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.

The post Between Emigration and Crime appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

“The worst is that, to a large degree, their solutions will depend on the richest and most developed countries, which will reach a situation that they really are not in a position to confront, unless the world which they have been trying to mold… collapses around them.”

“I am not talking at this point about wars, the risks and consequences of which wise and brilliant people, including many from the United States, have conveyed.

“I am referring to the food crisis produced by economic acts and climate change which are apparently already irreversible as a consequence of the actions of human beings, but which in any case the human mind has the duty to address with haste.

“The problems have suddenly increased as a result of phenomena which are being repeated on all continents: heat waves, forest fires, loss of harvests in Russia, with many victims; climate change in China, heavy rainfall or drought; progressive reduction of water reserves in the Himalayas which is threatening India, China, Pakistan and other countries; torrential rain in Australia, which has flooded almost one million square kilometers; unseasonable and unprecedented cold in Europe […] drought in Canada and unusual cold in this country and the United States…”

I likewise mentioned unprecedented rainfall in Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil.

In that Reflection I noted that “production of wheat, soy beans, corn, rice and many other grains and legumes, which constitute the nutritional base of the world – the population of which has today reached an estimated 6.9 billion, rapidly approaching the unprecedented figure of seven billion and where more than one billion are suffering hunger and malnutrition – is being seriously affected by climate change, creating an extremely grave problem worldwide.”

On Saturday, January 29, the Internet news bulletin which I receive daily reproduced an article by Lester R. Brown published on the Organic Way website and datelined January 10, whose content, I believe, should be widely circulated.

Its author is the most prestigious and recognized U.S. ecologist, who has been warning of the harmful effect of the growing and substantial volume of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. I will just take paragraphs from his well-argued article which coherently explains his point of view.

“As the new year begins, the price of wheat is setting an all-time high…

“…the world population has nearly doubled since 1970, we are still adding 80 million people each year. Tonight, there will be 219,000 additional mouths to feed at the dinner table, and many of them will be greeted with empty plates. Another 219,000 will join us tomorrow night. At some point, this relentless growth begins to tax both the skills of farmers and the limits of the earth’s land and water resources.

“The rise in meat, milk, and egg consumption in fast-growing developing countries has no precedent.

“In the United States, which harvested 416 million tons of grain in 2009, 119 million tons went to ethanol distilleries to produce fuel for cars. That’s enough to feed 350 million people for a year. The massive U.S. investment in ethanol distilleries sets the stage for direct competition between cars and people for the world grain harvest. In Europe, where much of the auto fleet runs on diesel fuel, there is growing demand for plant-based diesel oil, principally from rapeseed and palm oil. This demand for oil-bearing crops is not only reducing the land available to produce food crops in Europe, it is also driving the clearing of rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia for palm oil plantations.

“…The combined effect of these three growing demands is stunning: a doubling in the annual growth in world grain consumption from an average of 21 million tons per year in 1990-2005 to 41 million tons per year in 2005-2010. Most of this huge jump is attributable to the orgy of investment in ethanol distilleries in the United States in 2006-2008.

“While the annual demand growth for grain was doubling, new constraints were emerging on the supply side, even as longstanding ones such as soil erosion intensified. An estimated one third of the world’s cropland is losing topsoil faster than new soil is forming through natural processes – and thus is losing its inherent productivity. Two huge dust bowls are forming, one across northwest China, western Mongolia, and central Asia; the other in central Africa. Each of these dwarfs the U.S. dust bowl of the 1930s.

“Satellite images show a steady flow of dust storms leaving these regions, each one typically carrying millions of tons of precious topsoil.

“Meanwhile aquifer depletion is fast shrinking the amount of irrigated area in many parts of the world; this relatively recent phenomenon is driven by the large-scale use of mechanical pumps to exploit underground water. Today, half the world’s people live in countries where water tables are falling as overpumping depletes aquifers. Once an aquifer is depleted, pumping is necessarily reduced to the rate of recharge unless it is a fossil (nonreplenishable) aquifer, in which case pumping ends altogether. But sooner or later, falling water tables translate into rising food prices.

“Irrigated area is shrinking in the Middle East, notably in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and possibly Yemen. In Saudi Arabia, which was totally dependent on a now-depleted fossil aquifer for its wheat self-sufficiency, production is in a freefall. From 2007 to 2010, Saudi wheat production fell by more than two thirds.

