Although we were aware of the critical state of his health, the news hit us hard. I recalled the times he joked with me, saying that when both of us had concluded our revolutionary task, he would invite me to walk by the Arauca River in Venezuelan territory, which made him remember the rest that he never had.

The honor befell us to have shared with the Bolivarian leader the same ideas of social justice and support for the exploited. The poor are the poor in any part of the world.

“Let Venezuela give me a way of serving her: she has in me a son,” proclaimed National Hero José Martí, the leader of our independence, a traveler who, without cleansing himself of the dust of the journey, asked for the location of the statue of Bolívar.

Martí knew the beast because he lived in its entrails. Is it possible to ignore the profound words he voiced in an inconclusive letter to his friend Manuel Mercado the day before he died in battle? “…I am in daily danger of giving my life for my country and duty – for I understand that duty and have the intention of carrying it out – the duty of preventing the United States from extending through the Antilles as Cuba gains its independence, and from falling, with that additional strength, upon our lands of America. All that I have done thus far, and will do, is for this purpose. I have had to work silently and somewhat indirectly because, there are certain things which, in order to attain them, have to remain concealed….”

At that time, 66 years had passed since the Liberator Simón Bolívar wrote, ”…the United States would seem to be destined by fate to plague the Americas with miseries in the name of freedom.”

On January 23, 1959, 22 days after the revolutionary triumph in Cuba, I visited Venezuela to thank its people and the government which assumed power after the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship, for the dispatch of 150 rifles at the end of 1958. I said at that time:

“…Venezuela is the homeland of the Liberator, where the idea of the union of the peoples of America was conceived. Therefore, Venezuela must be the country to lead the union of the peoples of America; as Cubans, we support our brothers and sisters in Venezuela.

“I have spoken of these ideas not because I am moved by any kind of personal ambition, or even the ambition of glory, because, at the end of the day, ambitions of glory remain a vanity, and as Martí said, ‘All the glory of the world fits into a kernel of corn.’

“And so, upon coming here to talk in this way to the people of Venezuela, I do so thinking honorably and deeply, that if we want to save America, if we want to save the freedom of each one of our societies that, at the end of the day, are part of one great society, which is the society of Latin America; if it is that we want to save the revolution of Cuba, the revolution of Venezuela and the revolution of all the countries on our continent, we have to come closer to each other and we have to solidly support each other, because alone and divided, we will fail.”

That is what I said on that day and today, 54 years later, I endorse it!

I must only include on that list the other nations of the world which, for more than half a century, have been victims of exploitation and plunder. That was the struggle of Hugo Chávez.

Not even he himself suspected how great he was.

¡Until victory forever (Hasta la victoria siempre), unforgettable friend!

Fidel Castro Ruz

The post We Have Lost Our Best Friend appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

It was not the Venezuela of Rómulo Gallegos and Andrés Eloy Blanco but that of the scoundrel, traitor and venomous Rómulo Betancourt. A man who was jealous of the Cuban Revolution and who, as an ally of the imperialists, cooperated so much with their attacks against our homeland. At the time Venezuela was an oil property of the United States and, after Miami, represented the epicenter for counterrevolutionary actions against Cuba. History recalls how Venezuela played a significant role in the imperialist attack on Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs), the economic blockade and countless other crimes against our people. It was the beginning of the dark ages in Venezuela that came to an end when Hugo Chávez was sworn in on the “dying constitution” held in the trembling hands of former President Rafael Caldera.

Forty years had passed since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and more than a century since the Yankee plundering of Venezuela’s oil, natural resources and sweat.

Many Venezuelans died amidst the ignorance and misery imposed by US and European gunboats!

Fortunately the other Venezuela exists, the Venezuela of Bolívar and Miranda, of Sucre and of a legion of brilliant leaders and thinkers who were able to conceive that great Latin American homeland of which we feel a part of and for which we have resisted aggressions and blockades for more than half a century.

“…so that Cuba’s independence will prevent the expansion of the United States throughout the Antilles, allowing that nation to fall, ever more powerfully, upon our American lands. Everything I have done, everything I will do, is toward this end,” wrote the apostle of our independence Jose Marti the day before he died in combat.

Included among us today is Hugo Chávez who is visiting a part of that great Latin American and Caribbean homeland envisioned by Simón Bolívar. Hugo Chávez understands better than anybody the José Martí principal that “…what Bolívar left undone, is still undone today. Bolívar has things yet to do in America.”

I spoke with him at length yesterday and today. I told him about the great passion with which I dedicate the energy I have left to the dreams of a better and more just world.

It is not difficult to share dreams with the Bolivarian leader when the empire is already showing unequivocal signs of a terminal illness.

Saving humanity from an irreversible disaster is something that today may be compromised by the stupidity of any of those mediocre presidents who in the most recent decades have led that empire or by one of those increasingly powerful leaders of the industrial military complex that rules the destiny of that country.

Friendly nations that have become increasingly important in the world economy —given their economic and technological advances and their condition as permanent members of the Security Council, such as the Popular Republic of China and the Russian Federation, along with the peoples of the so-called Third World in Asia, Africa and Latin America— could achieve this goal. The peoples of the developed and rich nations, increasingly sucked dry by their own financial oligarchies, are also starting to play a role in this battle for human survival.

Meanwhile, the Bolivarian people of Venezuela are organizing themselves and uniting to challenge and defeat the sickening oligarchy at the service of the empire that once again is attempting to take over the government of this country.

Venezuela, given its extraordinary educational, cultural and social developments, and its vast energy and natural resources, is called on to become a revolutionary model for the world.

Chávez, who came out of the ranks of the Venezuelan Army, is methodical and tireless. I have observed him over the course of 17 years, since his first visit to Cuba. He is an extremely humanitarian and law-abiding person; he has never taken revenge on anybody. The most humble and forgotten sectors of his country are profoundly grateful to him that for the first time in history there is a response to their dreams of social justice.

Hugo —I told him—, I clearly see that in a very short time the Bolivarian Revolution will create jobs, not only for the Venezuelan people, but also for their Colombian brothers, a hardworking people, who fought along with you for the independence of America, and of whom 40 percent live in poverty; a significant portion of them in extreme poverty.

I had the honor to speak with our distinguished visitor, the symbol of this other Venezuela, about these and many other topics.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 18, 2011
10:15 p.m.

The post The Two Venezuelas appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

After a cruel and undeserved 13-year prison sentence, the United States government—that gave birth to monsters such as Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch who, as CIA agents had a hand in the exploding of a Cuban airliner full of passengers in mid-flight—forces René to remain in that nation, where he shall be at the mercy of unpunished murderers for three long years, under a regime described as supervised “freedom”. Still unfairly and vengefully imprisoned for long terms of confinement, are another three Cuban heroes, and another one sentenced to two life terms. That is how the empire responds to the growing world clamor for the freedom of these men.

If that were not the case, then the empire would cease to be an empire; and Obama would cease to be a fool.

Of course the Cuban heroes shall not be there forever. On the foundations of the unequaled example of dignity and steadfastness, solidarity in the world and in the very heart of the American people shall grow, and it shall put an end to the stupid and unsustainable injustice.

The crass decision was made when the UN General Assembly was in the midst of developing a profound debate on the necessity of re-founding that institution. Never have we heard such solid and energetic criticisms.

The Bolivarian leader Hugo Chávez opened it up with his first message to the General Assembly published on the evening of September 21st. Chávez’ second letter, transmitted in an energetic and vibrant tone by Chancellor Nicolás Maduro, was a gem. In that message, he also denounced the criminal imperialist blockade against our Homeland and the scandalous and cruel vengeance against the 5 Cuban anti-terrorist Heroes.

Such circumstances have forced me to write a third Reflection. I shall transmit the essential ideas of that forceful message, using the exact words of the author:

[…] We do not look for the peace of the cemetery, as said Kant ironically, but a peace based on the most zealous respect for international law. Unfortunately, the UN, through all its history, instead of adding and multiplying efforts in favor of peace among nations, ends up supporting, sometimes through its actions and other times by omission, the most ruthless injustices.

From 1945 on, wars have done nothing but inexorably increase and multiply themselves.

I want to call on the governments of the world to reflect: since September 11th, 2001, a new and unprecedented imperialist war began, a permanent war, in perpetuity.

We have to look directly at the terrifying reality of the world we live in. […] Why is the United States the only country that scatters the planet with military bases? What is it afraid of to allocate such a staggering budget for increasing its military power? Why has it unleashed so many wars, violating the sovereignty of other nations which have the same rights to their own fates? How can international law be enforced against its cold-hearted aim to dominate the world militarily in order to ensure energy sources, and to sustain its predatory model? Why does the UN do nothing to stop Washington? […] the empire has awarded itself the role of judge of the world, without being granted this responsibility […] therefore, imperialist war threatens us all.

Washington knows that a multi-polar world is already an irreversible reality. Its strategy consists of stopping, at any price, the sustained rise of a group of emerging countries […] the goal is to reconfigure the world so it is based on Yankee military hegemony.

What is behind this new Armageddon?: the absolute power of the military-financial leadership which is destroying the world in order to accumulate ever more profits; the military-financial leadership to which is subordinated, de facto, an increasingly larger group of States. Keep in mind that war is capital’s modus operandi: the war that ruins the majority and makes richer, up to unthinkable amounts, a few people.

Right now, there is a very serious threat to global peace: a new cycle of colonial wars, which started in Libya, with the sinister objective of refreshing the capitalist global system, within a structural crisis today, but without any limit to its consumerist and destructive voracity.

Humanity is on the brink of an unimaginable catastrophe: the world is marching inexorably toward the most devastating ecocide; global warming and its frightening consequences announce it, yet the U.S. rulers perspective on the ecosystem resembles the ideology of the conquistadors Cortés and Pizarro , as the influential French thinker Edgar Morin rightly pointed out […] The energy and food crises are sharpening, but capitalism continues to trespass all the limits with impunity.

…the great U.S. scientist Linus Pauling, awarded the Nobel Prize on two occasions, continues to enlighten our path: “I believe that there is a greater power in the world than the evil power of military force, of nuclear bombs — there is the power of good, of morality, of humanitarianism. I believe in the power of the human spirit”. Let us mobilize all the power of the human spirit: it is time now. It is imperative that we unleash a great political counter-offensive in order to prevent the powers of darkness from finding justifications for going to war, from unleashing a widespread global war through which they attempt to save the western capital.

The warmongers, and especially the military-financial leadership that sponsors and leads them, must be defeated.

Let’s build the balance of the universe foreseen by the Liberator, Simón Bolívar—the balance that, according to his words, cannot be found within war; the balance that is born out of peace.

