and thus the best weapon to fight crime per se in the region is by investing in social policies.”

In his reply, the American president said: “President Funes is committed to creating more economic opportunities here in El Salvador so that people don’t feel like they have to head north to provide for their families.”

“I know this is especially important to the some 2 million Salvadoran people who are living and working in the United States.”

“…I updated the President on the new consumer protections that I signed into law, which give people more information and make sure their remittances actually reach their loved ones back home.”

“Today, we’re also launching a new effort to confront the narco-traffickers and gangs that have caused so much violence in all of our countries, and especially here in Central America.”

“…, we’ll focus $200 million to support efforts here in the region, including addressing, […] the social and economic forces that drive young people towards criminality. We’ll help strengthen courts, civil society groups and institutions that uphold the rule of law.”

I don’t need one single word more to express the essence of a painfully sad situation.

The reality is that many young people in Central America have been led by imperialism to cross a rigid and ever-more insurmountable border, or to work for the million-dollar gangs of drug traffickers.

Wouldn’t it be fairer – I wonder – to have an Adjustment Act for all Latin Americans? Just like the one they invented to punish Cuba almost half a century ago. Will the number of persons that die crossing the US border keep on growing infinitely along with the tens of thousands already dying each year in the countries where you are offering your Partnership of Equals?

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 25, 2011
8:46 p.m.

Nobody knew when he was arriving in Santiago de Chile and what a President of the United States would do there, where one of his predecessors had committed the painful crime of promoting the defeat and physical death of its heroic President, horrific acts of torture and the murder of thousands of Chileans.

For my part, I also tried to follow the news coming in about the tragedy of Japan and the brutal war unleashed on Libya, while the illustrious visitor proclaimed the “Alliance of Equals” in the region which has the worst distribution of wealth in the world.

Among so many things, I neglected myself a bit and saw nothing of the sumptuous banquet for hundreds of people with the exquisite food that nature bequeathed to the sea and which, had it taken place in a restaurant in Tokyo, a city where up to $300,000 is paid for a fresh blue tuna fin, would have cost up to $10 million.

It was too much work for a young man of my age. I wrote a brief Reflection and then slept for a long time.

This morning, I was refreshed. My friend would not be arriving in El Salvador until after midday. I asked for cable reports, Internet articles and other recently released material.

In the first place, I saw that, through my own fault, the news cables had given importance to what I said in relation to the post of first secretary of the Party, and I will explain that as briefly as possible. I was concentrating so hard on Barack Obama’s “Alliance of Equals,” a matter of so much historic significance – I am talking seriously – that I didn’t even recall that the Party Congress takes place next month.

My attitude in relation to the subject was basically logical. Understanding the gravity of my heath, I did what in my judgment was unnecessary when I had that painful accident in Santa Clara; after the fall the treatment was hard but my life was not in danger.

On the other hand, when I wrote the July 31 proclamation it was obvious to me that my state of health was extremely critical.

I immediately gave up all my public functions, adding to that certain instructions in order to offer the population security and tranquility.

In concrete terms, resigning from all of my posts was not necessary.

For me, the most important function was that of first secretary of the Party. In terms of ideology and as a matter of principle, that political responsibility carries the most authority during a revolutionary period. The other responsibility I held was that of president of the Council of State and Government, elected by the National Assembly. There was a replacement for both positions, and not by virtue of family ties, which I have never considered a source by right, but by experience and merit.

The rank of Comandante en Jefe was bestowed upon me by the struggle itself, a matter of chance rather than personal merit. The Revolution itself, in a later stage, correctly assigned the leadership of all the armed institutions to the President, a role which, in my opinion, should be fulfilled by the first secretary of the Party. I understand that that is how it has to be in a country which, like Cuba, has had to confront an obstacle as considerable as the empire created by the United States.

Almost 14 years have passed since the previous Party Congress, which coincided with the disappearance of the USSR and the Socialist Camp, the Special Period and my own illness.

When I progressively and partially recovered my health, the idea or need to proceed to the formality of expressly resigning from any post never even crossed my mind. During that period I accepted the honor of being elected as a deputy to the National Assembly, which did not require my physical presence and which allowed me to share ideas.

As I now have more time than ever to observe, inform myself and express certain points of view, I shall modestly fulfill my duty of fighting for the ideas that I have defended throughout my modest life.

I ask readers to excuse me for the time invested in this explanation, which the abovementioned circumstances obliged me to undertake.

The most important issue, I have not forgotten, is the unprecedented alliance between millionaires and the hungry proposed by the illustrious President of the United States.