“The Arab Middle East is the first geographic region where spreading water shortages are shrinking the grain harvest. But the really big water deficits are in India, where the World Bank numbers indicate that 175 million people are being fed with grain that is produced by overpumping. In China, overpumping provides food for some 130 million people. In the United States, the world’s other leading grain producer, irrigated area is shrinking in key agricultural states such as California and Texas.

“The rising temperature is also making it more difficult to expand the world grain harvest fast enough to keep up with the record pace of demand. Crop ecologists have their own rule of thumb: For each 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature above the optimum during the growing season, we can expect a 10 percent decline in grain yields.

“Another emerging trend that threatens food security is the melting of mountain glaciers. This is of particular concern in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan plateau, where the ice melt from glaciers helps sustain not only the major rivers of Asia during the dry season, such as the Indus, Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow rivers, but also the irrigation systems dependent on these rivers. Without this ice melt, the grain harvest would drop precipitously and prices would rise accordingly.

“And finally, over the longer term, melting ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica, combined with thermal expansion of the oceans, threaten to raise the sea level by up to six feet during this century. Even a three-foot rise would inundate half of the riceland in Bangladesh. It would also put under water much of the Mekong Delta that produces half the rice in Vietnam, the world’s number two rice exporter. Altogether there are some 19 other rice-growing river deltas in Asia where harvests would be substantially reduced by a rising sea level.

“The unrest of these past few weeks is just the beginning. It is no longer conflict between heavily armed superpowers, but rather spreading food shortages and rising food prices — and the political turmoil this would lead to — that threatens our global future. Unless governments quickly redefine security and shift expenditures from military uses to investing in climate change mitigation, water efficiency, soil conservation, and population stabilization, the world will in all likelihood be facing a future with both more climate instability and food price volatility. If business as usual continues, food prices will only trend upward.”

The existing world order was imposed by the United States at the end of World War II and it reserved for itself all the privileges.

Obama does not have any way to manage the pandemonium which they have created. A few days ago the government collapsed in Tunisia, where the United States had imposed neoliberalism and was happy with its political prowess. The word democracy had vanished from the scene. It is incredible how now, when the exploited people are shedding their blood and assaulting stores, Washington is stating its satisfaction with the defeat. Everybody is aware that the United States converted Egypt into its principal ally within the Arab world. A large aircraft carrier and a nuclear submarine, escorted by U.S. and Israeli warships, passed through the Suez Canal en route for the Persian Gulf some months ago, without the international press having access to what was occurring there. Egypt was the Arab country to receive the largest supplies of armaments. Millions of young Egyptians are suffering unemployment and the food shortages provoked within the world economy, and Washington affirms that it is supporting them. Its Machiavellian conduct includes supplying weapons to the Egyptian government, while at the same time USAID was supplying funds to the opposition. Can the United States halt the revolutionary wave which is shaking the Third World?

The famous Davos meeting that has just ended turned into a Tower of Babel, with the richest European states headed by Germany, Britain and France only agreeing on their disagreement with the United States.

But one doesn’t have to worry in the least; the Secretary of State has once again promised that the United States will help in the reconstruction of Haiti.

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 30, 2011
6:23 p.m.

The post The grave food crisis appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

A dispatch from the DPA agency informs the following:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Another Tea Party Star appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

The nine-year-old girl who died was born on the same day the Twin Towers were destroyed and was an outstanding student. Her mother declared that there has to be a stop to such hatred.

A painful reality came to my mind, which surely would concern many honest U.S. citizens who have not been poisoned by lies and hatred. How many of them know that Latin America is the region with the greatest inequality in the distribution of wealth in the world? How many have been informed of the rates of infant and maternal mortality, life expectancy, medical services, child labor, education and poverty prevalent in other countries of the hemisphere?

I will confine myself to merely noting the level of violence, starting with the detestable event which took place yesterday in Arizona as a starting point.

I have already indicated that every year hundreds of thousands of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants, driven by underdevelopment and poverty, make their way to the United States and are arrested, often even separated from their close family members, and returned to their countries of origin.

Money and merchandise can cross the border freely, but, I repeat, not human beings, no. Drugs and weapons, on the contrary, cross unceasingly in one direction or the other. The United States is the largest consumer of drugs in the world and, at the same time, the largest supplier of weapons, symbolized by the gunsight cross-hairs published on Sarah Palin’s website and the M-16 on ex- marine Jesse Kelly’s election posters with the subliminal message to fire the full barrel.

