The Cartagena Summit was not a meeting of a trade union of misinformed presidents, but a meeting among official representatives of 33 countries of this hemisphere. The overwhelming majority of them are asking for solutions to the most pressing economic and social problems that affect the region with the most unequal distribution of wealth in the world.

I do not wish to get ahead of the opinions of millions of persons, capable of making and in-depth and objective analysis of the problems affecting Latin America, the Caribbean and the rest of a globalized world, where a few have it all and the rest have nothing. The system imposed by imperialism in this hemisphere, whatever its name, is worn out and unsustainable.

In the near future, humanity will have to cope, among others, with the problems associated with climate change, security and the production of food for the ever-growing world population.

Excessive rainfall is affecting both Colombia and Venezuela. A recent analysis revealed that on March this year, high temperatures in the US were 4.8 Centigrade degrees hotter than the all-time average. The consequences of those changes, which are well known in the capitals of the main European countries, give rise to catastrophic problems for humanity.

Peoples expect political leaders to provide clear answers to these problems.

Colombians, whose country hosted the disreputable Summit, are a hardworking and self-sacrificing people who need, as much as all others, the cooperation of their Latin American brothers and sisters who are, in this case, the Venezuelans, Brazilians, Ecuadorians, Peruvians and others capable of doing what the Yankees, with their sophisticated weapons, their expansionism and their insatiable craving for material goods will never do. The visionary formula stated by José Martí is now more necessary than ever in history: “The trees must form ranks to keep the giant with seven-league boots from passing! It is the time of mobilization, of marching together, and we must go forward in close ranks, like silver in the veins of the Andes.”

Far off from the brilliant and lucid ideas of Bolivar and Marti are the mulled over, sweetened and relentlessly reiterated words of the illustrious Nobel laureate, expressed during a ridiculous tour around the Colombian countryside, which I heard yesterday in the afternoon. They only served to remind us of the Alliance for Progress’ speeches delivered 51 years ago, when the monstrous crimes that lashed this hemisphere had not been committed as yet, where our country struggled not only for its right to independence but also for its right to exist as a nation.

Obama spoke about the distribution of land. He did not specify how much land would be distributed, when and how.

The Yankee transnationals will never give up their control over the land, the water, the mines and the natural resources of our countries. Their soldiers should vacate the military bases; their troops should be withdrawn from each and every one of our territories. They should renounce to the unequal exchange and plundering of our nations.

Perhaps the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States shall turn into what should be a hemispheric political organization without the presence of the United States and Canada. Their decadent and unsustainable empire has already earned the right to rest in peace.

I think that the images about the Summit should be well preserved as an example of a disaster.

I leave aside the scandal caused by the misconduct attributed to the members of the Secret Service responsible for guaranteeing Obama’s personal security. I am under the impression that the staff entrusted with that task is characterized by its professionalism. This is what I saw during my visit to the United Nations, while they were protecting the Heads of States. They have, no doubt, protected him from those who would not have hesitated to perpetrate an action against him out of racial prejudice.

May Obama be able to sleep with eyes shut, if only for a few hours, without having anyone saddling him with the job of delivering a speech about the immortality of the crab at an unreal Summit.

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 16, 2012
7:40 p.m.

During the second half of the twentieth century, I had the privilege of living through years of intensive erudition and I realized that Canadians, located in the northernmost region of this hemisphere, were always respectful towards our country. They invested in areas of their interest and traded with Cuba, but they did not interfere in the internal affairs of our State.

The revolutionary process that began on January 1st, 1959, did not introduce any measure that affected their interests, which were taken into account by the Revolution in maintaining normal and constructive relations with the authorities of that country where a significant effort was being made in the interest of its own development. Thus, they were not accomplices of the economic blockade, the war and the mercenary invasion that the United States launched against Cuba.

In May of 1948, the year that witnessed the foundation of the OAS, an institution with a shameful history which did away with what little was left from the dreams of the Liberators of the Americas, Canada did not belong to it. It kept that same status for more than 40 years, until 1990. Some of its leaders visited us. One of them was Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a brilliant and courageous politician  who died prematurely. We attended his burial on behalf of Cuba.

The OAS is supposed to be a regional organization made up by the sovereign States of this hemisphere. Such an assertion, like many others which are made everyday, involves a great number of lies. The least we can do is to be aware of them, if we are to preserve the spirit of struggle and our confidence on a more decent world.

The OAS is supposed to be a pan-American organization. Any country in Europe, Africa, Asia or Oceania could not belong to the OAS just because it has a colony, as it is the case of France in Guadeloupe; or the Netherlands in Curaçao. But the British colonialism could not define the status of Canada and explain whether it was a colony, a republic or a kingdom.

The Head of State of Canada is Queen Elizabeth II, although she vests her powers upon a Governor-General appointed by her. Therefore, we could ask whether the United Kingdom is also part of the OAS.

Likewise, the Honorable Foreign Minister of Canada does not dare to say whether or not he supports Argentina in the thorny issue of the Malvinas Islands. He has only expressed beatific wishes for peace to prevail between the two countries. But Great Britain has there its biggest military base outside its territory in violation of Argentina´s sovereignty. It did not apologize for having sunk the ‘General Belgrano’ cruiser which was sailing outside the jurisdictional waters that they themselves established which led to the futile sacrifice of hundreds of youths who were doing their military service. We should ask Obama and Harper what stand they will take in the face of the fairest claim by Argentina to be given back the sovereignty over the islands so that it is no longer deprived of the energy and fishing resources it so much needs to develop the country.