The well-informed – for example, those who know the history of this hemisphere, its struggles, or even solely that of the people of Cuba defending the Revolution against the empire which, as Obama himself realizes, has lasted longer than “his own existence” – will surely be astounded by his proposal.

It is known that the current President is good weaver of words, a circumstance which, compounded by the economic crisis, growing unemployment, loss of homes, and the death of U.S. soldiers in Bush’s stupid wars, helped him to obtain his victory.

After observing him closely, it would not surprise me if he was the author of the ridiculous title baptizing the slaughter in Libya: “Dawn Odyssey,” which must have stirred the dust of Homer’s remains and of those who contributed to forging the legend in the famous Greek poems, although I admit that the title may have been a creation of the military chiefs who manage the thousands of nuclear weapons with which a simple order from the Nobel Peace laureate could determine the end of our species.

Faithful copies of his speech in the Moneda Palace Cultural Center to the white, black, native Indian, mixed race and non-mixed race peoples, believers and non-believers of the Americas were distributed everywhere by U.S. embassies, and translated and broadcast by Chile TV, CNN, and I imagine by other networks in other languages.

It was in the same style as the one he made in the first year of his mandate, in Cairo, the capital of his friend and ally Hosni Mubarak, whose tens of billions of dollars stolen from the people is a fact presumably known to a President of the United States.

“…Chile shows that we need not be divided by race or religion or ethnic conflict,” he assured, thus erasing the American problem from the map.

Almost immediately he emphasized, “…our marvelous surroundings today, just steps from where Chile lost its democracy decades ago…”

All of this without mentioning the coup d’état, the assassination of the honorable General Schneider, or the glorious name of Salvador Allende, as if the U.S. government had absolutely nothing to do with those acts.

The great poet Pablo Neruda, whose death was accelerated by the treacherous coup, was referred to more than once, in this case to affirm in a beautifully poetic way, that our original “guiding stars” are “struggle and hope.” Is Obama unaware of the fact that Pablo Neruda was a communist, a friend of the Cuban Revolution, a great admirer of Simón Bolívar, who is reborn every century, and who inspired the heroic guerrilla Ernesto Guevara?

I was amazed, practically from the beginning of his message, by Barack Obama’s profound historical knowledge. An irresponsible advisor forgot to explain that Neruda was a member of the Communist Party of Chile. After a few insignificant paragraphs he admits, “Now, I know I’m not the first president from the United States to pledge a new spirit of partnership with our Latin American neighbors. [...] I know that there have been times where perhaps the United States took this region for granted.

“Latin America is not the old stereotype of a region, in perpetual conflict or trapped in endless cycles of poverty.

“In Colombia, great sacrifices by citizens and security forces have restored a level of security not seen in decades.” There were never drug traffickers, paramilitary forces or secret burial grounds there.

In his speech, the working class does not exist, nor do landless campesinos, illiteracy, maternal and infant mortality, persons losing their sight or victims of parasites like Chaga or bacterial diseases like cholera.

“From Guadalajara to Santiago to Sao Paolo, a new middle class is demanding more of themselves and more of their governments,” he says.

“When a coup in Honduras threatened democratic progress, the nations of the hemisphere unanimously invoked the Inter-American Democratic Charter, helping to lay the foundation for the return to the rule of law.”

The real reason for Obama’s marvelous speech is indisputably explained halfway through his message and in his own words, “Latin America is only going to become more important to the United States, especially to our economy. [...] We buy more of your products, more of your goods than any other country, and we invest more in this region than any other country. [...] We export more than three times as much to Latin America as we do to China.  Our exports to this region [...] are growing faster than our exports to the rest of the world.” Perhaps from this it can be deduced, “When Latin America is more prosperous, the United States is more prosperous.”

Later on, he dedicates a few insipid words to reality.

“But if we’re honest, we’ll also admit [... ] that progress in the Americas has not come fast enough.  Not for the millions who endure the injustice of extreme poverty.  Not for the children in shantytowns and the favelas who just want the same chance as everybody else.

“Political and economic power that is too often concentrated in the hands of the few, instead of serving the many,” he says literally.

“We are not the first generation to face these challenges.  Fifty years ago this month, President John F. Kennedy proposed an ambitious Alliance for Progress.

“President Kennedy’s challenge endures – to build a hemisphere where all people can hope for a sustainable, suitable standard of living, and all can live out their lives in dignity and in freedom.”

It is incredible that he should arrive now with this contemptible story which constitutes an insult to human intelligence.

He has no choice but to mention, among the many calamities, a problem which has its origins in the colossal U.S. market and that country’s homicidal weapons: “Criminal gangs and narco-traffickers are not only a threat to the security of our citizens.  They’re a threat to development, because they scare away investment that economies need to prosper.  And they are a direct threat to democracy, because they fuel the corruption that rots institutions from within.”