Is U.S. public opinion aware of the level of violence in Latin America associated with inequality and poverty?

Why is the relevant information not released?

An article by Spanish journalist and author Xavier Caño Tamayo, published on the ALAI website, offers some facts that U.S, citizens should know.

Although the author is skeptical about the methods currently being used to defeat the power gained by the big drug traffickers, his article provides information of unquestionable value which I will try to summarize within a few lines.

“… 27% of violent deaths in the world occur in Latin America, although its population represents less than 9% of the planet’s total. Over the last 10 years, 1.2 million people have died violently in the region.

“Violent slums occupied by military police, murders in Mexico, disappearances, assassinations and massacres in Colombia […] the highest murder rate in the world is in Latin America.

“How can such a terrible reality be explained?

“The answer is provided in a recent study by the Latin American Social Science Foundation. The report shows how poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity are the fundamental sources of violence, although trafficking in drugs and handguns act as accelerators of murder crimes.

“According to the Ibero-American Organization of Youth, half of Latin American young people aged 15 to 24 are without work and have little chance of finding any. [...] According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the region has one of the highest rates of informal employment among youth and one in four Latin American youths is not working or studying.

“According to ECLAC, in the last few years, poverty and extreme poverty in Latin America has affected and is affecting 35% of the population, almost 190 million Latin Americans. And, according to the OECD [Cooperation and Economic Development Organization], some 40 million more citizens have succumbed or will succumb to poverty in Latin America before the end of this 2010.

“According to the United Nations, poverty exists when people cannot satisfy basic needs in order to live with dignity: adequate nutrition, potable water, decent housing, essential medical care, basic education… the World Bank quantifies this poverty, adding that those facing extreme poverty survive on less than $1.25 a day.

“According to a report on world wealth in 2010 published by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch, the fortunes of the Latin America rich […] grew 15% in 2009 […] in the last two years, the fortunes of the Latin America rich grew more than in any other region of the world. There are 500,000 rich, according to the report by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch. Half a million, as opposed to 190 [...] if so few have so much, many are in need of everything.

“… There are other ways to explain violence in Latin America [...] poverty and inequality are always related to death and pain. [...] Is it an accident that [...] 64% of the eight million who died as a result of cancer in the world lived in regions with the lowest income, where only 5% of the funds dedicated to cancer are spent?

“In your heart and looking us in our eyes, could you live on $1.25 a day?” Xavier Caño concludes his article.

The news of the massacre in Arizona is filling today’s pages of the main U.S. media today.

Specialists at the University of Arizona Medical Center in Tucson are cautiously optimistic. They have praised the work of emergency personnel who saw to it that the Congresswoman was treated within 38 minutes of the shooting. Such information was available on the Internet between 6:00 and 700pm this afternoon.

According to these reports, “The bullet entered the forehead, very close to the brain, on the left side of the head.”

“She can follow simple directions, but we know that inflammation of the brain could cause a turn for the worse,” they stated.

They explain the details of every one of the steps taken to control her respiration and reduce pressure on the brain. They add that her recovery could take weeks or months. Neurosurgeons in general and experts in the field, will follow with interest the information released by the medical team.

Cubans follow health issues closely, are usually well informed and are will also be pleased by the success of those doctors.

On the other side of the border, we know the extremes to which violence has escalated in the adjoining Mexican states, where there are also excellent doctors. Nevertheless, it is not unusual for drug traffickers, equipped with the most sophisticated weapons produced by the U.S. war industry, to enter operating rooms to finish off their victims.

The infant mortality rate in Cuba is less than 5 for every 1,000 live births; and the victims of violent acts, less than 5 for every 100,000 residents.

Although it belies our modesty, it is our bitter responsibility to indicate for the record that our blockaded, threatened and slandered country has demonstrated that Latin American peoples can live without violence and without drugs. They can even live, as has transpired for more than half a century, without relations with the United States. The latter, we have not demonstrated; they have done so.

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 9, 2011
7: 56 p.m.

The post Without Violence, Without Drugs appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

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

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

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

What prompted that drastic measure?

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

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

The first question from Le Temps was:

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

Ricardo Seitenfus’ reply:

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

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

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

Question 3.

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

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

Question 4.

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

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

Question 5.