I was really amazed after I made a much deeper analysis of the activities carried out by Canadian transnationals in Latin America. I knew about the damage caused by the Yankees to the people of Canada. They forced the country to look for oil by extracting it from huge extensions of sand that are impregnated with that fluid, thus causing an irreparable damage to the environment of that beautiful and extensive country.

The incredible damage was the one caused to millions of persons by the Canadian companies specialized in the mining of gold, precious metals and radioactive materials.

An article published by the website Alainet a week ago, signed by an Engineer on Environmental Quality, which provides further details about an issue that has been identified innumerable times as one of the main scourges that affect millions of persons, stated that mining companies, 60 per cent of which are financed with Canadian capital, worked following the logic of maximum yield at a low cost and in a short time; and that these conditions turn out to be all the more advantageous if in the places where they are stationed, tax revenues are minimal and there are very few environmental and social commitments…

According to the article, the mining laws in our countries [...] do not include any obligation or methodology to control environmental or social impacts; the tax revenues that mining companies pay to the countries of the region are, as an average, no more than 1.5 per cent of the revenues received.

The article adds that the social struggle against mining, particularly metal mining, has been growing as long as entire generations are becoming aware of the environmental and social impacts it causes.

It states that Guatemala has put up an admirable resistance against mining projects, thanks to the indigenous populations’ awareness of the value of their territories and their natural resources, which they consider a priceless ancestral heritage. However, in the last 10 years, the consequences of that struggle have been felt in the assassination of 120 human rights’ activists and advocators.

This article also describes the current situation in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, with figures that make us meditate very deeply about the seriousness and harshness of the ruthless pillaging that is being carried out against the natural resources of our countries, thus mortgaging the future of Latin Americans.

The presence of Dilma Rousseff, who made a stopover in Washington while traveling back to her country, will serve to persuade Obama that although there are some who take great delight in making slushy speeches, Latin America is far from being a choir of countries begging for alms.

The guayabera shirts to be worn by Obama in Cartagena has become one of the main issues covered by the news agencies: “Edgar Gomez [...] has designed one for the U.S. President, Barack Obama, who will be wearing it during the Summit of the Americas,” said the daughter of the designer, who added: “It is a white, sober guayabera, with a handiwork that is more striking that usual…”

Immediately after that, the news agency added that the Caribbean shirt was first made by the banks of the Yayabo River in Cuba; that is why they were originally called yayaberas.

The curious thing about this, dear readers, is that Cuba has been forbidden to attend that meeting, but not the guayaberas. Who could hold back from laughing? We must hurry up and tell Harper.

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 8, 2012
8:24 p.m.

With more than 25,000 combat missions, NATO air forces backed up the monstrous crime.

They stated that the Libyan government had funds abroad exceeding 200 billion dollars. At this time, nobody knows where the money is nor what has been done with it.

A fraudulent electoral process ensured the overthrowing of the presidency of the most powerful country on the side of George W. Bush, an alcoholic without medical treatment nor the most basic ethical principles, who ordered West Point graduates to be ready to attack without warning 60 or more dark corners of the world.

Such a deranged person, with the use of a small black briefcase, could decide on the use of thousands of nuclear weapons; with a minimal percentage of these, he could put an end to human life on the planet.

It is sad to remember that on the opposite side of the Yankee super-power, another deranged person, with three bottles of vodka in his stomach, declared the disintegration of the USSR and the dismantling of more than 400 nuclear bases in whose range were all the military bases threatening that country.

Those events did not constitute any surprise. Throughout many years of struggle, experience garnered, contact with events, ideas and historical processes did not come as a surprise.

Today the Russian leaders are trying to rebuild this powerful State which had been created with so much effort and sacrifice.

When Pope John Paul II visited our country in 1998, more than once before his arrival I talked about several subjects with one or another of his envoys. I especially remember the occasion when we sat down to dinner in a small room in the Palace of the Revolution with Joaquín Navarro Valls, Papal spokesman, sitting in front of me. To the right was a pleasant and intelligent priest who had come with the spokesman and assisted Pope John Paul II at the Masses.

Curious about the details, I asked Navarro Valls whether he thought that the immense sky with its millions of stars had been made to please the inhabitants of the earth whenever we deigned to look upwards on any given night. “Absolutely” ―he replied. “It is the only inhabited planet in the universe”.

I then turned to the priest and said: what do you think of that, Father? He replied: “In my opinion, there is a 99.9 percent possibility of intelligent life existing on some other planet”. The answer did not violate any religious principle. Mentally I multiplied the figure, who knows how many times. It was the kind of answer that I deemed to be correct and serious.
Afterwards, that noble priest was always friendly with our country. Sharing a friendship does not mean you have to share beliefs.

Today, on Thursday, as it happens with increasing frequency, a European entity with well-known proficiency in the subject, textually states:

Simply reading these news items shows the possibility and the necessity we have of enriching our knowledge which today is fragmented and scattered.

Perhaps it takes us to more critical positions on the superficiality with which we deal with cultural and material problems. I have not the slightest doubt that our world is changing much more quickly than we are capable of imagining.

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 29, 2012
8:15 p.m.

Those of us who have lived a few more years and are avidly interested in information can testify to the extent of ignorance with which we confront events.