…Venezuela, alongside the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), was actively advocating for a peaceful and negotiated solution to the Libyan conflict. That is also what the African Union did. However, in the end, the logic of war decreed by the UN Security Council and put into practice by NATO, the armed wing of the Yankee empire, was imposed. […] the “Libyan Case” was brought before the Security Council on the basis of an intense propaganda by the western mass media, who lied about the alleged bombing of innocent civilians by the Libyan Air Force, not to mention the grotesque media setting of the Green Square of Tripoli. This premeditated bunch of lies was used to justify irresponsible and hasty decisions by the Security Council, which paved the way for NATO’s military regime change policy in Libya.

… What has the no-fly zone established by Security Council resolution 1973 become? How could NATO perform more than 20,000 missions against the Libyan people if there was a no-fly zone? After the Libyan Air Force was completely annihilated, the continued “humanitarian” bombing shows that the West, through NATO, intends to impose their interests in North Africa, turning Libya into a colonial protectorate.

What is the real reason for this military intervention?: Recolonizing Libya in order to capture its wealth. Everything else is related to this goal.

…the Residence of the Venezuelan Ambassador in Tripoli was invaded and looted, and the UN kept it to itself, remaining ignominiously silent.

…Why is the Libyan seat in the UN granted to the “national transitional council,” while the admission of Palestine is blocked by ignoring, not only its lawful aspiration, but also the existing will of the majority of the General Assembly? Venezuela hereby ratifies its unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian people and its total support for the Palestinian national cause, which naturally includes the immediate admission of Palestine as a full member state within the United Nations.

And the same imperialist pattern is being repeated regarding Syria.

It is intolerable that the powerful of this world intend to claim for themselves the right to order legitimate and sovereign governments rulers to step down. This was the case in Libya, and they want to do the same in Syria. Such are the existing asymmetries in the international setting and such are the abuses against the weakest nations.

If we direct our eyes to the Horn of Africa we will witness a heartbreaking example of the UN’s historical failure: most serious news agencies report that 20-29,000 children under the age of 5 have died in the last three months.

What is needed to face this situation is $400 million, not to solve the problem, but just to address the emergency that Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia are going through. According to all sources, the next two months will be crucial to prevent more than 12 million people from dying, and the worst situation is that of Somalia.

This reality could not be more atrocious, especially if, at the same time, we ask ourselves how much is being spent to destroy Libya. This is the answer of U.S. congressman Dennis Kucinich, who said: “This new War will cost us $500 million during its first week alone. Obviously, we do not have financial resources for that and we will end up cutting off other important domestic programs’ funding.” According to Kucinich himself, with the amount spent during the first three weeks in Northern Africa to massacre the Libyan people, much could have been done to help the entire region of the Horn of Africa, saving tens of thousands of lives.

…it is frankly regrettable that in the opening address of the 66th General Assembly of the UN, an immediate appeal to solve humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa was not made, while instead we were assured that “the time has come to act” on Syria.

We are also crying out for the end to the shameful and criminal blockade of our sister Republic of Cuba: a blockade that, for more than fifty years, is being exercised by the empire with cruelty and brutality, against the heroic peoples of José Martí.

As of 2010, 19 UN General Assembly votes confirm the universal will demanding that the United States stop the economic and trade blockade against Cuba. Since all sensible international arguments have been exhausted, we have no choice but to believe that such cruel actions against the Cuban Revolution result from imperial arrogance in view of the dignity and courage shown by the unsubmissive Cuban people in their sovereign decision to determine their own fate and fight for their happiness.

From Venezuela, we believe it is time to demand of the U.S. not only an immediate and unconditional end to the criminal blockade imposed against the Cuban people, but also the release of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters held hostage in the prisons of the American Empire for the sole reason of seeking to prevent the illegal actions of terrorist groups against Cuba, under the shelter of the U.S. government.

For us, it is obvious that the UN is not improving, nor will it improve from the inside. If the Secretary General, along with the President of the International Criminal Court, take part in an act of war, as in the case of Libya, nothing can be expected from the current structure of this organization and there is no longer time for reform.

It is unbearable that there is a Security Council that turns its back, whenever it wants to, on the clamor of the majority of nations by deliberately failing to acknowledge the will of the General Assembly. If the Security Council is some sort of club with privileged members, what can the General Assembly do? Where is its room for maneuver, when Security Council members violate international law?

Paraphrasing Bolívar when he spoke of nascent Yankee imperialism in 1818, we have had enough of the weak following the law while the strong commit abuses. It cannot be us, the peoples of the South, who respect international law while the North violates it, destroying and plundering us.

If we do not make a commitment, once and for all, to rebuilding the United Nations, this organization will lose its remaining credibility. Its crisis of legitimacy will be accelerated until it finally implodes. In fact, that is what happened to its immediate predecessor: the League of Nations.

The future of a multi-polar world in peace lies with us. In the articulation of the majority peoples on the planet to defend ourselves from the new colonialism and to attain balance in the universe that neutralizes imperialism and arrogance.

This broad, generous, respectful call with no exclusions is addressed to all the peoples of the world, but especially to the emerging powers of The South that must take on with courage the role they are being called upon to play in the immediate future.

From Latin America and the Caribbean, powerful and dynamic regional alliances have arisen, seeking to configure a democratic regional space, respectful of special characteristics and wishing to accentuate solidarity and complementariness, fostering what unites us and politically resolving whatever divides us. And this new regionalism admits diversity and respects the rhythms of all. […] the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) moves forward as an experiment of the vanguard of progressive and anti-imperialist governments, seeking formulas to break with the governing international order and strengthening the capacity of the peoples to collectively face the factual powers. But this does not impede our members from making a decisive and enthusiastic thrust for the strengthening of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a political bloc confederating the 12 sovereign states of South America with the aim of grouping them in what The Liberator Simón Bolívar called “a Nation of Republics”. And further along down the road, we the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are getting ready to take that historic step and found a great regional entity that will group us all together, with no exclusions, where we may jointly design the policies that must guarantee our well-being, our independence, our sovereignty, on the basis of equality, solidarity and complementariness. Caracas, capital of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is now swelling with pride to host the Summit of the Heads of State and Government next December 2nd and 3rd, an event that shall definitively found our Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

With these profound ideas, thus concludes the second message of the Bolivarian President Hugo Chávez to the UN General Assembly.

According to the AFP dispatch dated today in Washington: US President Barack Obama declared this Wednesday that while he is president he shall be willing to change the policy with Cuba, as long as significant political and social changes are produced.

What a nice man! How smart he is! So much virtue has not allowed him to understand yet that 50 years of blockade and the crimes against our Homeland have not been able to bring our people to their knees. Many things shall change in Cuba, but they shall change because of our efforts and despite the United States. Perhaps that empire shall crumble first.

The unyielding resistance of the Cuban patriots is symbolized by our 5 Heroes. They shall never back down! They shall never surrender! As Martí proclaimed, and I have mentioned on other occasions: “Before continuous efforts to free and prosperous country, will join the South Sea to the North Sea and a snake will hatch from an eagle’s egg.”

It is obvious that the judge from the South Florida District has put the spotlight on “Obama’s supervised shame”.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 28, 2011
7:37 p.m.

The post Obama’s Supervised Shame appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

There is not a drop of morality, not even of politics, in his attempt to justify his announced decision to veto any resolution approved supporting the recognition of Palestine as an independent state and a member of the United Nations. Even politicians who in no way share socialist ideas and lead parties which were closely allied with Augusto Pinochet support Palestine’s right to full membership in the UN.

Barrack Obama’s words on the main topic of discussion today in the organization’s General Assembly can only be applauded by NATO, with its artillery, missiles and bombings.

The rest of his speech consisted of empty words, lacking moral authority and making no sense. Let us observe, for example, how just how vacuous they were. In a starving world, plundered by transnational corporations and the consumerism of developed capitalist countries, Obama proclaimed:

To stop disease that spreads across borders, we must strengthen our system of public health. We will continue the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. We will focus on the health of mothers and of children. And we must come together to prevent, and detect, and fight every kind of biological danger – whether it’s a pandemic like H1N1, or a terrorist threat, or a treatable disease.

To preserve our planet, we must not put off action that climate change demands. We have to tap the power of science to save those resources that are scarce. And together, we must continue our work to build on the progress made in Copenhagen and Cancun, so that all the major economies here today follow through on the commitments that were made. Together, we must work to transform the energy that powers our economies, and support others as they move down that path. That is what our commitment to the next generation demands. And to make sure our societies reach their potential, we must allow our citizens to reach theirs.

Everyone knows that the United States did not sign the Kyoto Protocol and has sabotaged all efforts to protect humanity from the terrible consequences of climate change, despite being the country which consumes a considerable, disproportionate part of the world’s oil and natural resources.

Let us make a record of the idyllic words with which he attempted to beguile the state leaders assembled there:

I know there’s no straight line to that progress, no single path to success. We come from different cultures, and carry with us different histories. But let us never forget that even as we gather here as heads of different governments, we represent citizens who share the same basic aspirations—to live with dignity and freedom; to get an education and pursue opportunity; to love our families, and love and worship our God; to live in the kind of peace that makes life worth living. It is the nature of our imperfect world that we are forced to learn these lessons over and over again.

… Because those who came before us believed that peace is preferable to war, and freedom is preferable to suppression, and prosperity is preferable to poverty. That’s the message that comes not from capitals, but from citizens, from our people. And when the cornerstone of this very building was put in place, President Truman came here to New York and said, “The United Nations is essentially an expression of the moral nature of man’s aspirations.” The moral nature of man’s aspirations. As we live in a world that is changing at a breathtaking pace, that’s a lesson that we must never forget.

Peace is hard, but we know that it is possible. So, together, let us be resolved to see that it is defined by our hopes and not by our fears. Together, let us make peace, but a peace, most importantly, that will last.

Thank you very much.

Listening to this until the very end is worthy of more than gratitude; it merits a medal.

As I have already indicated, early in the afternoon, it befell the President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Evo Morales Ayma, to take the floor and immediately address the essential issues.

… There is a clear difference over the culture of life and the culture of death. There is a clear difference over the truth in the face of falsehoods, a profound difference over peace as opposed to war.

… I believe it is going to be difficult to understand each other with economic policies which concentrate capital in the hands of a few. The facts show that 1% of the world’s population holds 50% of the wealth. If such profound differences exist, how can poverty be reduced? And if we do not eliminate poverty, how can we guarantee a lasting peace?