“What role are the NGOs playing in this failure?

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

Question 6.

“What errors have been committed since the quake?

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

Question 7:

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

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

Question 8.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post The Battle Against Cholera appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Duty and the epidemic in Haiti appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

The material is entitled “The War Crimes of Stanley McChrystal, U.S. General” and it was included in Project Censored, put together by a university in California, including the essential paragraphs from those revelations.

Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, named the commander responsible for the war in Afghanistan by Obama in May of 2009, had earlier been the head of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) reporting to Dick Cheney [Bush's vice president]. Most of Gen. McChrystal’s 33-year military career is being kept classified [in other words, secret], including his services between 2003 and 2008 as commander of JSOC, the highly secret elite unit that for years the Pentagon refused to acknowledge its existence. JSOC is a special unit, of ‘black’ operations of the Navy Seals (Marines Special Forces) and Delta Force [secret army soldiers for special operations, formally called 'Special Forces Operational Division-Delta' (SFOD-D), while the Pentagon calls it the Combat Applications Group].

“Pulitzer Prize-winning Seymour Hersh said the Bush administration ran an “executive assassination ring” that reported directly to Vice President Dick Cheney and that Congress never felt any concern to investigate. JSOC teams used to travel to different countries, without even speaking to the ambassador or the CIA Station Head, with a list of people they were looking for, finding them, killing them and leaving. There was a current list of people marked as targets, drawn up by Vice President Cheney’s office [...] There were assassinations in dozens of countries in the Middle East and in Latin America, Hersh stated : ‘There’s an executive order, signed by Jerry Ford, President Ford, in the ’70s, forbidding such action. It’s not only contrary-it’s illegal, it’s immoral, it’s counterproductive.’

JSOC was also implicated in war crimes, including the torture of prisoners in secret ‘ghost’ detention centres. Camp Nama in Iraq, operated by JSOC under McChrystal, was one of such ‘ghost’ facilities hidden from the Red Cross International Committee (CICR) and accused of some of the worst acts of torture.”

They officially installed the Major General at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but he was “a frequent visitor to Camp Nama and at other special forces bases in Iraq and Afghanistan where the forces under his command were based.”

Next we deal with a point of special interest, when such facts came into conflict with officials who, in fulfilling their functions, were obliged to commit deeds that put them in open violation of the law and implied serious crimes.

“An interrogator at Camp Nama known as Jeff described locking prisoners in shipping containers for 24 hours at a time in extreme heat; exposing them to extreme cold with periodic soaking in cold water; bombardment with bright lights and loud music; sleep deprivation; and severe beatings.”

Immediately we are dealing with flagrant violations of international principles and covenants signed by the United States. Cuban readers will remember the story told in the two pieces where I wrote about our relations with the International Red Cross, to which we returned a great number of prisoners from the enemy army that had fallen into our hands during our defence of the Sierra Maestra and the later strategic counter-offensive against the Cuban army, trained and supplied by the U.S. Never was any prisoner mistreated and none of the wounded was ever denied immediate care. That very same institution, headquartered in Switzerland, could testify to those facts.

“The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is the international body charged under international law with monitoring compliance with the Geneva Conventions, and it, therefore, has the right to inspect all facilities where people are detained in a country that is at war or under military occupation.”

‘In the explanation why no other press had covered this story, Hersh stated: ‘My colleagues at the press corps often don’t follow up, not because they don’t want to but because they don’t know who to call. If I’m writing something on the Joint Special Operations Command, which is an ostensibly classified unit, how do they find it out? The government will tell them everything I write is wrong or that they can’t comment. It’s easy for those stories to be dismissed. I do think the relationship with JSOC is changing under Obama. It’s more under control now.’”

…the decision of the Obama Administration to appoint Gen. McChrystal as the new commander in charge of the war in Afghanistan and the prolongation of military jurisdiction for U.S. prisoners in its war on terrorism, held in the Guantanamo Bay prison, are unfortunately examples of how the Obama Administration continues walking in Bush’s footsteps.

Rock Creek Free Press revealed in June 2010 that Seymour Hersh, taking part in the Global Research Journalism Conference in Geneva, criticized President Obama in April of 2010 and denounced that US forces were carrying out executions on the battlefield.

“Those captured in Afghanistan are being executed on the battlefield,” Hersh stated.