Later on, he reluctantly adds, “But we’ll never break the grip of the cartels and the gangs unless we also address the social and economic forces that fuel criminality.  We need to reach at-risk youth before they turn to drugs and crime.

“As President I’ve made it clear that the United States shares and accepts our share of responsibility for drug violence.  After all, the demand for drugs, including in the United States, drives this crisis.  And that’s why we’ve developed a new drug control strategy that focused on reducing the demand for drugs through education and prevention and treatment.”

He says that, in Honduras, 76 out of every 100,000 inhabitants die as a result of violence, 19 times the rate in Cuba, where, despite its proximity to the United States, the problem is practically non-existent.

After more foolishness along these lines, about weapons confiscated en route to Mexico, a Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Inter-American Development Bank, with which he says efforts are being made to increase the Microfinance Growth Fund for the Americas and promises the creation of new Pathways to Prosperity and other pretentious terms which he pronounces in English and Spanish, he returns to his preposterous promises of hemispheric unity and tries to impress listeners with the dangers of climate change.

Obama adds, “If anybody doubts the urgency of climate change, they should look no further than the Americas – from the stronger storms in the Caribbean, to glacier melt in the Andes, to the loss of forests and farmland across the region.” He doesn’t have the courage to admit that his country bears the greatest responsibility for that tragedy.

He explains that he is proud to announce that, “The United States will work with partners in this region, including the private sector, to increase the number of U.S. students studying in Latin America to 100,000, and the number of Latin America students studying in the United States to 100,000.” It is well known what it costs to study medicine or any other career in that country and the shameless theft of brain-power practiced by the United States.

All of this oratory to close with praise for the OAS which Roa [Raúl Roa, former Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs] described as the “Ministry of Yankee Colonies” when, in his memorable statement from our country to the United Nations, he reported that the United States had attacked our territory April 15, 1961 with B-26 bombers bearing Cuban insignia, a shameful act which, within 23 days, will be remembered on its 50th anniversary.

In this way, he thought everything was well established, in order to proclaim the right to subvert order in our country.

He boasts that the U.S. is “allowing Americans to send remittances that bring some economic hope for people across Cuba, as well as more independence from Cuban authorities.

“… We’ll continue to seek ways to increase the independence of the Cuban people, who I believe are entitled to the same freedom and liberty as everyone else in this hemisphere.”

Then he admits that the blockade hurts Cuba, denies the economy resources. Why doesn’t he recognize that Eisenhower’s intentions, the goal announced by the United States when it was first implemented was to force the Cuban people to surrender out of hunger?

Why is it maintained? How many hundreds of billions of dollars of damages does the United States owe our country? Why do they keep the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters imprisoned? Why isn’t the Cuban Adjustment Act applied to all Latin Americans rather than allowing thousands of them to die or be injured on the border imposed after that country stole half of their territory?

I beg the President of the United States to forgive my frankness.

I do not hold any hard feelings toward him or his people.

I am fulfilling my responsibility to express my opinion about his “Alliance of Equals.”

The United States has nothing to gain by creating and encouraging mercenary careers. I can assure him that our country’s finest, most prepared youth graduating from the University of Computer Science know much more about the Internet and informatics than the Nobel Prize winner and President of the United States.

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 22, 2011
9:17 p.m.

An extensive and deep sea of “fossil water” existed beneath that desert. When I heard about an experimental cultivation area I had the impression that, in the future, those aquifers would be more valuable than oil.

Religious faith, preached with the fervor that characterizes Muslim nations, in part helped to compensate for the strong tribal tendency which still survives in that Arab country.

Libyan revolutionaries devised and implemented their own ideas in relation to legal and political institutions, which Cuba, as a principle, respected.

We totally abstained from expressing any opinions concerning the concepts of the Libyan leadership.

We can clearly see that the fundamental concern of the United States and NATO is not Libya, but the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world, which they wish to prevent at all costs.

It is an irrefutable fact that relations between the United States and its NATO allies [and Libya] in recent years were excellent until the rebellion in Egypt and in Tunisia arose.

In high-level meetings between Libya and NATO leaders, none of the latter had any problems with Gaddafi. The country was a secure source of high-quality oil, gas and even potassium supplies. The problems which arose between them in the early decades had been overcome.

Strategic sectors such as oil pumping and transportation were opened up to foreign investment.

Privatizations were extended to many public enterprises. The International Monetary Fund exercised its beatific role in the implementation of those operations.

Logically, Aznar was fulsome in his praise of Gaddafi and after him, Blair, Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Zapatero and even my friend the King of Spain, paraded past the sardonic regard of the Libyan leader. They were happy.