I remember perfectly well how as a child whenever there was a rebellion of the people against the capitalist system, against the economic model based on the permanent plunder of our natural resources, the union leaders, the political leaders of the left were accused of being communists and arrested. The popular movements were attacked militarily: arrests, exile, massacres, persecution, incarceration, accused of being communists, socialists, Maoists, Marxist-Leninists. But now, they have other tools, they make accusations of drug trafficking and terrorism.

… they plan interventions whenever a president, a government, a people are not pro-capitalist or pro-imperialist.

… A lasting peace is spoken of. How can there be lasting peace with U.S. military bases? How can there be lasting peace with military interventions?

Of what use is the United Nations if a group of nations here decides on interventions, massacres?

If we want this organization, the United Nations, to have the authority to have its resolutions respected, well, we have to begin thinking about re-founding the United Nations…

Every year the United Nations—practically 100% of the countries, with the exception of the United States and Israel—decides to lift the blockade, end the economic blockade of Cuba. And who respects this? Of course, the Security Council is never going to respect this United Nations resolution… I cannot understand how, in an organization including all of the world’s nations, resolutions are not respected. What is the United Nations?

I would like to tell you that Bolivia is not turning its back on the recognition of Palestine in the United Nations. Our position is that Bolivia welcomes Palestine to the United Nations.

You all know, dear listeners, that I come from the Indigenous Campesino Movement and when our families talk about a company, we assume that that company has a lot of money, holds a lot of money, they’re millionaires. We can’t understand how a company could ask the state to lend it money for its investments.

That’s why I say that these international financial entities are the ones who do business through private companies, but who has to pay for it? Of course, it is the people, the states.

… Bolivia has a historic demand, of Chile, to return to the sea, to retake sovereign access to the Pacific, with sovereignty. Therefore Bolivia has made the decision to resort to international tribunals, to demand useful, sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.

Resolution 37/10 of the UN General Assembly, November 15, 1982, establishes that ‘recourse to judicial settlement of legal disputes, particularly referral to the International Court of Justice, should not be considered an unfriendly act between States.’

Bolivia is protected by law and by right has recourse to an International Court because its confinement is the result of an unjust war, an invasion. Demanding a solution in the international arena represents for Bolivia the reparation of a historic injustice.

Bolivia is a peaceful state which favors dialogue with neighboring countries, and for that reason maintains open channels of bilateral negotiation with Chile, without renouncing its right to have recourse to an International Court…

The peoples are not responsible for the maritime confinement of Bolivia, those responsible are the oligarchies, the transnationals which, as always, appropriate the peoples’ natural resources.

The 1904 Treaty did not contribute to peace or friendship; it caused Bolivia’s lack of access to a sovereign port for more than one century.

… in the region of the Americas another movement of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean is being organized, I would say a new OAS without the United States, in order to liberate ourselves from certain impositions, fortunately, with the little experience that we have acquired in UNASUR. […] If there is a conflict between countries, we no longer need […] persons coming from above and outside to impose order.

I also want to take advantage of this opportunity to address a central issue: combating drug trafficking. Combating drug trafficking is being utilized by U.S. imperialism for purely political ends. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Bolivia was not combating drug trafficking, it was controlling drug trafficking for political ends. If there was a labor leader, or an anti-imperialist political leader, that’s why the DEA was there: to implicate him or her. We saved many leaders, many politicians from that kind of dirty work by the empire to implicate us in drug trafficking. They are still attempting to do just that.

In recent weeks certain media from the United States were saying that the presidential plane had been detained in the United States due to traces of cocaine. How untrue! They are trying to confuse the population, trying to promote a dirty campaign against the government, even against the state. However, what is the United States doing? Decertifying Bolivia and Venezuela. What moral authority does the United States have to certify or decertify countries in South America or in Latin America, when the United States is the world’s prime consumer of drugs, the prime producer of marijuana in the world? […] What authority does it have to certify or decertify? It is another means of frightening or intimidating countries, trying to teach countries a lesson. However, Bolivia is, very responsibly, fighting drug trafficking.

In the same U.S. report; that is to say, of the Department of State of the United States acknowledges a net reduction of coca cultivation; that the interdiction has improved.

But, where is the market? The market is the origin of drug trafficking and the market is here. And who decertifies the United States because it has not reduced the market?

This morning, President Calderón of Mexico said that the drug market is still growing and asked why there is no responsibility taken for eradicating the market. […] Let’s fight under a shared co-responsibility. […] In Bolivia, we’re not afraid, and we have to end secret banking if we want to make a frontal assault on drug trafficking.

… One of the crises, on the margins of the crisis of capitalism, is the food crisis. […] We have a little experience in Bolivia: giving credits with zero interest to rice, corn, wheat and soy producers, and they can also pay their debts with their products, such as food; or accessible credits to encourage production. However, the international banks never take small producers into account, never take associations, cooperatives into account and these can make a very good contribution if they are given the opportunity. […] We have to end commerce which is based on competitiveness.

In a competition, who wins? The most powerful, the one with the most advantages, always the transnationals, and who are the small producers, who are these families who wish to rise up through their own efforts? […] Within a policy of competition we are certainly not going to solve the issue of poverty.

But, finally, to end this speech, I want to state that the crisis of capitalism is already unpayable. […] The economic crisis of capitalism is not circumstantial, but structural and what are the capitalist or imperialist countries doing? Seeking any pretext for intervening in a country in order to recoup its natural resources.

This morning, the President of the United States said that Iraq has been liberated and that they are going to govern themselves. The Iraqis are going to be able to govern themselves, but in whose hands is the Iraqis’ oil now?

They welcomed it, they said that autocracy in Libya was over, now it’s a democracy; it can be a democracy, but in whose hands is Libya’s oil going to be now? […] the bombardments were not the fault of Gaddafi, the fault of certain rebels, but because of seeking Libya’s oil.

… Therefore, they want to overcome it, their crisis, the crisis of capitalism, they want to rectify it by recouping our natural resources, on the basis of our oil, on the basis of our gas, our natural resources.

… we have an enormous responsibility: defending the rights of Mother Earth.

… the best way of defending human rights today is by defending the rights of Mother Earth […] here we have an enormous responsibility in approving the rights of Mother Earth. Just over 60 years ago the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was approved. Just over 60 years ago it was recognized in the United Nations that human beings have their rights as well. After political rights, economic rights, the rights of the indigenous peoples, now we have the enormous responsibility of how to defend the rights of Mother Earth.

We are also convinced that infinite growth on a finite planet is unsustainable and impossible, the limits on growth are the degeneration of the Earth’s ecosystems. […] We are calling for […] a new decalogue of social demands: in financial systems, over natural resources, over basic services, over production, over dignity and sovereignty and, on this basis, to begin to re-found the United Nations, so that the United Nations becomes the highest body for solving issues of peace, issues of poverty, issues of the dignity and sovereignty of the peoples of the world.

We hope that this experience as a President might serve for something for all of us, as I also have come to learn from many of you in order to continue working for the equality and dignity of the Bolivian people.

Thank you very much indeed.

After the essential concepts of Evo Morales, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, who was granted speaking rights two days ago, set out the dramatic sufferings of the inhabitants of Palestine:

…the crass historical injustice perpetrated against our people, for whom it was deemed convenient to establish the state of Palestine in just 22% of the territory of Palestine and, above all, the Palestinian territory which Israel occupied in 1967. Taking that historic step, which was applauded by the states of the world, allowed an excessive acquiescence in order to achieve a historical contemporization, which would allow peace to be attained in the land of peace.

[…] Our people will continue popular, peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation, its settlements and its policy of apartheid, as well as the construction of the racist wall of annexation […] armed with dreams, courage, hope and mottoes in the face of tanks, teargas, bulldozers and bullets.

… we want to extend a hand to the Israeli government and people for the establishment of peace, and I say to you: let us build together, in an urgent way, a future for our sons and daughters in which they can enjoy peace, security and prosperity. […] Let us build relations of cooperation based on parity, equity and friendship between two neighboring states, Palestine and Israel, instead of policies of occupation, settlements, war and the elimination of the other.

Almost half a century has passed since that brutal occupation promoted and supported by the United States. However, barely a day passes without the wall rising, monstrous mechanical equipment destroying Palestinian homes and some young or even adolescent Palestinian falling injured or dead.

What profound truths were contained in Evo’s words!

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 26, 2011
10:32 p.m.

The post Chávez, Evo and Obama (part II) appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

The yearly event demands singular effort from those taking on the greatest of political responsibilities in many countries. For them, it constitutes a tough test; for the fans of that art, and there are many since it vitally affects everybody, it is difficult to remove oneself from the temptation of observing the interminable but educational show.

In the first place, there are infinite thorny subjects and conflicts of interests. For a great number of the participants it is necessary to take positions on events that constitute flagrant violations of principles. For example, what position to take on the NATO genocide in Libya? Would anybody like to leave proof that under their leadership the government of their country supported the monstrous crime being committed by the US and their NATO allies, whose sophisticated fighter planes, manned or unmanned, undertook more than twenty thousand attack missions on a small Third World State that has barely six million inhabitants, alleging the same reasons that were used yesterday to attack and invade Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan and which today threaten to do likewise in Syria or some other country in the world?

Was it not precisely the government of the State hosting the UN that ordered the butchery in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the mercenary attack on the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, the invasion of Santo Domingo, the “Dirty War” in Nicaragua, the occupation of Grenada and Panama by US military forces and the massacre of Panamanians in El Chorrillo? Who promoted the military coups and genocides in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay that cost tens of thousands of deaths and disappeared? I am not speaking about things that happened 500 years ago, when the Spanish were starting the genocide in the Americas, or 200 years ago when Yankees exterminated native peoples in the United States or enslaved Africans, despite the fact that “all men are born free and equal” as the Philadelphia Declaration of Independence states. I am speaking of events that occurred in the last few decades and which are happening today.

These events have to be remembered and repeated whenever an occurrence having the importance and prominence of the meeting taking place at the United Nations where the political integrity and ethics of governments are being put to the test.

Many of these represent small and poor countries needing support and international cooperation, technology, markets and loans that the developed capitalist powers have handled at their whim.

Despite the unabashed monopoly of the mass media and the fascist methods of the United States and their allies to confuse and dupe world opinion, resistance of the peoples grows, and that can be seen in the discussions that are being produced in the United Nations.

Quite a few Third World leaders, despite the obstacles and contradictions indicated, have laid out their ideas with courage. The very voices emanating from the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean no longer bear the lackey and scandalous accent of the OAS that characterized the statements of Heads of State in past decades. Two of them have addressed that forum; both of them, Bolivarian President Hugo Chávez, a mixture of the races that make up the peoples of Venezuela and Evo Morales, pure descendent of age-old native roots, poured out their concepts at that meeting, one of them via a message and the other speaking live, in response to the speech given by the Yankee president.