While a growing number of people on the planet lack shelter, bread, water, health, education and employment, the Earth’s wealth is being misspent and wasted on weapons and interminable fratricidal wars, an abominable, ever-expanding global practice – increasingly highly developed.

Our glorious, heroic people, despite the inhumane blockade which has lasted more than half a century, have never lowered their banners; they have struggled and will struggle against the sinister empire. This is to our credit and our modest contribution.

On the other side of our planet, where Seoul, the capital of South Korea, in located, President Barack Obama is attending a Summit addressing nuclear security, to impose policies related to the regulation and use of nuclear weapons.

What is being done there is clearly unfathomable.

Personally, I did not become aware of these realities simply by accident. The experiences I lived through during the 15 years after the triumph of the Revolution – the battle of Girón, the criminal yankee blockade to defeat us through hunger, pirate attacks, the dirty attacks and the nuclear missile crisis of October, 1962 – putting the world on the edge of catastrophic disaster – which led me to the conclusion that Marxists and genuine Christians, many of whom I had known, regardless of their political and religious beliefs, should, and could, struggle for justice and peace among human beings.

This is what I have said, and what I maintain, with no vacillation whatsoever. The reasons I can cite today are absolutely valid and even more important, since all of the events which have taken place over the last 40 years confirm them, today with more justification than ever, since – among Marxists and Christians, Catholic or not; Muslims, Shiite or Sunni; free thinkers, dialectical materialists and thinking people – no one would be in favor of witnessing the premature disappearance of our irreplaceable species, waiting for the complex laws of evolution to produce another one which would resemble ours and be capable of thinking.

With great pleasure I will tomorrow, Wednesday, greet His Excellency Pope Benedict XVI, as I greeted John Paul II, a man who invariably engendered feelings of affection when he came in contact with children and humble citizens among the people.

I therefore decided to request a few minutes within his busy schedule when I heard from our Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez that he would appreciate this simple, modest contact.

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 27, 2012
8:35 p.m.

Within the glorious legions of patriots who, during the second half of the 19th century, fought against the abhorrent colonial status imposed by Spain over 300 years, José Martí was the man who most clearly perceived such a dramatic destiny. He confirmed it in the last lines that he wrote, the night before the anticipated difficult combat against a battle-hardened and well equipped Spanish column, when he declared that the fundamental objective of his struggle was, “…to prevent the United States from spreading through the Antilles as Cuba gains its independence, and from overpowering with that additional strength our lands of America. Everything that I have done up until now, and everything that I will do, is to this end.”

Without understanding this profound truth one cannot today be either a patriot or a revolutionary.

Without any doubt, the mass media, the monopoly of many technical resources and the substantial funds directed at dehumanizing the masses constitute considerable but not invincible obstacles.

Cuba demonstrated – starting from its position as a colonial yankee trading post, together with the illiteracy and generalized poverty of its people – that it was possible to confront the country which was threatening the definitive absorption of the Cuban nation. Nobody can even affirm that there was a national bourgeoisie opposed to the empire; the bourgeoisie developed in such close proximity to it that, shortly after the triumph, it sent 14,000 totally unprotected children to the United States, although that act was associated with the perfidious lie that parental custody was to be suppressed. This is what history recorded as Operation Peter Pan, described as the largest maneuver of child manipulation for political ends recalled in the Western Hemisphere.

National territory was invaded, barely two years after the revolutionary triumph, by mercenary forces – comprising former Batista soldiers and the sons of landowners and the bourgeoisie – armed and escorted by the United States with warships from its naval fleet, including aircraft carriers with equipment ready to enter into action, and which accompanied the invaders to our island. The defeat and capture of virtually all the mercenaries in less than 72 hours and the destruction of their aircraft operating from bases in Nicaragua and their naval transportation, constituted a humiliating defeat for the empire and its Latin America allies, which had underestimated the Cuban people’s fighting capacity.

In the face of the termination of oil supplies on the part of the United States, the subsequent total suspension of the historic sugar quota in that country’s market, and the prohibition of trade established over more than 100 years, the USSR responded to each one of these measures by supplying fuel, buying our sugar, trading with our country and finally, supplying the weapons that Cuba could not acquire in other markets.

The idea of a systematic campaign of CIA-organized pirate attacks, sabotage and military actions by armed bands created and supplied by the United States before and after the mercenary attack, and which would culminate in a military invasion of Cuba by this country, gave rise to events which placed the world on the brink of a total nuclear war, which neither of the parties involved nor humanity itself could have survived.

Without any doubt, those events resulted in the removal from the presidency of Nikita Khrushchev, who underestimated his adversary, disregarded opinions presented to him and did not consult with those of us in the front line concerning his final decision. What could have been an important moral victory thus turned into a costly political setback for the USSR. For many years the worst of crimes against Cuba continued and more than a few of them, like the U.S. criminal blockade, are still being committed.

Khrushchev made exceptional gestures to our country. On that occasion, I unhesitatingly criticized the non-consulted agreement with the United States, but it would be ungrateful and unjust not to acknowledge his exceptional solidarity at difficult and decisive moments for our people in their historic battle for independence and revolution in the face of the powerful empire of the United States. I understand that the situation was extremely tense and he did not wish to lose any time when he made the decision to withdraw the missiles and the yankees, very secretly, agreed to give up the invasion.

Despite the decades gone by, already half a century, the Cuban fruit has not fallen into yankee hands.

