Reflections of Fidel

Yesterday on May 31st, an AFP dispatch read: “Cuba has accepted to reopen negotiations with the United States about migration and direct mail service, a new signal of the thaw that is happening just before an Organization of American States (OAS) Summit where the Cuban situation will dominate conversations.

“The head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, Jorge Bolaños, communicated on Saturday that Cuba ‘is waiting to reinitiate conversations about emigration and direct mail service,’ said a senior State Department official who remained anonymous.

“From El Salvador where she is attending a ministerial conference on regional trade, Hillary Clinton said that Washington was pleased to resume conversations with Havana on those issues.”

Suddenly a rather undiplomatic sharp remark indicated that:

“‘There will be an open dialogue as soon as there are changes on human rights and movement towards democracy’ in Cuba,”

the EFE agency writes.

What is the kind of “democracy” and “human rights” advocated by the United States? Was it really necessary to launch that humiliating and arrogant warning?

Today when I saw the inauguration of Mauricio Funes on television and he spoke about re-establishing relations with Cuba, deafening applause and shouts of joy erupted in the room unlike anything else that had been heard during his speech. There, among the guests, was Hillary. Earlier, the speaker, who strayed many times from his written speech, had made the mistake of greeting Mrs. Clinton who is Secretary of State, even before Lula da Silva, the president of the South American giant who was sitting there in a group of presidents from our region.

The speaker, even before the end of the extended applause for Cuba -that could perhaps hurt Mrs. Clinton- started to speak and he again mentioned the United States with the best of intentions. However, very few people in that large room applauded that country.

A crucial moment, one that was much applauded in Mauricio’s speech earlier on, happened when he mentioned the distinguished Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero whose tomb he had visited that morning. While he was saying Mass, that defender of the poor had been murdered with impunity by the bloody ARENA Party tyranny imposed on El Salvador by imperialism. In that room there were also legislators and senior officials representing the party that had murdered him; among them several of the few who applauded the United States.

In certain circumstances, not just words do the speaking; so do applauses and silences.

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 1st, 2009
2:36 p.m.

Five days ago I read a press report stating that Ban Ki-moon would appoint Bill Clinton as his special envoy for Haiti.

According to the report, Clinton accompanied the Secretary General on a two-day official visit to Haiti on March last in order to support the development program that had been designed by the government of Port of Prince, aimed at awakening the lethargic Haitian economy.

The report stated that the ex-president had maintained a remarkable philanthropic commitment with the Caribbean nation through the Clinton Global Initiative.

It likewise stated that the ex-president had said he was honored to accept the Secretary General’s invitation to become the special envoy for Haiti.

Clinton reportedly stated that the people and the government of Haiti had the capacity to recover from the serious damages caused by the four tropical storms that devastated that country last year.

The day after, the same news agency reported that Mrs. Clinton, the Secretary of State, had said with joy that Bill was an outstanding envoy. The UN Secretary General was said to confirm Clinton’s appointment as his new special envoy for Haiti. He said they both had been together in that country and that Clinton’s presence had helped to raise awareness within the international community on the problems facing that Caribbean nation.

He added that the UN was afraid that, after a period of several years of a relative calm, propped up by the MINUSTAH, political instability could set in the country again.

The new press report repeats again the story of the four hurricanes and storms that caused 900 deadly casualties, left 800 000 victims, and destroyed the scarce civil infrastructure that existed in that country.

The history of Haiti and its tragedy is far more complex. Haiti was the second country of this hemisphere after the United States -which proclaimed its sovereignty in 1776- that conquered its independence in 1804. In the case of the US, the white descendants from the settlers who founded the Thirteen British Colonies, who were fervent, austere and cultured religious believers and owned land and slaves, shook off the British colonial yoke and enjoyed their national independence. But this was not the case for the autochthonous population, the African slaves or their descendants, who were denied every right, regardless of the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Philadelphia.

In Haiti, where more than 400 000 slaves worked for 30 000 white owners, the men and women submitted to that heinous system, for the first time in the history of humankind, were able to abolish slavery, maintain an independent State and defend it by struggling against soldiers who had brought the European monarchies to their knees.

That period coincided with the boom of capitalism and the emergence of powerful colonial empires that managed to dominate the lands and the seas of the planet for centuries.