Telesur broadcast the three statements. Thanks to that, from the evening of Tuesday the 20th, we were able to learn of President Chavez’ message that was thoroughly read out by Walter Martínez on his program, Dossier. Obama gave his speech on Wednesday morning as the Head of State of the UN host country, and Evo gave his speech early that same afternoon. For the sake of brevity, I shall take essential paragraphs of both texts.

Chávez was unable to personally attend the UN Summit, after 12 years of struggle, without one single day’s rest that put his life at risk and affected his health and who today is struggling in self-sacrifice for his full recovery. Nevertheless it was difficult for his courageous message to not deal with the most crucial topic at the historic meeting. I transcribe it, almost in its entirety:

I address these words to the UN General Assembly […] to ratify, on this day and in this setting, Venezuela’s full support of the recognition of the Palestinian State: of Palestine’s right to become a free, sovereign and independent state. This represents an act of historic justice towards a people who carry with them, from time immemorial, all the pain and suffering of the world.

The great French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, […] wrote with the full weight of the truth: The Palestinian cause is first and foremost the set of injustices that these people have suffered and continue to suffer. And I dare add that the Palestinian cause also represents a constant and unwavering will to resist, already written in the historic memory of the human condition […] Mahmoud Darwish, the infinite voice of the longed-for Palestine, with heartfelt conscience speaks about this love:

‘We don’t need memories
because we carry within us Mount Carmelo
and in our eyelids is the herb of Galilee.
Don’t say: If only we could flow to my country like a river!
Don’t say that!
Because we are in the flesh of our country
and our country is in our flesh.’

Against those who falsely assert that what has happened to the Palestinian people is not genocide, Deleuze himself states with unfaltering lucidity: From beginning to end, it involved acting as if the Palestinian people not only must not exist, but had never existed. It represents the very essence of genocide: to decree that a people do not exist; to deny them the right to existence.

…conflict resolution in the Middle East must, necessarily, bring justice to the Palestinian people; this is the only path to peace.

It is upsetting and painful that the same people who suffered one of the worst examples of genocide in history have become the executioners of the Palestinian people: it is upsetting and painful that the heritage of the Holocaust be the Nakba. And it is truly disturbing that Zionism continues to use the charge of anti-Semitism as blackmail against those who oppose their violations and crimes. Israel has, blatantly and despicably, used and continues to use the memory of the victims. And they do so to act with complete impunity against Palestine. It’s worth mentioning that anti-Semitism is a Western, European, scourge in which the Arabs do not participate. Furthermore, let’s not forget that it is the Semite Palestine people who suffer from the ethnic cleansing practiced by the Israeli colonialist State..”/p>

…It is one thing to denounce anti-Semitism, and an entirely different thing to passively accept that Zionistic barbarism enforces an apartheid regime against the Palestinian people. From an ethical standpoint those who denounce the first, must condemn the second.”

…Zionism, as a world vision, is absolutely racist. Irrefutable proof of this can be seen in these words written with terrifying cynicism by Golda Meir: How are we to return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people. It is not as people think, that there existed a people called Palestinians, who considered themselves as Palestinians, and that we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.’”

Read and reread the document historically known as the Balfour Declaration of 1917: the British Government assumed the legal authority to promise a national home in Palestine to the Jewish people, deliberately ignoring the presence and wishes of its inhabitants. It should be added that Christians and Muslims lived in peace for centuries in the Holy Land up until the time when Zionism began to claim it as its complete and exclusive property.”

By the end of World War II, the Palestinian people’s tragedy worsened, with their expulsion from their territory and, at the same time, from history. In 1947, the despicable and illegal UN resolution 181 recommends dividing Palestine into a Jewish State, an Arab State, and an area under international control (Jerusalem and Belem). […] , 56 percent of the territory was granted to Zionism to establish its State. In fact, this resolution violated international law and blatantly ignored the will of the vast Arab majority: the right to self-determination of the people became a dead letter.”

…contrary to what Israel and the United States are trying to make the world believe through transnational media outlets, what happened and continues to happen in Palestine —using Said’s words— is not a religious conflict, but a political conflict, with a colonial and imperialist stamp. It did not begin in the Middle East, but rather in Europe.

What was and continues to be at the heart of the conflict?: debate and discussion has prioritized Israel’s security while ignoring Palestine’s. This is corroborated by recent events; a good example is the latest act of genocide set off by Israel during its Operation Molten Lead in Gaza.

Palestine’s security cannot be reduced to the simple acknowledgement of a limited self-government and self-policing in its “enclaves” along the west bank of the Jordan and in the Gaza Strip. This ignores the creation of the Palestinian State, in the borders set prior to 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital; and the rights of its citizens and their self-determination as a people. This further disregards the compensation and subsequent return to the Homeland of 50 percent of the Palestinian people who are scattered all over the world, as established by resolution 194.

It’s unbelievable that a country (Israel) that owes its existence to a general assembly resolution could be so disdainful of the resolutions that emanate from the UN, said Father Miguel D’Escoto when pleading for the end of the massacre against the people of Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009.

It is impossible to ignore the crisis in the United Nations. In 2005, before this very same General Assembly, we argued that the United Nations model had become exhausted. The fact that the debate on the Palestinian issue has been delayed and is being openly sabotaged reconfirms this.

For several days, Washington has been stating that, at the Security Council, it will veto what will be a majority resolution of the General Assembly: the recognition of Palestine as a full member of the UN. In the Statement of Recognition of the Palestinian State, Venezuela, together with the sister Nations that make up the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), have denounced that such a just aspiration could be blocked by this means. As we know, the empire, in this and other instances, is trying to impose its double standard on the world stage: Yankee double standards are violating international law in Libya, while allowing Israel to do whatever it pleases, thus becoming the main accomplice of the Palestinian genocide being carried out by the hands of Zionist barbarity. Edward Said touched a nerve when he wrote that: ‘Israeli interests in the United States have made the US-Middle East policy Israeli-centric.’

I would like to conclude with the voice of Mahmoud Darwish in his memorable poem “On This Earth”:

‘We have on this earth what makes life worth living: On this earth, the lady of earth, Mother of all beginnings
Mother of all ends. She was called… Palestine.
Her name later became… Palestine.
My Lady, because you are my Lady, I deserve life.’

It will continue to be called Palestine: Palestine will live and overcome! Long-live free, sovereign and independent Palestine!

Hugo Chávez Frías
President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

When the meeting convened the next morning his words were already in the hearts and minds of all the persons meeting there.

The Bolivarian leader was never an enemy of the Jewish people. A man with special sensitivity, he deeply detested the brutal crime committed by the Nazis on children, women and men, young and old in the concentration camps where gypsies were also victims of atrocious crimes and extermination attempts, something nobody of course remembers and is never mentioned. Likewise, hundreds of thousands of Russians perished in those extermination camps, considered to be an inferior race by Nazi racial concepts.

When Chávez returned to his country from Cuba on the night of Thursday September 22nd, he indignantly referred to the speech given by Barack Obama at the United Nations. Few times have I heard him speak with such disappointment about a leader whom he treated with determinate respect, as a victim of his own history of racial discrimination in the United States. He never thought him capable of acting as George Bush would have and he held on to a respectful memory of the words they exchanged at the Trinidad and Tobago meeting.

Yesterday we were listening to a number of speeches, also the day before yesterday, over there at the UN, lovely speeches like the one made by President Dilma Rousseff; a highly ethical speech like the one made by President Evo Morales; a speech we might catalogue as a monument to cynicism, President Obama’s speech, is a monument to cynicism because his own face was betraying him, his own face was a poem; a man calling for peace, imagine that, Obama calling for peace, with what kind of morals? A historical monument to cynicism, that’s what President Obama’s speech was.

Lovely speeches, guiding speeches, that’s what we were listening to: the speech by President Lugo, that of the Argentine president, setting courageous positions before the world.

When the New York meeting convened on the morning of Wednesday, September 21st, the President of the United States,—on the tail of the words spoken by the President of Brazil which opened up discussions and after the de rigueur introduction—took to the podium and began his speech. “Over nearly seven decades,” he began,

even as the United Nations helped avert a third world war, we still live in a world scarred by conflict and plagued by poverty. Even as we proclaim our love for peace and our hatred of war, there are still convulsions in our world that endanger us all.

We don’t know when, according to Obama, the UN prevented World War III.

I took office at a time of two wars for the United States. Moreover, the violent extremists who drew us into war in the first place—Osama bin Laden, and his al Qaeda organization—remained at large. Today, we’ve set a new direction. At the end of this year, America’s military operation in Iraq will be over. We will have a normal relationship with a sovereign nation that is a member of the community of nations. That equal partnership will be strengthened by our support for Iraq—for its government and for its security forces, for its people and for their aspirations.

What country is Obama really talking about?

As we end the war in Iraq, the United States and our coalition partners have begun a transition in Afghanistan. Between now and 2014, an increasingly capable Afghan government and security forces will step forward to take responsibility for the future of their country. As they do, we are drawing down our own forces, while building an enduring partnership with the Afghan people. So let there be no doubt: The tide of war is receding

When I took office, roughly 180,000 Americans were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the end of this year, that number will be cut in half, and it will continue to decline. This is critical for the sovereignty of Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s also critical to the strength of the United States as we build our nation at home. Moreover, we are poised to end these wars from a position of strength. Ten years ago, there was an open wound and twisted steel, a broken heart in the center of this city. Today, as a new tower is rising at Ground Zero, it symbolizes New York’s renewal, even as al Qaeda is under more pressure than ever before. Its leadership has been degraded. And Osama bin Laden, a man who murdered thousands of people from dozens of countries, will never endanger the peace of the world again.

Who was Bin Laden’s ally, who really trained and armed him to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan? It wasn’t the socialists, or the revolutionaries in any part of the world.

This has been a difficult decade. […] But today, we stand at a crossroads of history with the chance to move decisively in the direction of peace. To do so, we must return to the wisdom of those who created this institution. The United Nations’ Founding Charter calls upon us, “to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security.

Who has military bases everywhere throughout the world, who is the greatest exporter of weapons, who possesses hundreds of spy satellites, who invests billions of dollars every year on military expenses?

This year has been a time of extraordinary transformation. More nations have stepped forward to maintain international peace and security. And more individuals are claiming their universal right to live in freedom and dignity.