News reports currently coming in from Spain, France, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, the United Kingdom, the Malvinas and countless other points on the planet are serious, and all of them augur a political and economic disaster as a result of the stupidity of the United States and its allies.

I will confine myself to a few subjects. I must note that, going by what everyone is saying, that the selection of a Republican candidate to aspire to the presidency of this globalized and far-reaching empire is, in its turn – I am serious – the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that I have ever heard. As I have things to do, I cannot devote any time to the subject. I already knew it would be like that.

Some news agency cables better illustrate what I wish to analyze, because they demonstrate the incredible cynicism generated by the decadence of the West. One of them, with amazing tranquility, talks of a Cuban political prisoner who, it states, died after a hunger strike lasting 50 days. A journalist with Granma, Juventud Rebelde, radio news or any other revolutionary organ might be mistaken in any interpretation of any subject, but would never fabricate an item of news or invent a lie.

A Granma informative note affirms that there was no hunger strike; the man was an ordinary prisoner sentenced to four years for attacking and injuring his wife in the face; that his own mother in law asked authorities to intervene; family members were kept fully abreast of all procedures used in his medical treatment and were grateful for the effort made by medical specialists who treated him. He received medical attention, as the note states, in the best hospital in the eastern region, as is the case with all citizens. He died from secondary multi-organic failure related to a severe respiratory infection.

The patient had received all the medical attention administered in a country which has one of the finest medical services in the world, provided free of charge in spite of the blockade imposed on our homeland by imperialism. It is simply a duty that is fulfilled in a country where the Revolution is proud of always having respected, for more than 50 years, the principles which give it its invincible strength.

It would be more worthwhile for the Spanish government, given its excellent relations with Washington, to travel to the United States and inform itself as to what is taking place in yankee jails, the ruthless conduct meted out to millions of prisoners, the policy of the electric chair and the horrors perpetrated on detainees in the country’s jails and those who are protesting in its streets.

Yesterday, January 23, a strong Granma editorial titled “Cuba’s truths,” which occupied an entire page of the newspaper, explained in detail the unprecedented shame of the campaign of lies unleashed against our Revolution by certain governments “traditionally committed to anti-Cuba subversion.”

Our people are well aware of the norms which have governed the impeccable conduct of our Revolution since the first battle and which has never been stained over more than half a century. They also know that it can never be pressured or coerced by enemies. Our laws and norms will be respected unfailingly.

It is worth noting this with clarity and frankness. The Spanish government and the shaky European Union, plunged into a profound economic crisis, must know what should guide them. It is pitiful to read news agency reports of the statements of both utilizing their barefaced lies to attack Cuba. First concern yourselves with saving the euro if you can, resolve the chronic unemployment from which young people are increasingly suffering, and respond to the indignados, constantly attacked and beaten by the police.

We are not ignorant of the fact that Spain is now being governed by admirers of Franco, who dispatched members of the Blue Division, together with the Nazi SS and SA, to kill Soviets. Close to 50,000 of them participated in the cruel aggression. In the most cruel and painful operation of that war: the siege of Leningrad, where one million Russian citizens died, the Blue Division was among the forces attempting to strangle the heroic city. The Russian people will never pardon that horrific crime.

The fascist right of Aznar, Rajoy and other servants of the empire, must know something about the 16,000 casualties of their predecessors in the Blue Division and the Iron Crosses which Hitler awarded to officers and soldiers from that division. There is nothing unusual about what the Gestapo police are doing now to the men and women demanding the right to work and bread in the country with the highest unemployment in Europe.

Why are the mass media of the empire lying so barefacedly?

Those who manipulate the media are striving to deceive and dehumanize the world with their crude lies, possibly thinking that it constitutes the principal resource for maintaining the global system of domination and plunder imposed, particularly upon victims in close proximity to the headquarters of the metropolis, the close to 600 million Latin American and Caribbean people living in this hemisphere.

The sister republic of Venezuela has become the fundamental objective of this policy. The reason is obvious. Without Venezuela, the empire would have imposed its Free Trade Treaty on all the peoples of the continent who inhabit it from the south of the United States, a region where the greatest reserves of land, fresh water and minerals of the planet are to be found, as well as large energy resources which, administered in a spirit of solidarity toward other peoples of the world, constitute resources which cannot and must not fall into the hands of transnationals imposing a suicidal and infamous system on them.

For example, it is enough to look at the map to comprehend the criminal dispossession signified by stripping Argentina of a little piece of its territory in the extreme south of the continent. There, the British deployed their decadent military apparatus to murder rookie Argentine recruits wearing summer clothing in the middle of winter. The United States, and its ally Augusto Pinochet, shamelessly supported them. Now, just before the London Olympics, its Prime Minister David Cameron is also proclaiming, as did Margaret Thatcher, his right to use nuclear submarines to kill Argentines. The government of this country is unaware of the fact that the world is changing, and the scorn of our hemisphere and that of the majority of the peoples for the oppressors is increasing every day.

The case of the Malvinas is not the only one. Does anyone know how the conflict in Afghanistan is going to end? Just a few days ago U.S. soldiers desecrated the corpses of Afghani combatants, killed by NATO drone bombings.

Three days ago a European agency reported, “Afghani President Hamid Karzai has given his backing to a negotiated peace with the Taliban, emphasizing that this issue must be resolved by the citizens of his country.” It went on to add, “…the process of peace and reconciliation belongs to the Afghani nation and no country or foreign organization can take away this right from the Afghanis.