Haitians are not to blame for their current status of poverty; they were rather the victims of a system that was imposed on the whole world. They did not invent colonialism, capitalism, imperialism, unequal exchange, neoliberalism or any of the forms of exploitation and plundering that have prevailed in this planet during the last 200 years.

Haiti has an area of 27,750 square kilometers and, according to some reliable estimates, in the year 2009 the population reached the figure of 9 million inhabitants. The number of inhabitants per square kilometer of arable land has increased to 885, one of the highest in the world, without the existence of any industrial development or resources that would allow it to acquire a minimum amount of material goods indispensable for life.

Fifty three per cent of the population lives in the countryside; firewood and charcoal are the only household fuels available to most Haitian families, which hinders reforestation. The absence of forests, where the soil gets spongy with the leaves, twigs and roots and helps to retain water, facilitates the human and economic damages that heavy rains cause to neighborhoods, roads and crops. Hurricanes, as is known, cause significant additional damage which will be ever greater if the climate keeps on changing so quickly. This is a secret to no one.

Our cooperation with the Haitian people began ten years ago, precisely when hurricanes George and Mitch battered the Caribbean and some Central American countries. Rene Preval was then the President of Haiti and Jean-Bertrand Aristide was the Head of Government. The first contingent of 100 Cuban doctors was sent on December 4, 1998. The figure of Cuban health collaborators in Haiti was later on increased to more than 600.

It was on that occasion when the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), where more than 12 000 youths are currently studying, was created. Ever since then, the Haitian youths have been granted hundreds of scholarships by the School of Medicine of Santiago de Cuba, one of the most experienced in the country.

The number of primary schools in Haiti had increased and progress was being made. Even the most humble families were eager to send their children to school, for that was the only hope that they could overcome poverty and work inside or outside their country. The Cuban medicine training program was very much welcomed. The youths who were selected to study in Cuba had a good basic training, an inheritance perhaps of the achievements attained by France in that field. They should spend one year taking a pre-medical course, which also included the Spanish language. That has become a good reserve of quality physicians.

Five hundred and thirty three Haitian youths have graduated from our medical schools as specialists in General Comprehensive Medicine; 52 of them are currently in Cuba, studying a second specialty that is required right now. Another group of 527 are filling the vacancies that were granted to the Republic of Haiti. Four hundred and thirteen Cuban health professionals are currently offering their services, free of charge, to the people of that sister nation. The Cuban doctors are present in all 10 departments of that country and in 127 of the 137 communities. More than 400 Haitian doctors who have been trained in Cuba, as well as the students from the last year of the career who are doing their practice in Haiti are also offering their services -side by side with our doctors- which make up a big total of 800 Haitian youths devoted to offer medical assistance in their homeland. That force will grow ever bigger with the new Haitian graduates.

It was a tough challenge; the Cuban doctors had to cope with difficult problems. Te infant mortality was above 80 per every one thousand live births; life expectancy was below 60 years of age; the prevalence of AIDS among adults in the year 2007 reached the figure of 120 000 citizens. Tens of thousands of children and adults of different ages still die every year from communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhea, dengue and malnutrition, just to mention some indicators. Even the HIV is already a disease doctors can combat, thus guaranteeing the life of patients. But this can not be achieved in a single year; it is indispensable to have a health culture, which the Haitian people are acquiring with greater interest. The progress observed shows that it is possible to improve health indicators in a significant way.

Thirty seven thousand one hundred and nine patients have undergone eye surgery in three ophthalmologic centers that were created in Haiti. Those complex cases that can not be operated on there are sent to Cuba, where they are assisted at absolutely no cost.

Thanks to the Venezuelan economic cooperation, 10 Comprehensive Diagnosis Centers are being built, which are equipped with state-of-the-art technology that has already been acquired.

Far more important than the resources that could be mobilized by the international community, are the human beings that make use of those resources.

Our modest support to the people of Haiti has been possible despite of the fact that the hurricanes mentioned by Clinton battered us as well. Solidarity is a good evidence of what the world has lacked.

We could likewise speak of Cuba’s contribution to the literacy programs and other projects, despite our limited economic resources. But I do not want to expand on this; nor is there any desire to do it just to speak about our contribution. I focused on health because it is an unavoidable topic. We are not afraid that others do what we are doing. The Haitian youths who are being trained in Cuba are becoming the priests of health required more and more by that sister nation.

