Reflections of Fidel

The coup d’état in Honduras, promoted by the far right-wing of the United States –which in Central America was maintaining the structure set up by Bush – and backed by the Department of State, was evolving poorly on account of the energetic resistance by the people.The criminal venture, condemned unanimously by world opinion and international bodies, could not be sustained.
The memory of atrocities committed during recent decades by the tyrannies that United States organized, instructed and armed in our hemisphere was still fresh.

The countries of Latin America were struggling against history’s worst financial crisis within relative institutional order.

I remember that, when I visited the People’s Republic of Poland, during Gierek’s government, I was taken to Osviecim, the most notorious of all concentration camps. There I learned about the horrible crimes committed by the Nazis against Jewish children, women and senior citizens, which resulted from the implementation of the ideas contained in the book Mein Kampf written by Adolph Hitler. Those ideas had been implemented before at the time when the territory of the USSR was invaded in the quest for ‘living space.’ By that time, the governments of London and Paris incited the Nazi chief against the Soviet State.

Yesterday I was listening to the Round Table TV program when it analyzed, among other topics, Operation Peter Pan, one of the most repugnant acts of moral aggression carried out against our country. Patria potestas is an extremely sensitive issue. That was a repugnant low trick. One of the novels by Mikhail Sholokhov that I read some years later included a reference to that kind of slander which had already been used against the Revolution of October 1917.

On Thursday the 4th of June, at the Islamic University of Al-Azhar in Cairo, Obama gave a speech of special interest to those of us who are closely following his political actions given the enormous might of the superpower he leads. I cite his very own words to indicate what I think are the basic ideas he expressed, thus summarizing his speech to save time. Not only do we have to know that he spoke but also what he said.

If I said that chaos prevails in the United States it would be considered an overstatement; it would be said that that country is a democracy where there is justice, respect for human rights and a division of powers based on the principles of Montesquieu and the Philadelphia Declaration.

“Hello President” began broadcasting on May 23, 1999. That day this year, Chavez was in Ecuador celebrating the 187th anniversary of the Battle of Pichincha. Tomorrow the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the program will begin.

On Sunday, while putting the finishing touches to the Reflection on Haiti, I was listening to the television report on the ceremony commemorating the Battle of Pichincha that took place in Ecuador on May 24, 1822, 187 years ago. The background music was beautiful.