For its part, a cable published by our press communicated from Paris, “France today suspended all its training and aid operations in Afghanistan and threatened to expedite the withdrawal of its troops, after an Afghani soldier shot four French soldiers in the Taghab valley, in Kapisa province… Sarkozy instructed Defense Minister Gérard Longuet to travel immediately to Kabul, and indicated the possibility of an early withdrawal of the contingent.”

After the disappearance of the USSR and the socialist bloc, the U.S. government imagined that Cuba would be unable to sustain itself. George W. Bush had already prepared a counterrevolutionary government to govern our country. On the very same day that Bush initiated his criminal war on Iraq, I asked our country’s authorities to end the tolerance afforded the counterrevolutionary capos who, in those days, were hysterically demanding the invasion of Cuba. In real terms, their attitude constituted an act of treason against the homeland.

Bush and his stupidities prevailed for eight years and the Cuban Revolution has already lasted for more than half a century. The ripe fruit has not fallen into the empire’s lap. Cuba will not be one more possession with which the empire spreads through the lands of America. Martí’s blood will not have been spilled in vain.

Tomorrow I will publish another Reflection to complement this one.

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 24, 2012
7:12 p.m.

Bent Weber, lead author of a study published in Science magazine at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia explained that “Interconnecting wiring of this scale will be vital for the development of future atomic-scale electronic circuits”.

“The wires were made by precisely placing chains of phosphorus atoms within a silicon crystal, according to the study, which includes researchers from the University of Melbourne and Purdue University in the US.”

The discovery is essential in the international race to develop the first ‘quantum computer’, super-fast machines capable of processing enormous amounts of information in just a few seconds: a series of calculations that would take years, or even decades, for today’s computers.

“In a traditional copper cable, the electricity is generated when the copper electrons flow along a conductor: but as the cable or conductor becomes smaller, resistance to the electrical flow becomes greater.”

In order to solve this problem, Weber and his team used specially designed microscopes with atomic precision that allowed them to place the phosphorus atoms into the silicone crystals.

“This allowed the nanocable to act as the copper, with the electrons flowing easily and with no resistance problems. They are trying to prove that with this technique it is possible to minimize components down to the scale of a few atoms.

If we are going to use atoms as bits, we need cables on the same scale as the atoms ― observed the supervisor of the group physicist, Micelle Simmons.”

With these unstoppable technological advances that ought to be for the well-being of humankind, I was recalling that just four days ago I wrote about the warming of the Earth and the accelerated exploitation of shale gas in a world that in two hundred years is consuming the fossil energy accumulated for 4 billion years.

Imagine Obama, that wordsmith, for whom, in his desperate search for re-election, the dreams of Martin Luther King Jr. are light years further away than the Earth is from the nearest inhabitable planet.

Worse yet: any of the Republican Congressmen who are presidential hopefuls, or any leader of the Tea Party carries more nuclear weapons on their backs than ideas of peace in their heads.

Let the readers imagine for one moment that powerful quantum calculator capable of multiplying an infinite number of times the data that today is collected by modern computers.

Is it not perhaps obvious that the worst thing of all this is the absence in the White House of a robot capable of governing the United States and preventing a war that would put an end to the life of our species?

I am certain that 90 percent of registered Americans, especially Hispanics, Afro-Americans and the growing numbers of the impoverished middle class would vote for the robot.

Fidel Castro Ruz
January 8, 2012
6:18 p.m.

I feel the duty to convey to those taking the trouble to read these Reflections the opinion that all of us, with no exception, are obliged to create awareness about the risks that humankind are running in an inexorable manner, towards a final and total catastrophe as the consequence of irresponsible decisions made by politicians who fate, rather than talent or merit, has placed the destiny of humankind in their hands.

Whether they are citizens of their country or not, whether they are followers of some religious belief or unbelievers, no human being in their right mind would agree that their children or closest kin should perish precipitously or as victims of atrocious and torturous misery.

On the heels of the repugnant crimes that are being increasingly committed by NATO under the aegis of the United States and the wealthiest countries in Europe, the gaze of the world focused on the G-20 meeting where the profound economic crisis affecting every nation today should have been analyzed. International opinion, especially in Europe, was awaiting an answer for the profound economic crisis that, with its serious social and even climatic implications, is threatening every inhabitant on the planet. At that meeting, it was being decided whether the Euro would be able to be kept as the common currency for most of Europe and even whether some of the countries would be able to remain in the community.

There was no answer or solution of any kind for the most serious problems of the world economy despite the efforts of China, Russia, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and other emerging economies, anxious to cooperate with the rest of the world in the search for solutions for the serious economic problems affecting them.

What was unusual was that just when NATO concluded the Libyan operation – after the air attack that injured the constitutional head of that country, destroyed the vehicle carrying him and leaving him at the mercy of the empire´s mercenaries who murdered him and exhibited his body as a war trophy, violating Muslim customs and traditions – the IAEA, a UN body and an institution that ought to stand for world peace, released the political, money-driven and sectarian report putting the world on the brink of war with the use of nuclear weapons that the Yankee empire, in alliance with Great Britain and Israel, has been meticulously preparing against Iran.

After the veni, vidi, vici of the famous Roman emperor more than two thousand years ago, translated to “I came, I saw and he died” broadcast for public opinion by an important television network as soon as the death of Gaddafi had been learned of, there are more than enough words to describe US policy.