What matters the most is the creation of new forms of cooperation, so much in need by this selfish world. The UN agencies can attest to the fact that Cuba is contributing what they describe as Health Comprehensive Programs.

Nothing can be improvised in Haiti, and nothing will result from the philanthropic spirit of any institution. The project of the Latin American School of Medicine was later joined by the new training program in Cuba for doctors coming from Venezuela, Bolivia, the Caribbean and other countries of the Third World, as long as their respective health programs required it urgently. Today, there are more than 24 000 youths from the Third World studying Medicine in our homeland. By helping others we have also developed ourselves in that field and we have become an important force. That, and not the brain drain, is what we practice! Could the rich and super-developed G-7 countries say the same? Others will follow our example! No one should ever doubt that!

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 24, 2009
4:17 p.m.

Carter is the only ex-president of the United States that I have had the honor of meeting, other than Nixon who was not one yet.

I had visited Washington to take part in a press conference that meant a tough challenge for me because of the questions that the expert reporters would be asking. The president had suggested to Nixon that he invite me for a conversation in his office. He was deceitful and hypocritical. He left that office with the idea of recommending the destruction of the Cuban Revolution.

Following his advice, Eisenhower was the author of the first plans to eliminate me physically, of the terror campaign against Cuba and the mercenary Bay of Pigs invasion.

The year 1959 marked the beginning of the treacherous history that President Carter tried to rectify 18 years later.

I knew, or rather I guessed, that he was a man of a religious ethic, from a long interview in which difficult subjects were broached and which he handled with sincerity and modesty. In those days, there were strong tensions between Panama and the United States. The leader of that country, Omar Torrijos, was an honest, nationalist and patriotic soldier. He could be persuaded by Cuba to not adopt extreme positions in his struggle for the return of the Canal territory which, like a sharp knife, was splitting his country in two. Perhaps because of that, the small nation was able to avoid a blood-bath although later on the country would be portrayed to the people of the United States and to the world as an aggressor.

Later, and without talking to anyone in the United States, I could predict that maybe Carter was the only president of that country with whom it would be possible to reach an honorable agreement without spilling one single drop of blood.

Not much time had passed before Washington would sign the agreement between the United States and Panama in the presence of other heads of state, excluding Cuba of course.

I mention this because Omar Torrijos himself, on a visit he made to our country, spoke about the efforts Cuba had made in this respect.

As president of the United States, Carter agreed with Cuba to create the Interests Sections in Havana and Washington. With that move we saved a lot of diplomatic procedures and paperwork that were driving the austere and meticulous Swiss diplomats insane. Maintaining the colossal building in the former United States Embassy in Havana was already in itself quite a feat for Switzerland.

Another thing: Carter discussed major issues with Cuba, such as the limits of territorial waters and the rights of each, the use of energy resources included in the jurisdictional waters of Mexico, Cuba and the United States as well as fishery resources and other subjects of inescapable attention. Not all the agreements favored Cuba. Our fishing fleet had been catching in international waters, as it was established, 12 miles off the coasts of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. However, in solidarity, Cuba was supporting Chile, Peru and other Latin American countries in their right to exploit fishery resources on their respective sea shelves. The final result was that our modern expensive fishing boats finally ceased to work in those waters, when such a battle was finally won. The requisites established by the U.S. authorities were such on the rich shelves where our boats were fishing near the coast of that country, and other limitations in the light of the new law, that they priced themselves out of the market.

When Carter became president of his country, the aggressions, terrorism and blockade against the people of Cuba had existed for many years. Our solidarity with the peoples of Africa and many other poor and underdeveloped nations in the world could not be the object of negotiations with the U.S. government. Nor would we leave Angola, or suspend the assistance already committed to the African countries. Carter never actually requested it but it is clear that many in the United States were thinking along those lines.

The defense of our sovereignty not only unleashed deep contradictions with the U.S. but also with the USSR, our ally, when as a result of the October [Missile] Crisis, without consulting our country, the USSR negotiated a mutually convenient agreement with the U.S. by which the blockade, terrorist actions and the Guantanamo Base remained intact in exchange for strategic concessions by the two superpowers. We did not seek unilateral advantages. Revolutionaries who act that way do not survive their mistakes.