Then he cites the cases of Southern Sudan and Côte d’Ivoire. He doesn’t say that in the former, the Yankee transnationals launched themselves on the oil reserves of that new country, whose president, at that very UN Assembly, said that it was a valuable resource, but would run out and he proposed its rational and best use.

Neither did Obama state that peace in Côte d’Ivoire was reached with the backing of the colonialist soldiers of an eminent member of belligerent NATO which had just dropped thousands of bombs over Libya.

A little later on he mentions Tunisia and he attributed the US with the merit of the popular movement that overthrew that country’s government, imperialism’s ally.

Even more mind-boggling, Obama would like to ignore that the US was responsible for Egypt installing the tyrannical and corrupt Hosni Mubarak government, which betrayed Nasser’s principles and allied itself with imperialism, stealing tens of thousands of millions from his country and tyrannizing that courageous people.

“One year ago,” Obama states,

Egypt had known one President for nearly 30 years. But for 18 days, the eyes of the world were glued to Tahrir Square, where Egyptians from all walks of life—men and women, young and old, Muslim and Christian—demanded their universal rights. We saw in those protesters the moral force of non-violence that has lit the world from Delhi to Warsaw, from Selma to South Africa—and we knew that change had come to Egypt and to the Arab world.

Day after day, in the face of bullets and bombs, the Libyan people refused to give back that freedom. And when they were threatened by the kind of mass atrocity that often went unchallenged in the last century, the United Nations lived up to its charter. The Security Council authorized all necessary measures to prevent a massacre. The Arab League called for this effort; Arab nations joined a NATO-led coalition that halted Qaddafi’s forces in their tracks”

Yesterday, the leaders of a new Libya took their rightful place beside us, and this week, the United States is reopening our embassy in Tripoli.

This is how the international community is supposed to work—nations standing together for the sake of peace and security, and individuals claiming their rights.

Now, all of us have a responsibility to support the new Libya—the new Libyan government as they confront the challenge of turning this moment of promise into a just and lasting peace for all Libyans.

The Qaddafi regime is over. Gbagbo, Ben Ali, Mubarak are no longer in power. Osama bin Laden is gone, and the idea that change could only come through violence has been buried with him.

Observe the poetic form with which Obama deals with the Bin Laden affair, whatever had been responsible for this former ally, executing him by shooting him in his face in front of his wife and children and throwing his body into the sea from an aircraft carrier, ignoring the religious customs and traditions of more than a billion religious persons and the basic legal principles established by all penal systems. Such methods do not lead, nor will they ever lead, to peace.

Something is happening in our world, —he carries on, regarding Libya ― The way things have been is not the way that they will be. Dictators are on notice. Technology is putting power into the hands of the people. The youth are delivering a powerful rebuke to dictatorship, and rejecting the lie that some races, some peoples, some religions, some ethnicities do not desire democracy.

The promise written down on paper—“all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”—is closer at hand The measure of our success must be whether people can live in sustained freedom, dignity, and security. And the United Nations and its member states must do their part to support those basic aspirations. And we have more work to do.

Right away he starts in on another Muslim country where, as it is well-known, his intelligence services along with those of Israel, systematically murder the most distinguished military technology scientists.

He follows up with a threat on Syria, where Yankee agressivity could lead to a massacre even more horrifying than that in Libya: “today, men and women and children are being tortured, detained and murdered by the Syrian regime. Thousands have been killed, many during the holy time of Ramadan. Thousands more have poured across Syria’s borders.

The Syrian people have shown dignity and courage in their pursuit of justice—protesting peacefully, standing silently in the streets, dying for the same values that this institution is supposed to stand for. And the question for us is clear: Will we stand with the Syrian people, or with their oppressors? Already, the United States has imposed strong sanctions on Syria’s leaders. We supported a transfer of power that is responsive to the Syrian people But for the sake of Syria—and the peace and security of the world—we must speak with one voice. There’s no excuse for inaction. Now is the time for the United Nations Security Council to sanction the Syrian regime, and to stand with the Syrian people.

Could it be that some country has been left out of the bloody threats made by this illustrious defender of security and international peace? Who granted such prerogatives to the United States?

Throughout the region, we will have to respond to the calls for change. In Yemen, men, women and children gather by the thousands in towns and city squares every day with the hope that their determination and spilled blood will prevail over a corrupt system. America supports those aspirations. We must work with Yemen’s neighbors and our partners around the world to seek a path that allows for a peaceful transition of power from President Saleh, and a movement to free and fair elections as soon as possible.

In Bahrain, steps have been taken toward reform and accountability. We’re pleased with that, but more is required. America is a close friend of Bahrain, and we will continue to call on the government and the main opposition bloc—the Wifaq—to pursue a meaningful dialogue that brings peaceful change that is responsive to the people. We believe the patriotism that binds Bahrainis together must be more powerful than the sectarian forces that would tear them apart. It will be hard, but it is possible.

He doesn’t mention one single word about the fact that that’s where one of the largest military bases in the region is and that the Yankee transnationals control and dispose of at will the greatest oil and gas reserves of Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates.

We believe that each nation must chart its own course to fulfill the aspirations of its people, and America does not expect to agree with every party or person who expresses themselves politically. But we will always stand up for the universal rights that were embraced by this Assembly. Those rights depend on elections that are free and fair; on governance that is transparent and accountable; respect for the rights of women and minorities; justice that is equal and fair. That is what our people deserve. Those are the elements of peace that can last.

…the United States will continue to support those nations that transition to democracy—with greater trade and investment—so that freedom is followed by opportunity. We will pursue a deeper engagement with governments, but also with civil society—students and entrepreneurs, political parties and the press.

We have banned those who abuse human rights from traveling to our country. And we’ve sanctioned those who trample on human rights abroad. And we will always serve as a voice for those who’ve been silenced.

After this long-winded speech, the distinguished Nobel Prize laureate embarks on the thorny issue of his alliance with Israel that certainly doesn’t come up among the privileged possessors of one of the most modern system of nuclear weapons and means capable of reaching distant targets. He knows full well how arbitrary and unpopular that policy is.

I know, particularly this week, that for many in this hall, there’s one issue that stands as a test for these principles and a test for American foreign policy, and that is the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. One year ago, I stood at this podium and I called for an independent Palestine. I believed then, and I believe now, that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own.

But what I also said is that a genuine peace can only be realized between the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves. One year later, despite extensive efforts by America and others, the parties have not bridged their differences. Faced with this stalemate, I put forward a new basis for negotiations in May of this year. That basis is clear. It’s well known to all of us here. Israelis must know that any agreement provides assurances for their security. Palestinians deserve to know the territorial basis of their state. Now, I know that many are frustrated by the lack of progress. I assure you, so am I. But the question isn’t the goal that we seek—the question is how do we reach that goal.

Peace is hard work. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations—if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now.

Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians—not us –- who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and on security, on refugees and Jerusalem.

Ultimately, peace depends upon compromise among people who must live together long after our speeches are over, long after our votes have been tallied.

Next, he goes on to verbosely explain and justify the unexplainable and unjustifiable.

…There’s no question that the Palestinians have seen that vision delayed for too long. It is precisely because we believe so strongly in the aspirations of the Palestinian people that America has invested so much time and so much effort in the building of a Palestinian state, and the negotiations that can deliver a Palestinian state. But understand this as well: America’s commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable. Our friendship with Israel is deep and enduring.…

The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbors. And friends of the Palestinians do them no favors by ignoring this truth.

…each side has legitimate aspirations—and that’s part of what makes peace so hard. And the deadlock will only be broken when each side learns to stand in the other’s shoes; each side can see the world through the other’s eyes. That’s what we should be encouraging. That’s what we should be promoting.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians remain exiled from their own homeland, their homes are destroyed by monstrous mechanical machinery and an odious wall that is much higher than the Berlin Wall was, separating Palestinian from Palestinian. The best Obama might have acknowledged is that the very Israeli citizens are by now tired of the waste of resources invested in the military sphere that deprives them of peace and access to the elementary means for living. Just like the Palestinians, they are suffering from the consequences of these policies imposed by the United States and the most warlike and reactionary elements in the Zionist State.

even as we confront these challenges of conflict and revolution, we must also recognize—we must also remind ourselves […]. True peace depends on creating the opportunity that makes life worth living. And to do that, we must confront the common enemies of humanity: nuclear weapons and poverty, ignorance and disease.

Who can understand this gibberish spoken by the President of the United States before the General Assembly?

He follows up with his unintelligible philosophy:

To lift the specter of mass destruction, we must come together to pursue the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. Over the last two years, we’ve begun to walk down that path. Since our Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, nearly 50 nations have taken steps to secure nuclear materials from terrorists and smugglers.

Could there be any terrorism greater than the aggressive and bellicose policy of a country whose arsenal of nuclear weapons could destroy life on this planet several times over?

America will continue to work for a ban on the testing of nuclear weapons and the production of fissile material needed to make them”, Obama goes on to promise us. “And so we have begun to move in the right direction. And the United States is committed to meeting our obligations. But even as we meet our obligations, we’ve strengthened the treaties and institutions that help stop the spread of these weapons. […]. The Iranian government cannot demonstrate that its program is peaceful.

Back to the same old refrain! But this time Iran is not alone; it is accompanied by the Democratic Republic of Korea.

North Korea has yet to take concrete steps towards abandoning its weapons and continues belligerent action against the South. There’s a future of greater opportunity for the people of these nations if their governments meet their international obligations. But if they continue down a path that is outside international law, they must be met with greater pressure and isolation. That is what our commitment to peace and security demands.

To be continued tomorrow.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 25, 2011
7:36 p.m.

The post Chávez, Evo and Obama (part I) appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

The president of Venezuela is one of the men who has done the most for the health and education of his people; since these are subjects where the Cuban Revolution has accumulated the most experience, we gladly collaborate to the maximum with this sister country in both areas.

It is by no means a matter of that country lacking doctors; quite the opposite. They had an abundance of doctors, among them there were even first-class professionals, just as in other Latin American countries. It is a social matter. The best medical doctors and the most sophisticated equipment could be placed at the service of private medicine, as it is in all capitalist countries. And often not even that, because in underdeveloped capitalism, like the type that used to exist in Venezuela, the wealthy class had sufficient means to go to the best hospitals in the United States or Europe, something that was and is customary and nobody can deny it.

Even worse, the United States and Europe have been noted for seducing the best specialists from any exploited Third World country to abandon their homeland and to emigrate to the consumer societies. Training doctors for that world in the developed countries implies fabulous sums of money that millions of poor Latin American and Caribbean families would never be able to pay. In Cuba, that used to happen until the Revolution took up the challenge, not just of training doctors capable of serving our own country, but also the other peoples of Latin America, the Caribbean or the world.