Now what is important is the need to create clear awareness in the peoples about the abyss towards which humankind is being led. Twice our Revolution lived through dramatic dangers: in October of 1962, the most critical of all where humankind was on the brink of nuclear holocaust; and in mid-1987 when our forces were facing racist South African troops armed with nuclear weapons that the Israelis had helped them create.

The Shah of Iran also collaborated, along with Israel, with the racist and fascist South African regime.

What is the UN? An organization driven by the United States before the end of World War II. That nation, whose territory was considerably far away from the theatre of war, had incredibly increased its wealth; it accumulated 80% of the world´s gold and under the leadership of Roosevelt, a sincere anti-fascist, it promoted the development of the nuclear weapon that Truman, his successor, a mediocre oligarch, did not hesitate in using against the defenseless cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The world´s gold monopoly in United States´ power and the prestige of Roosevelt handed the US the Bretton Woods agreement, assigning it the role of issuing the dollar as the only currency to be used for decades in world trade, with no limiting factor other that it´s being backed by the gold metal.

At the end of that war, the US was also the only country possessing the nuclear weapon, a privilege it did not hesitate in transmitting to its allies and members in the Security Council: Great Britain and France, the two most important colonial powers in the world at that time.

Truman had not even informed the USSR one single word about the atomic weapon before using it. China, at that time governed by Nationalist General Chiang Kai-shek, a pro-Yankee oligarch, could not be excluded from that Security Council.

The USSR, seriously stricken by the war, destruction and the loss of more than 20 million of its sons and daughters in the Nazi invasion, dedicated considerable economic, scientific and human resources to bring its nuclear capacity up to par with that of the United States. Four years later, in 1949, it tested its first nuclear weapon: the H-bomb in 1953; and in 1955 its first megaton bomb. France had its first nuclear weapon in 1960.

There were only three countries that had the nuclear bomb in 1957 when the UN, under the aegis of the Yankees, created the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA). Does anybody think that US instrument did anything to warn the world about the terrible dangers to which it would expose human society when Israel, unconditional US and NATO ally, located in the very heartland of the world´s most important oil and gas reserves, would become a dangerous and aggressive nuclear power?

Its forces, cooperating with colonial British and French troops, attacked Port Said when Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, French property; this forced the Soviet premier to send an ultimatum demanding the ceasing of that aggression that the European allies of the US had no alternative other than to attack.

To be continued tomorrow.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 12, 2011
8:15 p.m.

Perhaps by chance, the following day was the 94th anniversary of the glorious Soviet Socialist Revolution. Indelible pages of history were written by Russian workers, peasants and soldiers, and the name of Lenin will forever shine among men and women who dream of a just destiny for humanity.

These issues are constantly more complex and efforts invested in educating new generations will never be sufficient. For that reason, today I am dedicating a space to comment on this event, in the midst of so many taking place every day on the planet and of which news arrives in a growing number of ways barely imaginable a few decades ago.

I must say that the elections in Nicaragua were in the traditional and bourgeois style, which has nothing just or equitable about it, given that the oligarchical sectors, anti-nationalist and pro-imperialist in nature, as a rule have a monopoly on the economic and publicity resources which – in general and particularly so in our hemisphere – are in the service of the empire’s political and military interests. This precisely highlights the magnitude of the Sandinista victory.

This is a truth which is well known in our homeland since Martí died in combat in Dos Ríos on May 19, 1895, “so that the independence of Cuba will prevent in time the expansion of the United States throughout the Antilles, and that nation falling, with even more force, upon our American lands.” We will never tire of repeating it, especially after our people have demonstrated their capacity to withstand half a century of that empire’s sustained economic blockade and brutal aggression.

However, it is not hatred which moves our people, but ideas. They gave birth to our solidarity with the people of Sandino, the General of free men and women, whose deeds we read about with admiration as students more than 60 years ago now, and lacking the marvelous cultural perspectives of those who, in a few days, together with high school students, will participate in what has become a beautiful tradition: the University Books and Reading Festival.

The heroic death of the Nicaraguan hero who fought against the yankee occupiers of his territory was always a source of inspiration for Cuban revolutionaries. There is nothing strange about our solidarity with the Nicaraguan people, expressed since the very first day of the revolutionary triumph in Cuba on January 1, 1959.

Yesterday, November 8, Granma recalled the heroic death in 1976, barely two and a half years before the FSLN triumph, of its founder Carlos Fonseca Amador, “the tayacán [daring leader] conqueror of death,” as a beautiful song written in his memory says, “bridegroom of the Red and Black Homeland, all of Nicaragua cries out for you ‘Present.’”

I know Daniel well; he never adopted extremist positions and was always invariably faithful to basic principles. Charged with the presidency, based on a collegiate political leadership, he was characterized by his respectful conduct in the context of the varying points of view of compañeros from tendencies which emerged within Sandinism at a certain stage of the struggle before the triumph. He thus became a promoter of unity among revolutionaries and he maintained in constant contact with the people. The great influence that he acquired among Nicaragua’s poorest sectors is due to that.

The profundity of the Sandinista Revolution earned him the hatred of the Nicaraguan oligarchy and yankee imperialism.