By this point, the story comes in contact with highly current reality: the continuity of a policy by the president that succeeded the delirious G. W. Bush, inventor of the war waged to get power over the most important gas and oil resources in the world in a region inhabited by more than 2.5 billion people, by virtue of acts committed against the people of the United States by an organization of men who were recruited and armed by the CIA to fight in Afghanistan against Soviet soldiers and who continue to enjoy the backing of the closest U.S. allies.

The complex and unpredictable area whose resources are being disputed goes from Iraq and the Middle East right up to the remote limits of the Chinese region of Xinjiang, going through Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazajstan, Kirguistan and Tayikistan, capable of supplying the gas and oil for the growing economy of the Peoples’ Republic of China and industrialized Europe. The population of Afghanistan, as well as a part of Pakistan, a country with 170 million inhabitants and possessing nuclear weapons, is the victim of the unmanned Yankee airplane attacks that are massacring the civilian population.

Among the 25 most censured news items by the great media, selected by Sonoma State University of California, as it has been doing for 34 years, one of them, corresponding to the 2009-2010 period, was “The War Crimes of General Stanley McChrystal;” and another two are related with our island: “The Media Ignores Cuban Medical Aid in Haitian Earthquake” and “Prisoners in Guantanamo are Still Being Brutalized.” A fourth state: “Obama Reduces Social Spending and Increases the Military.”

Our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodriguez, was politically responsible for the Cuban Medical Mission sent to Pakistan when the destructive earthquake battered the simple nature of that country’s north-eastern region where extensive areas inhabited by the same ethnic group, with the same culture and traditions were arbitrarily split up by English colonialism into countries that later fell under the aegis of the Yankees.

In his speech yesterday, on October 26th, at UN headquarters, he demonstrated how excellently well-informed he is about the international situation of our complicated world.

His brilliant speech and the Resolution approved by that body, because of its great importance, require a Reflection that I propose to write.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 27, 2010
9:16 p.m.

The post The Empire and the Right to Life of Human Beings appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

“1496: the boom in humanist thinking. The Roma peoples (gypsies) from Germany are declared traitors to the Christian nations, spies in the pay of the Turkish, carriers of the plague, witches and warlocks, bandits and kidnappers of children.

“1710: the century of Enlightenment and reason. An edict orders that adult gypsies from Prague be hanged without trial. Young people and women are mutilated. In Bohemia, their left ears were cut off; in Moravia, their right ears

“1899: the climax of modernity and progress. The Bavarian police found the Special Section of Gypsies’ Affairs. In 1929, the section is promoted to the category of National Central section and is moved to Munich. In 1937, it is established in Berlin. Four years later, half a million gypsies die in the concentration camps of Central and Eastern Europe.”

“In her PhD thesis, Eva Justin (assistant to Dr. Robert Ritter of the Racial Research Section of the German Ministry of Health), asserted that gypsies’ blood was extremely harmful to the purity of the German race. And a certain Dr. Portschy sent a memorandum to Hitler suggesting that gypsies should be submitted to forced labor and mass sterilization because they jeopardized the pure blood of the German peasantry.

“Labeled as inveterate criminals, the mass arrest of gypsies began and, from 1938, they were interned in special blocks at the Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Gusen, Dautmergen, Natzweiler and Flossenburg camps.

“In a concentration camp he owned in Ravensbruck, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Gestapo (SS), created a space to sacrifice gypsy women who were submitted to medical experiments. One hundred and twenty Zingari girls were sterilized. Gypsy women married to non-gypsy men were sterilized at the Dusseldorf-Lierenfeld hospital.

“Thousands of gypsies were deported from Belgium, the Netherlands and France to the Polish concentration camp of Auschwitz. In his memoirs, Rudolf Hoess (commander of Auschwitz) wrote that among the gypsies deported there were elderly people almost one hundred years of age, pregnant women and a large number of children.

“At the ghetto of Lodz (Poland) […] none of the 5,000 gypsies survived.”

“In Yugoslavia, gypsies and Jews were equally killed in the forest of Jajnice. Campesinos still remember the screaming of the gypsy children who were taken to the places of execution.”

“At the extermination camps, only the gypsies’ love of music was a source of comfort to them on some occasions. In Auschwitz, starving and infested with lice, they gathered together to play music and encouraged the children to dance. But the courage of gypsy guerrillas who fought as part of the Polish resistance in the region of Nieswiez was also legendary.”