Never have we stolen the intelligences of other peoples. On the contrary; in Cuba we have trained tens of thousands of doctors and other top-level professionals, for free, in order to send them back to their own countries.

Thanks to the profound Bolivarian and Marti-inspired revolutions, Venezuela and Cuba are countries where health and education have been extraordinarily developed. Every citizen has the real right to receive general education and professional training at no cost, something that the United States has not been able to ensure for all its inhabitants. The reality is that the government of that country invests billions of dollars every year on its military machine and its war adventures. Furthermore, it is the greatest exporter of weapons and the instruments of death and the greatest market for drugs in the world. Because of this traffic, tens of thousands of Latin American lives are lost every year.

It is such a real and well-known fact that more than 50 years ago, a president having military origins bitterly denounced the decisive power accumulated by the military-industrial complex in that country.

These words would be superfluous if it were not for the intervention of the hateful and repugnant campaign unleashed by the massive Venezuelan oligarchy media, at the service of that empire, using the health problems being experienced by the Bolivarian President. We are united to the President with close and indestructible bonds of friendship that came into being from his first visit to our homeland on December 13th, 1994.

Some were surprised by the coincidence of his visit to Cuba with the necessity of seeking medical care. The Venezuelan President visited out country with the same aim that took him to Brazil and Ecuador. He had no intention of receiving medical care in our homeland.

It is well-known that for a few years now, a team of Cuban health specialists are providing their services to the Venezuelan President who, loyal to his Bolivarian principles, never considered them to be undesirable foreigners, but sons and daughters of the Great Latin American Homeland on behalf of which The Liberator fought, right up to his last living breath.

The first contingent of Cuban doctors left for Venezuela when the Vargas Stadium tragedy occurred, taking thousands of this noble country’s lives. This action of solidarity was nothing new; it made up a tradition well-established in our country from the first years of the Revolution, from the time almost half a century ago when Cuban doctors were sent to recently-independent Algeria. That tradition grew stronger while the Cuban Revolution, in the midst of a cruel blockade, was training internationalist doctors. Countries such as Peru, Somoza’s Nicaragua and other countries in our hemisphere and in the Third World were suffering from tragedies as a result of earthquakes or other causes that required Cuba’s solidarity. So, our country became the nation in the world that had the highest rate of doctors and specialized health personnel, with extremely high levels of experience and professional capabilities.

President Chávez put a great emphasis in relating with our health personnel. This way, a bond of confidence and friendship was born between him and the Cuban doctors who were always very sensitive to the treatment of the Venezuelan leader; and he was able to create thousands of health centres and outfit them with the necessary equipment in order to provide free services for all Venezuelans. There was no other government in the world that did so much, in such a short time, for the health of its people.

A large percentage of Cuban health personnel provided services in Venezuela and many of them also acted as teachers in certain subjects that were being taught to train more than 20,000 young Venezuelans who began to graduate as medical doctors. Many of them began their studies in our country. The internationalist doctors, members of Battalion 51, graduates of the Latin American School of Medicine, have earned solid prestige in carrying out complicated and difficult missions. On these bases my relations in this field with President Hugo Chávez were built.

I should add that in the course of more than twelve years, since February 2, 1999, the president and leader of the Venezuelan Revolution has not rested one single day and thus he occupies a unique place in the history of this hemisphere. All of his energy has been dedicated to the Revolution.

One could say that for every extra hour Chávez dedicates to his work, the president of the United States rests for two hours.

It was difficult, almost impossible, that his health would not suffer some sort of breakdown and this is what happened in the last few months.

He is a person used to the rigors of military life and he would stoically put up with the aches and pains that were plaguing him with ever increasing frequency. Given the friendly relations developed and the constant exchanges between Cuba and Venezuela, added to my personal health experience that I underwent since the proclamation of July 30, 2006, it is not unusual that I should have noticed the need for a strict medical check-up for the President. He is far too generous in granting me any special merit in this matter.

Of course, I admit that it was no easy task that I set for myself. It wasn’t difficult for me to notice that he had some health problems. Seven months had gone by since his last visit to Cuba. The medical team devoted to caring for his health had pleaded for me to take up the matter. From the very first moment, the President’s attitude was one of informing the people, with complete clarity, about the state of his health. That was why, at the point by then of returning, via his minister of Foreign Affairs, he informed the people about his health up to that instant and he promised to keep them informed in detail.

Each treatment was accompanied by rigorous cellular and laboratory analyses, of the kind that are done under such circumstances.

One of the tests, several days following the first surgery, showed results that determined more radical surgery and special treatment for the patient.

In his dignified message on June 30th, the noticeably recovered President speaks about the state of his health with absolute clarity.

I admit that it was no easy task for me to inform my friend about the new development. I could see the dignity with which he received the news that –while his mind was dealing with so many important tasks, among them the celebrations commemorating the Bicentennial and the formalization of the agreement on Latin American and Caribbean unity – much more than the physical suffering that radical surgery would imply, signified a test, as he put it, that he compared to the difficult moments he had to face in his lifetime as an unyielding combatant.

Along with him, the team of persons caring for him and who he described as sublime fought a magnificent battle which I have witnessed.

With no hesitation whatsoever, I state that the results are impressive and that the patient fought a decisive battle that shall lead him and Venezuela along with him, to a great victory.

One has to make sure that his declaration is communicated word for word in every language, but especially it should be translated and subtitled into English [set out below]; this is a language that can be understood on this Tower of Babel into which imperialism has transformed the world.

Now the external and internal enemies of Hugo Chávez are at the mercy of his words and his initiatives. Without a doubt there shall be surprises in store for them. Let us wish him our most steadfast support and trust. The lies of the empire and the treason of the quislings shall be defeated. Today there are millions of militant and aware Venezuelans who shall never be made to submit to the oligarchy and the empire.

Fidel Castro Ruz

July 3, 2011
4:12 p.m.

President Hugo Chavez’s address to the People of Venezuela

30 June 2011

“I put my hope on time. Its huge womb holds more hopes than past events, and future events shall be superior to the past ones.” Simón Bolívar.

Time and its pace; time and its mandates; time and its designs, as noted in Ecclesiastes, makes me read this communiqué over to the Venezuelan nation and international public opinion, for they are waiting to learn about my health progress as several weeks ago it started showing deterioration.

After our superb tour of Brazil and Ecuador, between the fifth and seventh days of last June, we arrived in the always supportive Cuba to complete the tour with the wrap-up and signing of new cooperation agreements. I must admit that, as for my health, I just planned to make me check my left knee, almost recovered from an injury beginning May.

Throughout my life, I have been making one of those mistakes that could perfectly fit in a category that some philosopher called fundamental errors -neglecting my health and being reluctant to get checkups and medical treatments. What a fundamental error indeed! Particularly in a revolutionary with some humble responsibilities such as the ones entrusted to me by the revolution more than 30 years ago.

Notwithstanding, in Havana, on Wednesday evening, June 8, here we were again with Fidel, with such a giant who has gone beyond all times and places. Surely, it was not difficult for Fidel to note some discomfort, in addition to my left knee that I had been trying to conceal for several weeks. He queried me almost like a doctor; I made my confession almost like a patient. On that same night, the whole medical breakthrough achieved by the Cuban revolution for the sake of its people and for most of the world was made available to us and a set of diagnostic tests started.

Hence, a foreign mass in the pelvic area was found, leading to an emergency surgery in the face of the impending risk of widespread infection. That was on Saturday, June 11, very early in the morning, some hours before the address read over to the country and the world, giving rise to many expressions of solidarity, which do not stop moving me every single moment.

After that surgery which initially succeeded in draining the abscess, an intensive antibiotic treatment started with a positive assessment, I mean, positive progression, which brought along notable improvement. Nevertheless, despite the overall favorable progress, throughout the process of drainages and cures, some suspected additional cell masses thus far undetected would arise.

Therefore, another set of special cytochemical, cytological, microbiological and anatomical pathology studies was conducted and confirmed the existence of an abscessed tumor with cancerous cells. This made a second surgery necessary which allowed to fully removing said tumor. It was a major surgery without complications. After that, I have continued evolving satisfactorily, whereas I receive supplementary treatments to fight the various cells found and thus keep on the way of my full recovery.

In the meantime, I have kept and keep informed and in command of the actions of the Bolivarian government, in touch with the Vice-President, comrade Elías Jaua, and all my government staff.

I am immensely grateful for the numerous and enthusiastic expressions of solidarity received from the Venezuelan people and other fellow peoples, as well as from Heads of State and Government of numerous countries around the world, convinced that all that love, all that solidarity, are the most lofty energy which drive and will drive my willingness to vanquish in this new battle that life has put in front of me. And I am especially grateful to the Cuban people, the Cuban nation, Fidel, Raúl, all that medical legion who has been in the front of this battle in a really sublime way.

However, I have been keenly aware of some degree of anguish and uncertainty that has been overwhelming throughout these days, these nights, the soul and body of the Venezuelan nation. I think that beyond the manipulating attempts of some well-known sectors, such feelings were and they are unavoidable and form part of the very human nature, which nature is also surrounded by its circumstances and many times shaken off as in this case.

From the very beginning, I took on every responsibility concerning strict care of the veracity of the information to be delivered, based on a twofold set of reasons –firstly, the medical-scientific reason and secondly, and with utmost, special care from the bottom of my soul and conscience, the human reason, the loving reason, to be more precise. The loving reason.

We have talked somewhat about the first one. It has been a slow and careful process of approaches and diagnoses, advances and discoveries throughout several stages, where a rigorous scientific procedure has been applied, which procedure admits neither haste nor pressure whatsoever. The supreme rule which governs this mighty reason is full scientific verification beyond any indications and suspicions that might emerge.

As regards the loving reason, I feel obliged now to speak to you from deep inside myself. At this moment, I can remember February 4 of that thunderous year 1992. That day, I got no choice but to address myself to Venezuela from my decline, from a road that I felt like leading me to a bottomless abyss. From sort of a dark cavern of my soul, the “for now” emerged; afterwards, I plunged.

Also, those ill-fated hours of April 11, 2002 come to my memory right now. Then, I also sent to my beloved Venezuelan people that message written from the naval base of Turiamo, where I was held prisoner, a toppled president made prisoner. It was like a painful chant from the bottom of another abyss which I felt like swelling me in its throat and sank me, and it sank me.