Compliance with the international standards would have never been an obstacle for Cuba and, as we have often said, peace is also an unavoidable objective of the Cuban Revolution. Many forms of cooperation are possible between peoples with different political concepts.

One proof of that is the war against drug trafficking, organized crime and the trafficking of human beings; this can be extended to many forms of cooperation in the fight against epidemics, natural catastrophes and other problems.

The Revolution has never used terrorism against the United States.

That country invented plane hijackings to strike against Cuba. That action, in a society with so many social conflicts, became an epidemic. How could they have resolved it without Cuba’s cooperation? We had adopted severe laws to punish the culprits, but it was useless. Finally, we made the decision to return them in the very same hijacked planes after warning them about it earlier.

Thus, the first plane we returned was the last one hijacked in the U.S.; this coincided exactly with the Carter years. I have spoken about this at greater length. I’m not saying anything new.

After Carter, Reagan took the dirty war to Nicaragua, using drugs to get around the laws of Congress and with the incomes supply weapons to the counterrevolution, mining ports; his policy took thousands of Sandinista lives while many were wounded and maimed.

Bush senior carried out the horrible slaughter of El Chorrillo to punish Panama and erase the marks left by Carter’s gesture.

When Carter visited Cuba between May 12 and 17 of 2002, he knew that he would be welcomed here; I attended his lecture at the University of Havana; I invited him to an important baseball game played between the national Occidentales and Orientales teams at the Latin American Stadium. Both of us were there at the opening pitch to which he was invited, with no bodyguards whatsoever, surrounded by 50,000 people in the stands, perfect targets for any sharp-shooter hired by the CIA. Bush Jr. was already governing the U.S. I only wanted to show Carter the relationship of the country’s leaders with the people. When we arrived at the stadium, he accepted with dignity my invitation to persuade his chief of security to leave him on his own, and that’s what he did.

What I know about forestry in the U.S. was explained to me by Carter at the dinner we hosted for him on the last day: how the trees are planted, what varieties, the time they need to grow, production per hectares, and so on and so forth.

I observed his faith in the capitalist system where he was raised and educated; I respect that.

When he was in the government, times were difficult. He had to carry the burden of the effects of an economic crisis, but he was austere, he didn’t drown the future generations in debt. His successor, Ronald Reagan, would squander all the savings Carter had made. He was a movie actor and handled the teleprompter well, but he never asked himself where the money was coming from.

Yesterday, former President Jimmy Carter said to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper: “I would like (the embargo) to end today. There is no reason why the Cuban people should continue to suffer,” stated the former president who heads a human rights organization and this week was visiting Brazil to meet with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

“According to Carter, the initiatives adopted so far by Obama to ease the restrictions dictated against the island were less daring than what would be desired.”

“I think that Obama’s initiatives were not as good as those of the two U.S. Congress houses which today are one step ahead of the president with regards to Cuba.”

“The next step should be immediate removal of all travel restrictions to the island, not just for Cuban-Americans. It was what I did when I was president 30 years ago. The end of the embargo will follow suit,” the former president said.

Carter finally expressed that results were also depending on the Cuban leaders; surely, on us and on all the Cubans who have struggled and are willing to struggle.

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 7, 2009
7:15 p.m.

Our world is not only threatened by the cyclical economic crises which are ever more serious and frequent. Unemployment, bankruptcy, and the huge losses in goods and wealth are inseparable companions of the blind market laws which govern the world economy today. Neo-liberalism proscribes any interference by the State, considering it a disturbing element for the economy, as if the domestic order, the army, health, education, culture, science, the courts, the judges, and many other activities could exist without the State and its laws.

Obviously, the State, with its rigor and coercive force, was considered an obstruction by those like Marx, Lenin and other theoreticians, who saw it as an instrument used by the exploiters to impose the heinous capitalist system, and conceived the idea of turning it into an instrument of the Revolution in the stage of transition to an entirely new society.

Colonialists, capitalists and imperialists have created their own codes of conduct and imposed their values. They talk about freedom, democracy, human rights and so on. After the United States was founded, millions of human beings continued working as slaves; the Creator had not granted them any right, as was stated in the Philadelphia Declaration. During almost 100 years they were like merchandise which was bought and sold in the market, and for another 100 years, after the civil war, they were atrociously discriminated against and marginalized. Today, together with the American Indians and the Latin Americans, they are the poorest citizens to be found in the US prisons; they do the toughest and worst paid jobs.