The most atrocious crimes were perpetrated against his country and his people during the dirty war that Reagan and Bush promoted by the administration and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Countless counterrevolutionary bands were organized, trained and supplied by them; drug trafficking became the instrument for financing the counterrevolution and the tens of thousands of weapons brought into the country resulted in the death or injury of thousands of Nicaraguans.

The Sandinistas maintained elections in the midst of that unequal and unjust battle.

This situation was compounded by the collapse of the Socialist camp, the imminent disintegration of the USSR and the beginning of the Special Period in our homeland. In these highly difficult circumstances and in spite of the majority support of the Nicaraguan people, expressed in all the opinion polls, a victorious election was made impossible.

The Nicaraguan people were once again forced to endure almost 17 years of corrupt and pro-imperialist governments. The indicators for the health, literacy and social justice implemented in Nicaragua began to fall painfully. However, under Daniel’s leadership, the Sandinista revolutionaries continued their struggle throughout those bitter years, and once again the people restored the government, albeit in extremely difficult circumstances which demanded maximum experience and political wisdom.

Cuba continued under the brutal yankee blockade, additionally suffering the harsh consequences of the Special Period and the hostility of one of the worst murderers who has governed the United States, George W. Bush, son of the father who had promoted the dirty war in Nicaragua, terrorist Posada Carriles’ liberty to distribute arms among Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries, and who pardoned Orlando Bosch, the other mastermind of the Cubana passenger plane sabotage.

However, a new stage was beginning in our America with the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and the coming to power in Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay of governments committed to the independence and integration of the Latin American peoples.

With satisfaction, I can moreover affirm that Cuba’s solidarity with the homeland of Sandino never ceased in the field of political and social solidarity. In all justice, I should point out that Nicaragua was one of the countries which best utilized Cuba’s collaboration in health and education.

The thousands of doctors who have volunteered their services in that heroic sister country feel highly motivated by the Sandinistas’ excellent use of their efforts. The same could be affirmed in relation to the thousands of teachers who, once in the early phase of the process, went to the remotest mountain regions to teach campesinos to read and write. Today, educational experiences in general and particularly the practices of medical teaching derived from the Latin America School of Medicine, in which thousands of excellent doctors have been trained, have been transferred to Nicaragua. These realities constitute an excellent stimulus for our people.

These details that I am mentioning are no more than an example of the prolific efforts of Sandinista revolutionaries for their homeland’s development.

The fundamental aspect of Daniel’s role and in my opinion, the reason behind his overwhelming victory, is that he never moved away from his contact with the people and the incessant struggle for their well-being.

Today he is a veritably experienced leader who was capable of managing complex and difficult situations, starting with the years during which his country was once again under the aegis of rapacious capitalism. He knows how to manage complicated problems in an intelligent manner, what he can or cannot do, what he must or must not do to guarantee peace and the sustained advance of the country’s economic and social development. He knows very well that the resounding victory is due to his heroic and valiant people, through their broad participation and close to two thirds of votes in his favor. He was capable of achieving close links with workers, campesinos, students, youth, women, technicians, professionals, artists and all the progressive sectors and forces sustaining the country and contributing to its advance. I believe that the call to all democratic political forces prepared to work for the country’s independence and economic and social development is very correct.

In the current world the problems are extremely complex and difficult. But while the world exists, we small countries can and must exercise our rights to independence, cooperation, development and peace.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 9, 2011
8:12 p.m.

I am selecting some fundamental paragraphs from that Reflection:

“As some may be aware, in September of 1969, Muammar al-Gaddafi, an Arab Bedouin soldier of a peculiar character and inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, promoted in the heart of the armed forces a movement overthrowing King Idris I of Libya, a country almost completely covered by desert and having very little population, located in northern Africa between Tunisia and Egypt.”

“Born to a tribal Bedouin family of nomadic desert shepherds in the region of Tripoli, Gaddafi was profoundly anti-colonialist. ”

“…Even Gaddafi’s adversaries assure us that he stood out for his intelligence as a student; he was expelled from high-school for his anti-monarchic activities. He managed to enrol in another high-school and later graduated in law at the University of Benghazi at the age of 21.  Then he enrolled in the Benghazi Military College where he created what was called the Secret Unionist Movement of Free Officers, concluding his education later on in a British military academy.”

“He had begun his political life with events that were without question, revolutionary.

“In March of 1970, after massive nationalist demonstrations, he managed to have British soldiers evacuated from the country and in June, the United States vacated the great air base near Tripoli, handing it over to military instructors from Egypt, a Libyan ally.

“In 1970, several western oil companies and banking companies having the participation of foreign capital were affected by the Revolution. At the end of 1971, the famous British Petroleum had the same fate. In the agricultural sector, all Italian properties were confiscated, and the colonists and their descendents were expelled from Libya.”

“The Libyan leader got involved in extremist theories that were opposed both to communism and capitalism. It was a stage when Gaddafi dedicated himself to theorizing, something that doesn’t have any place in this analysis, other than to point out that the first article of the Constitutional Proclamation of 1969 established the “Socialist” nature of the Great Socialist People’s Libya Arab Jamahiriya.

“What I wish to emphasize is that the United States and its allies were never interested in human rights.

“The hornet’s nest taking place in the Security Council, at the meeting of the Human Rights Council at the Geneva headquarters and in the UN General Assembly in New York was pure theatre.”

“The empire now wants […] to intervene militarily in Libya and strike a blow at the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world. Up to now, not one word was said; they kept their mouths shut and carried on with business.”