Music was the factor that kept them together and helped them to survive, just as much as religion was for Christians, Jews and Muslims.

The successive articles published by La Jornada from the end of August onwards have reminded us of events that were almost forgotten about what happened to the gypsies in Europe. After having been affected by Nazism, they were consigned to oblivion after the Nuremberg trials in the years 1945 and 1946.

The German government headed by Konrad Adenauer declared that the extermination of the gypsies prior to 1943 was a result of the state’s legal policies. Those who had been affected that same year did not receive any compensation. Robert Ritter, a Nazi expert in the extermination of gypsies, was released. Thirty nine years later in 1982, when most of those affected had already died, the government recognized their right to compensation.

More than 75% of gypsies, whose total number is estimated to be between 12 and 14 million, live in Central and Eastern Europe. Only in Tito’s socialist Yugoslavia were gypsies recognized as having the same rights as the Croatian, Albanian and Macedonian minorities.

The Mexican newspaper described as “particularly perverse” the mass deportation of gypsies to Romania and Bulgaria ordered by the government of Sarkozy –a Jew of Hungarian descent-; these are the exact words used by the newspaper. Please do not take this as an act of irreverence on my part.

In Romania, the number of gypsies is estimated to be two million.

The president of that country, Traian Basescu, a US ally and an illustrious member of NATO, called a woman journalist a “filthy gypsy.” As can be observed, this is an extremely delicate person who speaks politely.

The website univision.com posted some comments about the demonstrations against the deportation of gypsies and the “xenophobia” in France. According to AFP, around “130 demonstrations were due to take place in France as well as in front of the French embassies in several European Union countries, with the support of tens of human rights organizations, trade unions and left wing and environmental parties”. The extensive report refers to the participation of well-known cultural personalities such as Jane Birkin and the film-maker Agnes Jaoui and reminded readers that Jane “together with Stephane Hessel, a former member of the resistance against the Nazi occupation of France (1940-1944), was part of the group that later on met with the advisors to the minister of Immigration Eric Besson.

“‘The conversation fell on deaf ears, but it is good that it took place, for it showed that a large part of the population was enraged at that nauseating policy’, said a spokesperson of the network ‘Education Without Borders…”

Other news about this thorny issue are coming from Europe: “Yesterday the European Parliament put France and Nicholas Sarkozy on the spot for having deported thousands of Romanian and Bulgarian gypsies during a tense debate in which the attitudes of José Manuel Durão Barroso and the Commission were described as scandalous and ridiculous for their apparent pusillanimity and for failing to condemn the decisions by Paris as illegal and contrary to community rights”, according to an article by Ricardo Martínez de Rituerto published by El País.com.

In another article, La Jornada published the astonishing social data that neo-natal mortality among the gypsy population is nine times higher than the European average and their life expectancy rate barely exceeds 50 years of age.

Prior to that, on August 29, it had reported that “although there has been plenty of criticism –from the European Union institutions as well as from the Catholic church, the United Nations and the broad spectrum of pro-immigrants organizations – Sarkozy insists in expelling and deporting hundreds of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens – and therefore, European citizens – using as an excuse the alleged ‘criminal’ nature of these citizens.”

“It is difficult to believe that in the year 2010 – concludes La Jornada – after Europe’s terrible past with racism and intolerance, it is still possible to criminalize an entire ethnic group by labeling them a social problem.”

“Indifference, or even consent towards the actions carried out by the French police today and the Italian police yesterday – more European, in general terms – leave the most optimist analyst speechless.”

Suddenly, while I wrote this Reflection, I remembered that France is the third nuclear power in the planet, and that Sarkozy also had a briefcase with the keys required to launch one of the more than 300 bombs he had. Is there any moral or ethical rational in launching an attack against Iran, a country condemned for its alleged intention of manufacturing this kind of weapon? Where is the good sense and logic of that policy?

Let us assume that Sarkozy goes crazy all of a sudden, as seems to be the case. What would the UN Security Council do with Sarkozy and his briefcase?

What will happen if the French extreme right decides to force Sarkozy to maintain a racist policy, contradicting the laws that prevail within the European Community?

Could the UN Security Council respond to those two questions?

The absence of truth and the prevalence of deception is the greatest tragedy in our dangerous nuclear age.

Fidel Castro Ruz

September 12, 2010
6:57 p.m.

The post The Infinite Hypocrisy of the West appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.