It is never said that billions of people in the world suffer the consequences of ignorance, unemployment, underdevelopment, diseases that curtail their life span to two thirds or by one half -and sometimes less than that- as compared to the life span enjoyed by people in rich countries.

New problems, such as drug trafficking, organized crime, brain drain and illegal migration, add to the old ones. There is even an attempt to control human minds using the mass media and the most modern techniques of the so called entertainment industry.

What supports that order? Wealth and the use of force. For that they have all the money in this world and the most sophisticated military means. Besides, they are the big producers and exporters of weapons that pose no threat whatsoever to their international hegemony, but spur local wars, multinationals profits and their allies’ dependence.

They mint unlimited amounts of the hard currency required by international trade, and with that they acquire properties for their multinationals and take hold of the natural resources and the fruits of peoples’ labor in order to prop up the societies of consumption and waste that they have created.

Furthermore, the United States keeps a monopolist control over the international credit and investment agencies.

Whenever these concerns start going around the minds of many millions in the world who do not let themselves be misled by the lies that are proclaimed, news begin to flow showing different realities.

For example: In the year 2004, the last shown by statistics, the US multinationals’ profits abroad amounted to 700 billion dollars, for which they paid to the Treasury only 16 billion dollars in offsets, which grant special privileges to US companies investing in other countries, thus affecting those which invest inside the US and create jobs in that country. The mere attempt by the present US administration to reduce that privilege gave rise to a protest by important US business organizations whose economic and political power no one can deny.

Gathering a number of national and international news showing the national privileges that country has imposed on the whole world could even be an enlightening pastime. There are politicians inside and outside the United States who take offense if someone dares to describe that system as an empire, as if there were another word that could better define it.

The other side of the coin offers a much gloomier picture. On several occasions reference was made to the seven fleets with which the US imposes its military might on the world, resorting to more than 800 military bases scattered throughout the planet. Guantanamo, whose prison camps and tortures astonished the world’s public opinion, is only one of the hundreds of military bases that they have.

Maybe we could have a better idea of the military power with which the superpower supports the economic and social system it has imposed on humankind by referring to some data which were recently published by the specialized press.

The US military power is based on its nuclear arsenal.

It has 534 Minuteman III and Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM); 432 Trident C-4 and D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) installed on board of 17 Ohio submarines; and around 200 long-range nuclear bombers that can be supplied in mid-air, among them 16 invisible B-2. The missiles carry several warheads. The number of nuclear warheads deployed ranges between five thousand and ten thousand. Its Armed Forces are made up by more than 2 million men. Added to all these there are hundreds of military and communication satellites which make up the space shield and are the means for an electromagnetic war.

Russia, the other big nuclear power, has been surrounded by offensive nuclear weapons.

It is hardly necessary to add one more word, except for being reminded that thanks to the monopoly over money and natural resources, the United States announced yesterday through the Pentagon’s principal commander for cyber-war that that country was determined to lead the global effort to use computer technology to deter or defeat the enemies, while protecting people’s constitutional rights. The news was broadcast by the AP, the main US news agency.

How much security can be found in today’s world? That is a question with no answer!

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 6, 2009
3:32 p.m.

Thursday, April 30 was unlucky for the United States. On that day it occurred to them to include Cuba yet again on the list of terrorist countries. Committed as they are to their own crimes and lies, perhaps even Obama himself was unable to untangle himself from that mess. A man whose talent nobody denies must feel ashamed about the empire’s cult of lie. Fifty years of terrorism against our Homeland come to light in an instant.

What can one explain to those who know about the horrific event of a plane blown up in mid flight, with its passengers and crew, about the participation of the United States in the events, the recruiting of Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles, and the supplying of explosives, funds and the complicity of the intelligence agencies and the authorities of that country? How can one explain the campaign of terror that preceded and followed the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs, the attacks on our coasts, towns, transport and fishing vessels, the terrorist actions inside and outside of the United States? How can one explain the hundreds of frustrated assassination plots on the lives of Cuban leaders? What can one say about the introduction of viruses such as hemorrhagic dengue and swine fever that genetically had never even existed in the hemisphere? I am merely mentioning some of the acts of terror in which the United States has played a part, the ones recorded in their own declassified documents. Don’t these events embarrass the current administration?