Again, at this new time of troubles and above all, since the very Fidel Castro, the same one of Moncada Quarter, the same one of the Granma, the same one of Sierra Maestra, the everlasting giant, came to give me the tough news of the cancerous finding, I started begging my Lord Jesus; my parents’ God, as Simón Bolívar would say; the Virgin’s gown, as my mother Elena would say; the savannah spirits, as Florentino Coronado would say, for them to give me the possibility of speaking to you, not from an abyss or a dark cavern or a night without stars. I wanted to speak to you with the sun of the dawn that I feel rising. I think we have achieved it, thank God.

And finally, my beloved fellow countrymen and countrywomen; my beloved daughters and sons; my dear comrades; young people, boys and girls of my people; my dear patriotic women; my people, all and only one in my heart, I tell you that wanting to speak to you today as I prepare once again to return has nothing to do with myself but with you, patriotic people, good people, with you.

I did not want and do not want you at all to join me on any path leading to any abyss whatsoever. I urge you to continue together, climbing up to new summits, “for there are cherries over there, on the hill and a beautiful song to be sung,” as the people’s singer, our dear Alí Primera, keeps on telling us from his eternity.

Let us go, then, with our Father Bolívar, in the vanguard, to continue climbing up to the summit, Chimborazo! Thank God; thank you my people; thank you my life. Until victory always! We will win! Havana, this beloved and heroic Havana, on June 30, 2011.

I tell you from the great homeland, from my heart, from my whole soul, from my supreme hope which is the hope of the people, now and forever. We will live and win. Thank you very much. Until my return.

The post A Brilliant and Courageous Statement appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

The event took place a few days prior to the meeting of the hemisphere’s defense ministers in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where President Evo Morales made his energetic condemnation on November 22.

But that meeting was not about a slanderous media campaign – a regular feature in imperialist politics – but conspiratorial activity that, without any doubt, would lead to inevitable bloodshed in Venezuela.

Given my experience over many years, I do not harbor the slightest doubt as to what would happen in Venezuela if Chávez were to be assassinated. It would not have to be part of a prior plot against the president; a mentally deranged person, a drug addict, or the violence unleashed by drug trafficking in the countries of Latin America would suffice to generate an extremely grave problem in Venezuela. Analyzing such an act from the political point of view, the activities and habits of the reactionary oligarchy that owns powerful media corporations and is encouraged and financed by the United States, it would inevitably lead to bloody clashes in the streets of Venezuela, which are the clear intentions of the Venezuelan opposition, infused with hatred and acts of violence in full view.

Guillermo Zuloaga – the owner of a television channel opposed to the Bolivarian Revolution and a fugitive from Venezuelan justice – is one of the conspirators who took part in the meeting of Congress members called by Connie Mack and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen – the latter of Cuban origin and a Batista affiliate – known to our people as the loba feroz (the big bad wolf) due to her repugnant conduct during the kidnapping of [Cuban] Elián González and her refusal to hand the child over to his father. The Republican Congresswoman is a symbol of hatred of and resentment against Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and the other member countries of ALBA; it is virtually certain that the U.S. Congress will appoint her chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee; she was a defender of the Honduran coup government, repudiated by the majority of the countries of America.

The Bolivarian government of Venezuela was faced with a grave and provocative challenge. It was a really delicate issue. I asked myself what Chávez’ reaction would be. The first energetic response came from Evo Morales in his brilliant and sincere speech made available to our people today. Two days ago, Tuesday the 13th, it was announced that Chávez would address the issue in the National Assembly.

The meeting was called for 5:00pm and it began almost exactly on time. The speeches made there were energetic and to the point. All of the activities lasted barely two hours and a few minutes. The Venezuelans had taken the problem very seriously.

Chávez began by mentioning the names of the many people present and, after joking with the new Kata world champion and about the game between two professional baseball teams, began to develop his subject:

“…I am really, really, really going to be brief. It has been said, tell me, that document read by Deputy Roy, thank you Roy, Roy Daza, for that reading, that document, not only in defense of Venezuela, as has already been said here –Eva [Golinger] said it. No, we are coming out in defense of the human homeland; one could even say, in defense of human possibility.

“I brought some books [...] This was the same copy, it’s already a bit worn, that I lifted up there in the United Nations: Chomsky: Hegemony or Survival: the Imperialist Strategy of the United States – I am still recommending this book, Noam Chomsky. Eva mentioned it and reminded us of this great man of political thought, of creative thought, of philosophy, of the struggle for humanity.

“I have here the continuation of it, Failed States: the Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. Here, right here, Chomsky poses the thesis that the first failed state in this world is the U.S. state, a failed state, a real threat to the entire planet, to the entire world, to the human species.”

“Here, there is one part of the interview, of the conversations, where Chomsky is reflecting on Latin America and on Venezuela, in a very valiant, very objective and generous manner, defending our revolutionary process, defending our people, defending the right that we have and are exercising to make our own way, as all the peoples of the world have, and the yankee empire has not recognized that right and is attempting to disregard it.

“In the very same Federal Capitol – I believe that’s what it’s called – in the very same Washington, a summit of terrorists met, installed itself; a summit, a mob – as the Argentines would say, and we Venezuelans also talk of mobs – a real mob of criminals, swindlers, terrorists, thieves, scroungers, met there and, moreover, they were backed by ‘prestigious’ establishment figures, from the establishment, not only the Republican extreme right currents, but also from the Democratic Party and – as has been said here, Eva said it, Roy said it in the marvelous document he read, a state document, a national document – they openly launched a threat against Venezuela, against the countries and the peoples of the Bolivarian Alliance.

“Our greetings from here to Evo Morales, a valiant compañero, comrade, and to the people of Bolivia.

“Our greetings from here to Rafael Correa, a valiant compañero, comrade, and to the Ecuadorian people.

“Our greetings from here to Daniel Ortega, that comandante president, valiant compañero, comrade, and to the people of Nicaragua.

“Our greetings from here to Fidel Castro, to Raúl Castro and to that valiant Cuban people.

“Our greetings from here to all the peoples of the Caribbean, to Roosevelt Skerrit and to the people of Dominica, valiant leaders; Saint Vincent & the Grenadines; Ralph Goncalves, Spencer, to the peoples of the ALBA, of the Bolivarian Alliance, to their governments, to our governments and, of course, from here, to the indomitable people of Venezuela, our commitment and our call to unity and to continue battling for the future of the homeland, for independence, whose original constitution – as our president, Cilia said – here it is, the original constitution of 200 years ago.

“We are already entering 2011, let us prepare ourselves from all points of view: the spiritual, political, moral, to commemorate the 200 years of that first Congress, of that first constitution, the first in Latin America, of that birth of the First Republic, the birth of the Venezuelan homeland; much more than just July 5, it is going to be all of 2011 and the beginning of the revolutionary war of independence first commanded by Miranda, then Bolívar and the great men and women who gave us the homeland.

“The document read by Roy Daza begins by quoting a phrase of Bolívar’s in a letter to the agent Irving, a U.S. agent who came here to reclaim those ships that Bolívar and his troops seized on the Orinoco because the United States was sending in weapons and supplies.

“It’s nothing new, Eva, everything that you are exposing here about sending millions of dollars, logistical support, it’s nothing new. No. Already back then the U.S. government was sending weapons and military supplies to the Spanish imperialist troops. And that is famous. That fact has been compiled, in part, by that fine Cuban writer Francisco Pividal, in another book that I constantly recommend: Bolívar, pensamiento precursor del antimperialismo. It can be read in one go. And there is a combination of extraordinary quotes here. You already pointed to one.

“But in parts of these letters from Bolívar to Irving – I think it was the last one that he sent to him – when Irving was already beginning to threaten him with the use of force, Bolívar says: I am not going to fall into provocation, not even in language. I merely wish to say to you, Mr. Irving’ – it’s written here, I’m going to paraphrase it, because it is the idea, it is the dignity of our father, Bolívar, that is being imposed, what is of importance in this hall full of magic, full of symbols, full of homeland, full of dreams, full of hope, full of dignity – Bolívar says to him: ‘You should know, Mr. Irving, that more than half or half’ – it was 1819, almost one decade of war to the death had passed – ‘or almost half of Venezuelan men and Venezuelan women have died in the struggle against the Spanish empire, and the other half of us left here are anxious to follow that same road even if Venezuela should have to confront the entire world for its independence, for its dignity.’

“That was, that is Bolívar, and here we are, his sons, his daughters, María, disposed to the very same thing. The world should know that, we are disposed to the very same thing. If the yankee empire, with all its power, which we’re not taking lightly, no, we have to take it seriously – as Eva well recommended to us – decides to attack, continue attacking and openly attacking Venezuela in order to try and halt this revolution, here we are prepared, understand that, mister empire and its personifications, that here we are disposed to the very same thing: for everyone to die for this homeland and its dignity!

“It should be asked, that summit of terrorists which met in Washington, some Venezuelans, Bolivians, genocidal people – as one good journalists asked in an interview yesterday – it would be good to know what passport these criminals are using, where they entered, if some of then are on INTERPOL’s code red. They arrived sweet and easy and they arrived and were walking about the streets of Washington, being wined and dined. For that reason, Noam Chomsky is right. I repeat with Noam Chomsky: the U.S. state is a failed state that is acting beyond international laws, that respects absolutely nothing and, moreover, feels that it has the right to do so, that it doesn’t have to respond to anybody. It is a threat not only to Venezuela and to the peoples of the world, but to its own people, a people that are under constant attack from that anti-democratic state.

“Look, here is just a summary. Wikileaks, you know it, right?

“What is this lady representative, fascist, going to say, the one who calls us, Evo, Correa and me, bandits? She’s the bandit, she is a bandit and a Venezuelan court could well apply for the extradition of that bandit for committing crimes and conspiring, and many other charges, against the sovereignty of our country. She is a bandit. All that remains is to point the finger at her before the world, and the other bandits.

“What would those bandits say about this, for example?

“I read:

“’What will the U.S. Parliament have to say about these reports, about these documents that were secret and which have now been published on this Wikileaks page? What does Wikileaks mean? like Chávez Candanga.

“’On March 15, 2010, Wiki Candanga made public a Department of Defense report dealing with various leaks made by this website in relation to U.S. interests and proposed a number of ways to minimize it: a video of the murder of journalists.’ I have here some of the documents, they are public. It remains to be seen if some authority in the United States takes an initiative in the face of these crimes, or these alleged crimes, right? I’m no judge to determine that, alleged serious crimes committed by citizens of its country, civilian, military, by its government.