Although it might seem that I am mocking that is not the case; I am simply asking myself why they now want to take Gaddafi before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

They are accusing him 24 hours a day of firing on unarmed citizens who were protesting. Why did they not explain to the world that the weapons and, above all, the sophisticated machinery of repression possessed by Libya, was supplied by the United States, Britain and other illustrious hosts of Gaddafi?

I strongly oppose the cynicism and lies currently being used to justify the invasion and occupation of Libya.

The last time that I visited Gaddafi was in May 2001, 15 years after Reagan attacked his very modest residence, where he took me to see what was left of it. It received a direct hit from the aircraft and was considerably destroyed; his little daughter three years of age died in the attack: she was murdered by Ronald Reagan. There was no prior agreement on the part of NATO, the Human Rights Committee, or the Security Council.

My previous visit had taken place in 1977, eight years after the beginning of the revolutionary process in Libya. I visited Tripoli; I took part in the General People’s Congress in Sebha; I toured the first agricultural experiments with water pumped from the vast sea of fossil waters; I visited Benghazi, I was the object of a warm reception. It was a legendary country which had been the scenario of historic battles in World War II. It did not as yet have six million inhabitants, nor were its enormous volumes of oil and fossil waters known. The former Portuguese colonies in Africa had already been liberated.

We had fought for 15 years in Angola against mercenary armies organized along tribal lines by the United States, the Mobutu government, and the well-equipped and trained racist apartheid army. This army, following U.S. instructions, as is now known, invaded Angola in 1975 in order to prevent its independence, reaching the outskirts of Luanda with its motorized forces. A number of Cuban instructors died in that brutal invasion. Resources were sent with all urgency.

Expelled from that country by Cuban internationalists and Angolan troops to the border of South African occupied Namibia, the racists were given the mission of eliminating the revolutionary process in Angola.

With the support of the United States and Israel they developed nuclear weapons. They already possessed them when the Cuban and Angolan troops defeated their land and air forces in Cuito Cuanavale and, defying the risk – using conventional tactics and means – advanced toward the border with Namibia, where the apartheid troops were attempting to resist. Twice in their history our forces have been at risk of attack by those kinds of weapons: in October of 1962 and in southern Angola, but on that second occasion, not even deploying those nuclear weapons that South Africa possessed could they have prevented the defeat which marked the end of the odious system. Those events took place under the government of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Piet Botha in South Africa.

There is no talk of that and the hundreds of thousands of lives which the imperialist adventure cost.

I regret having to recall those events when another great risk is hovering over the Arab peoples, because they are not resigned to continue being the victims of plunder and oppression.

The Revolution in the Arab world so much feared by the United States and NATO is that of those who lack all rights in the face of those who flaunt all privileges, and thus is destined to be more profound than the one unleashed in Europe in 1789 with the storming of the Bastille.

Not even Louis XIV, when he proclaimed that he was the state, possessed the privileges of King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz of Saudi Arabia and far less the vast wealth that lies below the surface of that almost desert country, where yankee transnationals determine the pumping and thus the price of oil in the world.

When the Libyan crisis began, extraction in Saudi Arabia rose to one million barrels a day at minimum cost and, in consequence, by that concept alone, the income of that country and those who control it has risen to one billon dollars a day.

No one should imagine that the Saudi people are swimming in money. There are moving accounts of the living conditions of many construction workers and those in other sectors obliged to work 13 to 14 hours a day for paltry wages.

Shocked by the revolutionary wave which is shaking the prevalent system of plunder, in the wake of what took place with workers in Egypt and Tunisia, but also unemployed youth in Jordan, the occupied territories of Palestine, Yemen and even Bahrain and the Arab Emirates with higher per capita income, the upper echelons of the Saudi hierarchy has been impacted by the events.

As opposed to other times, today the Arab peoples receive almost instantaneous information on events, albeit exceptionally manipulated.

The worst thing for the status quo of the privileged sectors is that those persistent events are coinciding with a considerable increase in food prices and the devastating impact of climate change, while the United States, the largest producer of corn in the world, is wasting 40% of that product and a significant part of soy production on biofuels to feed automobiles. Lester Brown, the best informed American ecologist in the world on agricultural products, can surely give us an idea of the current food situation.

The Bolivarian president, Hugo Chávez, is making a valiant effort to find a solution without NATO intervention in Libya. The chances of his attaining that objective would improve if he can achieve the feat of creating a broad movement of opinion before and not after the intervention takes place, and the peoples do not have to see the atrocious experience of Iraq repeated in other countries.

End of Reflection.

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 3, 2011
10:32 p.m.