I could put together an endless list of abhorrent activities.

At our request, Bruno Rodriguez, Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent me the exact words used by a France-Presse reporter to ask him a question on April 30, along with his compelling answer.

Rigoberto Diaz, of AFP: “Coinciding with the final moments of this meeting and also on a subject that has been dealt with during this event, the US government has once more included Cuba on the list of countries sponsors of terrorism along with Sudan, Iran and Syria. I would like to hear your opinion on this.”

Bruno’s reply:

“We do not recognize any political or moral authority to the US government to make any list on any subject, or to “certify” good or bad behavior.

The Bush government was “certified” by world public opinion as a government violating international law; as being aggressive and war-mongering; as a government that tortures and that is responsible for extrajudicial executions.

“Bush has been the only president who has boasted in public, in the US Congress, about having carried out extrajudicial executions. That is a government which kidnapped people and transported them illegally, created secret prisons that nobody knows whether they are still in existence, and a concentration camp where torturing is going on in the part of territory usurped from the Republic of Cuba.

“In the matter of terrorism, the US government has historically held a long record of State terrorism acts, not only against Cuba.

“In the US, Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles are free to come and go; these two who are responsible for numerous terrorist acts including the blowing up of a civilian Cuban plane in mid-flight. There is no answer to Venezuela’s official request for the extradition of Posada Carriles who is being tried for various charges, but not as a notorious international terrorist.

“The US government held a travesty of a trial against the five young Cuban anti-terrorist activists who are today being held as political prisoners in its jails.

“The US government covers up acts of State terrorism committed by Israel against the Palestinian people and the Arab peoples. And, it kept silent before the crimes taking place in the Gaza Strip.

“Therefore one shouldn’t recognize that the United States has any moral authority whatsoever, and I, frankly, believe that nobody pays any attention or reads those documents, among other things, because the author is an international outlaw in many of the matters which it criticizes.

“Cuba’s position against all manifestations and forms of terrorism, wherever they may be committed, against any state that may be affected, in any form it may be carried out, for whatever purpose, is clear and consistent with its actions.

“Cuba has been the victim of terrorism for many years and it has a completely clean record in this matter. Cuban territory has never been used to organize, fund or execute terrorist acts against the United States of America. The State Department which issues those reports cannot say the same.”

This declaration, issued at the ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Countries, is not yet widely known by the population which in these days has been receiving plenty of news of all kinds. If the State Department wishes to discuss this with Bruno, there is sufficient information to bury it in its own lies.

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 2, 2009
7:12 p.m.

Tomorrow is International Workers’ Day.

Karl Marx called to unity: “Workers of the world unite”, although many of the poor were not workers. Lenin, who was even more far-reaching, made a call to the peasants and the colonized peoples for them to struggle together under the leadership of the proletariat.

The day for the celebration was chosen in tribute to the Chicago martyrs who had begun a strike on May 1st, 1886, in a capitalist country whose working masses were suffering from unemployment and other calamities associated with economic crises, inseparable from the system. Their rights were not being recognized and unions were seen by the bourgeoisie as terrorist organizations that were enemies of the American people.

The capitalists later resorted to their best weapons –division and economicism– to disarticulate the revolutionary struggle. The labor movement was split; to many who lived in appalling poverty the trade unions’ demands were the prime objective, rather than changing society.

The United States became the capitalist country with the greatest differences between the incomes of the rich and the poor. In the shadow of its hegemony, Latin America became the Third World area where the inequalities between rich and poor ran deeper. The rich enjoyed life styles that could be compared to those of the bourgeoisie in the developed countries of Europe. The notion of Homeland had disappeared in the wealthiest strata of the population.

The clash between the great power of the North and the Cuban Revolution was inevitable. The heroic resistance put up by the people of our small country was underestimated.

Today they are willing to forgive us if we resign ourselves to return to the fold, as slaves who after experiencing freedom once again accept the whip and the yoke.

Today the planet is torn between economic crises, pandemics, climate changes, dangers of war and other concurrent problems. The political task becomes more complicated, and there are still some who believe that peoples can be manipulated like puppets.