“I read: ‘On April 5, 2010, Wikileaks published a video in which U.S. soldiers can be seen murdering the Reuters reporter, Namir Noor-Eldeen, his assistant and nine other people. It can clearly be seen that none of those present were showing any signs of attacking the Apache helicopter from which they were being fired on. Although the Reuters agency has asked for the video on numerous occasions, that was denied to them until Wikileaks obtained this unpublished video which put the military apparatus of the United States in checkmate.’

“Well, put in checkmate is a saying, right? At least morally.

“Once again, what would the United Nations say? What would happen if that should take place in some of the ALBA countries? What would happen? What would the OAS say, what would the United Nations Security Council, the Human Rights Council? What would the infamous International Court of Human Rights say? So that we can see the double standard by which human rights are measured here, respect for life, terrorism and all those phenomena.

“Daily logs of the war in Afghanistan, July 25, 2010, were also published. Documentation of the war in Iraq. Listen to this sentence: On October 22, 2010 – just a few days ago – Wikileaks published on its web page a compendium entitled Iraq War Logs, containing 391,831 documents leaked from the Pentagon, about the war in Iraq and its occupation from January of 2004 to December 31, 2009, which reveals, among other issues, the systematic use of torture; the figure of 109,032 dead in Iraq, 61,081 of which were civilian, 63%; 23,984 ‘enemy’ labeled as insurgents, 15,196 ‘host country’ Iraqi government forces. What a way to visit a country! And 3,771 ‘friends’ dead, coalition forces. The documents reveal that, over the course of six years, on average, 31 civilians died everyday.

“Who is investigating this? Who is accountable for this? No, it’s the empire, the failed U.S. state. I read this phrase: ‘These documents which are organized chronologically and by categories describe lethal military actions involving the United States military. They include the number of persons internally stated to be killed, wounded, or detained during each action, together with the precise geographical location of each event, and the military units involved and major weapon systems used.’ Enough details for an investigation.

“What will the U.S. Congress say about this? There’s our ambassador to Washington. Are you still the ambassador there? Yes, you are the ambassador. As far as we know, they’ve said nothing, right?

“It says here, ‘most entries have been written by soldiers and intelligence officers listening to reports radioed in from front line deployments.

“’Civilian victims of the coalition forces. At the same time – it says here – ‘large numbers of attacks and deaths have come to light caused by troops firing on unarmed drivers, based on the fear that they might be suicide bombers.

“’A detailed report of how a child was murdered and another wounded when troops fired on the car in which they were traveling. As compensation for the attack, the family was paid 100,000 afganis, for a dead child, 1,600 euros.’ Capitalism pays, 20,000 afganis, 335 euros for the wounded child, 10,000 afganis, 167 euros for the vehicle. And, in the reports, all of these are called ‘small tragedies,’ ‘small tragedies.’ This is the great threat, the greatest threat facing the planet today.

“The yankee empire, no doubt, has entered a period of political and economic decline, and above all ethical decline, but who can deny its great military power, which, combined with other factors, turns this, the most powerful empire in the world’s history into a much greater threat to our peoples. What can we do? It has been said as well: unity, unity and more unity.

“As of January, is the U.S. Congress going to be extremely right wing? Well, the Venezuelan Parliament, as of January 5, will have to be extremely left wing.

“And I call upon the deputies elected by the people, by the popular movements, the social movements, the revolutionary parties; you have a big commitment, as of January 5.

“It is truly unheard of, and Eva will remind us. How is it that we continue to allow this? Having this Constitution, which cost so much, how many years of struggle, how much sweat, how much blood, how much effort, here it is clearly established – it was there in the first Constitution as well – we are a sovereign nation – at the risk of them once again calling us the foolish nation or the foolish revolution – or if we want to use more popular language, la revolución pendeja? How are going to allow political parties, NGO’s, counterrevolutionary individuals to go on being financed with millions and millions of dollars by the yankee empire? And they’re walking around over there, completely free to abuse and violate our Constitution and attempt to destabilize the country. I am imploring you to create a very severe law to prevent this. That has to be the way in which we must respond to the empire’s aggression, the empire’s threats, radicalizing our positions, not weakening absolutely anything, adjusting positions, establishing our point of view, consolidating revolutionary unity. Not just a parliament, much more to the left, much more radically to the left, we need a much more radically left government, an armed force – General Rangel, Chief General, we are promoting him on Saturday, November 27, Air Force Day – much more radically revolutionary, with the people.

“There is no place in our civilian ranks, in our military ranks, for vacillation. No, one line, radicalize the revolution! And this crude, treacherous bourgeoisie needs to feel it. This Venezuelan bourgeoisie, with no shame, no homeland, needs to feel it, needs to know that it is not acceptable for one of their most well-known representatives to go to the very Congress of the empire to attack Venezuela and continue to operate a television station here. Imagine something like that, something like that! The Venezuelan bourgeoisie needs to know that this aggression against the people is going to cost it dearly and not be parading around up there.

“I remember – José Vicente Rangel, and Maduro, and compañero are here, thank you for joining us – when, during the Betancourt government, deputies of left parties were arrested, without trial, no charges filed, with no proof whatsoever, they were taken to prison, denied parliamentary immunity.

“Within a few weeks, a group of deputies from the extreme right will enter this hall. Well, they will only need to be reminded that there is a Constitution. Just as the Communist Party, and many others, were banned here, in his time and they disregarded the parliamentary immunity of many deputies, with no proof, others left for the mountains, like the great Fabricio Ojeda, who renounced his seat and went to the mountains to shed his blood for the revolution and for the people. I cannot imagine that this dignified Parliament would allow, with the popular forces having the majority representation, the extreme right wing to come in here and try to subvert constitutional order. I assume, I am sure, that the state will activate all necessary mechanisms in defense of the Constitution and of the law, in the face of the acts of aggression which are to be expected.

“Finally, the threat… What did they call it in the terrorist’ event? ‘Threat in the Andes?’ Right, Nicolas? Danger in the Andes, sounds like the title of a movie. Danger in the Andes; there should be a warning of danger in the world, an alert rather, the danger is worldwide.

“Right now, there is a situation, at this very moment, there on the Korean peninsula. When I left to come here, the news was still confusing, how confusing, the sinking of that South Korean ship, the Cheonan; but later evidence emerged that the ship was sunk by the United States. Now, on that small island, on that peninsula divided by the yankee empire, invaded, ravaged for years, there is a tense situation, some bombs, some dead, some wounded.

“Fidel Castro has been warning for some months of the grave dangers of a nuclear war. Just a while back, I was there, once again, and he explained to me, developing his thoughts – we know it very well already, of course – there’s nothing better than dialogue – and he said to me: ‘Chávez, any stray shot there in that region, full of weapons of mass destruction, atomic weapons, could escalate into a war, which would be at first, conventional…;‘ but he’s convinced that it would escalate straight away into a nuclear war, which could mean the end of the human species. So, it’s not the danger in the Andes, Washington’s lackeys, the danger is worldwide.

“Here in Venezuela, as Eva said, a light was lit, and in Latin America, another was lit and one more and others were lit. We can say today – not Venezuela, no – Latin America is the continent of hope and the yankee empire cannot shut the doors of hope.

“To us, Venezuelan men and women, it has always fallen to us, for some reason, or reasons of different kinds, to be the vanguard in these struggles, over centuries.

“I see over there Miranda’s portrait, Bolivar’s and over there Martín Tovar y Tovar, Carabobo, and Roy has read all of that and stated passionately: ‘It runs here, in our genes, in our blood.’ He was paraphrasing Mao, the great helmsman.

“That empire, that failed state which is the United States, despite its immense power, despite its threats, is going to end up a giant paper tiger and we are obliged to become real steel tigers, little steel tigers, invincible, indomitable.

“Madam President, I promised to be brief and I said it at the beginning and I repeat: I believe that everything that needed to be said here was said by Eva Golinger, brave woman and this brave gentleman deputy Roy Daza, and compiled in this document which I understand is to be circulated throughout the four corners of Venezuela and beyond, throughout Latin America.

“I thank you for your invitation to this event, I appreciate the gesture and, just as one more, I join this gigantic battalion, to put it that way, in the defense of Venezuela, in defense of our Venezuela homeland.

“Looking at the picture, the monumental work by Tovar y Tovar is more than a picture; one sees the infantry there, the cavalry there. Let us be inspired: Infantry, ready the bayonets, at the double! Calvary, charge! in defense of the Bolivarian homeland, of the Bolivarian Alliance of our Peoples!

“Down with the yankee empire!” he exclaimed finally, with vivas for ALBA, the homeland and the Revolution.

There is not the slightest doubt that Chávez, a military professional but much more inclined to persuasion than force, will not vacillate in preventing the pro-imperialist and anti-patriotic right from provoking deceived Venezuelans against the public forces in order to make blood flow in the streets of Venezuela.

In Bolivia and in Venezuela, the imperialist mafia has received a clear and energetic response, one that possibly, it was not expecting.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 25, 2010
6:34 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

The post Hugo Chávez' speech appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

Today I would add that, even when in those same elections the whole of the House of Representatives, part of the Senate and other significant posts are voted on, they do not manage to exceed that figure.

I asked why they employ their vast media resources to try and sink the Revolutionary Bolivarian government in a sea of lies and calumnies. What the yankis want is Venezuela’s oil.

We have all seen during this election period, a group of ignoble individuals who, in the company of mercenaries from the national written press, radio and television, have even denied the fact that there is press freedom in Venezuela.

The enemy has succeeded with some of its aims: preventing the Bolivarian government from winning the support of two thirds of the Parliament.
Perhaps the empire believes that it obtained a great victory.

I believe exactly the opposite: the results of September 26 represent a victory for the Bolivarian Revolution and its leader Hugo Chávez Frías.
In these parliamentary elections, the participation of the electors rose to the record figure of 66.45%. With its vast resources, the empire could not prevent the PSUV from obtaining 95 of the 165 seats in parliaments, with six results still to come in. The most important thing is the high number of young people, women and other combative and proven activists who have entered this institution.

The Bolivarian Revolution today holds executive power, has a majority in Parliament and a party capable of mobilizing millions of people who will fight for socialism.

In Venezuela, the United States can only rely on fragments of parties, cobbled together through their fear of the Revolution and gross material cravings.
They will not be able to resort to a coup d’état in Venezuela as they did with Allende in Chile and other countries in Our America.

The Armed Forces of that sister nation, educated in the spirit and example of the Liberator and which, in its heart, nurtured the leaders who began the process are the promoters of and part of the Revolution.

Such a group of forces is invincible. I would not be able to see that with such clarity without the experience I have accumulated over half a century.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 27, 2010
3:24 a.m.

The post What They Want is Venezuela’s Oil appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.