The last word cannot be said yet on the future evolution of the present US administration. There are new elements, both objective and subjective. We are carefully watching and studying its every step. We are not incendiary as some would imagine, but neither are we fools who can be easily duped by those who think that the only thing important in the world are the laws of the market and the capitalist system of production. We all have the duty to struggle for peace; there is no other alternative. However, never should the adversary be under the illusion that Cuba will surrender.

We hope that every May 1st thousands of men and women, in every corner of the globe, will share International Workers’ Day with us, a day which we have been celebrating for 50 years. It was not in vain that long before January 1st, 1959, we had proclaimed that our Revolution would be the Revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble. The accomplishments of our Homeland in the areas of education, health, science, culture and other fields, and especially the strength and the unity of the people, are demonstrating this, in spite of the ruthless blockade.

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 30, 2009
6:18 p.m.

Some of the things Daniel [Ortega, President of Nicaragua] told me would be difficult to believe if they weren’t being told by him and if they weren’t happening at a Summit of the Americas.

The odd thing is that there was no such consensus on the final document. The ALBA group did not sign it; so it was recorded in the last exchange with Obama in the presence of Manning and the other leaders on the morning of April 19th.

Chavez, Evo and Daniel spoke at that meeting with absolute clarity.

It had appeared to me that Daniel expressed a bitter complaint when, on the opening day of the summit, he said in his remarks: “I think that the time I am taking is much shorter than the three hours I had to wait in the plane at the airport.”

I asked him about that and he told me that six high level leaders had to wait on the runway: Lula from Brazil, Harper from Canada, Bachelet from Chile, Evo from Bolivia, Calderon from Mexico and he, the sixth. The reason was the sycophantic decision of the organizers to make space to receive the president of the United States. Daniel remained for three hours inside a hot LACSA plane, held up in the airport under the sweltering tropical sun.

He related to me the behavior of the main leaders present at the Summit, and the basic and specific problems of each of the Latin American and Caribbean countries. He didn’t appear to be holding a grudge. He was sure, calm and understanding. I remembered the days of Reagan’s dirty war, the thousands of weapons launched by that president against Nicaragua, the tens of thousands of dead, the mining of the ports, using drugs on the part of the U.S. government to get around Congress regulations forbidding the funding for that cynical war.

We do not ignore the criminal invasion of Panama ordered by Bush senior, the horrible massacre at El Chorillo, the thousands of dead Panamanians, the invasion of little Grenada with the complicity of other governments in the region, all fairly recent events in the tragic history of our hemisphere.

In each of these crimes, the hairy paw of the OAS could be found, principal accomplice in the brutal actions of the great military and economic power against our impoverished countries. He told me about the harm drug trafficking and organized crime inflict on the Central American countries, the traffic in American weapons, the immense market that drives that activity, so detrimental to the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.

He told me about the geothermic possibilities Central America has as a highly valuable natural resource. He thinks that, in this manner, Nicaragua would be able to reach a generating capacity equivalent to two million kilowatt hours. Today its total electrical generating capacity, including the different energy sources, barely reaches 700,000 kilowatt hours and blackouts are frequent.

He spoke of Nicaragua’s capacity to produce food, about the price of milk which is distributed for a third of what is charged in the United States even though salaries in this country are dozens of times higher.

Our conversation revolved around this and other practical subjects. At no time did I see him resentful, much less suggesting extremist measures in the economic area. He is well informed and makes very realistic analyses of what can and ought to be done.

I explained to him that in our country many had not been able to hear his speech because of the schedule and the lack of timely information about the Summit; therefore I asked him to please explain the most interesting subjects related to the Summit on a television program, to a panel that would be made up of three young journalists, things that would surely interest many Latin Americans, Americans and Canadians.

Daniel knows of many concrete possibilities to improve the living conditions of the Nicaraguan people, one of the five poorest countries in the hemisphere as a result of the United States interventions and pillage. He was pleased with Obama’s victory and he observed him well at the Summit. He didn’t like his behavior at the meeting. “He would move all over the place -he told me- seeking out people to influence them, convincing them with his power and flattery.”

Of course, a long-distance observer like me could perceive a strategy that was set up to extol positions that were most compatible with U.S. interests and most opposed to policies in favor of social changes, unity and the sovereignty of our peoples. In my judgment, the worst was the maneuver of introducing a declaration that was supposedly supported by all.

The blockade of Cuba was not even mentioned in the Final Declaration and the president of the United States used it to justify his actions and to cover up alleged concessions made by his administration to Cuba. We would better understand the real limitations that the new U.S. president has to introduce changes to his nation’s policy towards our country, than the use of lies to justify his actions.

Are we expected to applaud the aggression on our radio and television air space, the use of sophisticated technologies to invade that space from great heights and the application of the same policy Bush had against Cuba? Shall we accept the U.S. right to keep up the blockade for a geological period of time until capitalist democracy is brought to Cuba?

Obama confesses that the leaders of the Latin American and Caribbean countries talk to him everywhere about Cuban medical services, and he nevertheless expresses that “And it’s a reminder for us in the United States that if our only interaction with many of these countries is drug interdiction, if our only interaction is military, then we may not be developing the connections that can, over time, increase our influence and have — have a beneficial effect when we need to try to move policies that are of concern to us forward in the region.”

Subconsciously, Obama understands that Cuba basks in the prestige of its doctors’ services in the region and even gives it more importance that we ourselves do. Perhaps he has not even been informed that Cuba has sent its doctors not just to Latin America and the Caribbean, but also to numerous African and Asian countries in times of catastrophes, including small islands of Oceania like East Timor and Kiribati, under the threat of being submerged if the climate changes, and that we even offered to send, in a matter of hours, a complete medical brigade to assist the victims of Katrina when most of New Orleans was helpless under the floodwaters and they might have saved many lives. Thousands of young people chosen from other countries have been educated as doctors in Cuba; tens of thousands more are now being trained.

We have been cooperating not only in healthcare, but also in education, sports, science, culture, energy saving, reforestation, protection of the environment and other areas. United Nation agencies could bear witness to this.

And more: the blood of Cuban patriots has been shed in the struggle against the last bastions of colonialism in Africa and in the defeat of apartheid, an ally of the United States.

And most important of all, Daniel said it at the Summit, is the total absence of conditions in the contributions of Cuba, that small island blockaded by the United States.

We didn’t do it seeking influence and support. They were the principles underpinning our struggle and our resistance. The infant mortality rate in Cuba is lower than in the United States; for a long time now we have had no illiterates; white, black and mestizo children go to school every day, with the same opportunities for education, even those requiring special education. We have not achieved complete justice, but we have certainly achieved the maximum of justice possible. All National Assembly members are nominated and elected by the people; more than 90% of the people entitled to vote do so.

We have not asked for that capitalist democracy under which you were educated and in which you sincerely, and with all your right, believe.

We do not aspire to export our political system to the United States.

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 22, 2009
12:53 p.m.

Our delegation was received early this morning with the recognition and the honors it deserves. Esteban Lazo and Frederich Cepeda spoke. There was Raúl, who had made them standard-bearers during the ceremony at the Palace of the Revolution.

They were given a copy of my reflection which had been printed today in Granma and inserted in CubaDebate.

I spoke about the technology and discipline introduced to baseball by Japan, about the efforts a nation with no less than 10.4 times Cuba’s population, where one also had to discount “the weak of conscience that let them be bribed by our enemies”.

Of the 73 who flew to Mexico and San Diego, two poor devils did not return home.

One was editing video material on baseball for Cuban National Television. It was pitiful to hear his lament published in the cables. He sighed that the only thing sad about it was that his dear mother and beloved girlfriend hadn’t traveled with him. He had left the very first day that the delegation arrived in San Diego.

The other one was writing in Juventud Rebelde on the same subject. This one had traveled several times but he was waiting for the Classic to carry out his felony. He was constantly glued to the team. He was positively ridiculous. Two hours before they left for the airport to return home, he disappeared.

What a couple of repulsive fakes they are, incubated by capitalist ideology!

Those cases are useful to put the spotlight on the merit of the athletes making up our honorable national team, prepared to give their lives for the Homeland.

Of course, guys like those cannot sow a single grain of conscience. What a load of silliness they must have published about baseball; instead of guidance, they only confuse!

All of them are not like Bobby Salamanca or Eddy Martin, who offered such noble testimony about our great sports victories.

Glory to those who devote their lives to building the honor and love of the Homeland!

Glory to the good!

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 20, 2009
4:23 p.m.