“With the latent Libyan rebellion being promoted by Yankee intelligence, or by Gaddafi’s own errors, it is important that the people don’t let themselves be deceived, since very soon world opinion shall have enough elements to know what to expect.”

“Like many Third World countries, Libya is a member of NAM, the Group of 77 and other international organizations, through which relations are established separately from its economic and social system.

“As an outline: the Revolution in Cuba, inspired by Marxist-Leninist principles and those of Marti, had triumphed in 1959, 90 miles away from the United States which imposed on us the Platt Amendment and owned the economy of our country.

“Almost immediately, the empire promoted the dirty war against our people, counter-revolutionary gangs, the criminal economic blockade, the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs, watched over by an aircraft carrier and their Marines ready to land if the mercenaries were to gain determinate objectives.”

“All the Latin American countries, with the exception of Mexico, took part in the criminal blockade which is still in place today, with our country never surrendering.”

“In January of 1986, using the idea that Libya was behind the so-called revolutionary terrorism, Reagan ordered economic and commercial relations with that country to be broken.

“In March, a force of aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Sidra, inside what is considered to be Libyan national waters, launched attacks that caused the destruction of several naval units armed with missile launchers and coastal radar systems that that country had acquired in the USSR.

“On April 5th, a Berlin disco that US soldiers went to was the victim of plastic explosives; three persons died, two of them American soldiers, and many were wounded.

“Reagan accused Gaddafi and ordered the Air Force to retaliate. Three squadrons took off from the Sixth Fleet aircraft carriers and bases in the United Kingdom, attacking seven military targets in Tripoli and Benghazi with missiles and bombs. Around 40 people died, 15 of them civilians.  Warned of the bombers’ advance, Gaddafi assembled his family and was abandoning his residence located at the Bab Al Aziziya military complex to the south of the capital. The evacuation was in progress when a missile made a direct hit on his residence; his daughter Hanna died and two other children were wounded. The occurrence was broadly condemned: the UN General Assembly passed a resolution condemning violation of the UN Charter and International law.  So did NAM, the Arab League and the OAU, in energetic terms.

“On December 21, 1988, a Pan Am Boeing 747 flying from London to New York disintegrated in mid-air after a bomb exploded …”

“According to the Yankees, investigations implicated two Libyan intelligence agents.”

“A sinister legend was fabricated against him with the participation of Reagan and Bush Sr.”

“The Security Council had imposed sanctions on Libya that were starting to be overcome when Gaddafi accepted to put the two people accused for the plane downed over Scotland on trial, with certain conditions.

“Libyan delegations began to be invited to inter-European meetings.  In July of 1999, London initiated the re-establishing of full diplomatic relations with Libya, after some additional concessions.”

“On December 2nd, Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema of Italy made the first visit of a European head of government to Libya.

“With the USSR and the European Socialist bloc gone, Gaddafi decided to accept the demands of the United States and NATO.”

“At the beginning of 2002, the State Department informed that diplomatic talks were going on between the US and Libya.”

“As 2003 began, because of the economic agreement on the compensations reached between Libya and the suing countries, the United Kingdom and France, the UN Security Council lifted the 1992 sanctions against Libya.

“Before 2003 drew to a close, Bush and Tony Blair informed about an agreement with Libya, a country that had handed over to United Kingdom and Washington intelligence experts documentation on the non-conventional weapons programs such as ballistic missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometres. Officials from both countries had already visited various installations.  It was the result of many months of talks between Tripoli and Washington as Bush himself revealed.

“Gaddafi fulfilled his promises of disarmament.  In a few months Libya handed over five units of Scud-C missiles with a range of 800 kilometres and the hundreds of Scud-Bs whose range surpassed the 300 kilometres for short-range defensive missiles.

“From October of 2002, the marathon of visits to Tripoli began: Berlusconi in October of 2002; José María Aznar in September of 2003; Berlusconi again in February, August and October of 2004; Blair in March of 2004; Germany’s Schröeder in October of that year; Jacques Chirac in November of 2004.”

“Gaddafi triumphantly toured Europe. He was received in Brussels in April of 2004 by Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission; in August of that year the Libyan leader invited Bush to visit his country; Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco and Conoco Philips finalized the re-establishing of extracting crude by means of joint ventures.

“In May of 2006, the United States announced the withdrawal of Libya from the list of terrorist countries and the establishment of full diplomatic relations.

“In 2006 and 2007, France and the US signed agreements for nuclear cooperation for peaceful purposes; in May of 2007, Blair once again visited Gaddafi at Sidra.  BP signed an “enormously important” agreement according to statements, in order to explore for gas fields.

“In December of 2007, Gaddafi made two visits to France and signed contracts for military and civilian equipment for the total of 10 billion Euros; and a visit to Spain where he met with President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Million-dollar contracts were signed with important NATO countries.

“What is it that has now caused the precipitated withdrawal from the embassies of the United States and the other NATO members?

“It’s all extremely odd.

“George W. Bush, father of the stupid anti-terrorism war, stated on September 20 of 2001 to the West point cadets that:

“Our security will require [...]  transforming the military you will lead, a military that must be ready to strike at a moment of notice in any dark corner of the world.  And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty [...].”

“We must uncover terror cells in 60 or more countries[...] Along with our friends and allies, we must oppose proliferation and confront regimes that sponsor terror, as each case requires.”

Today I add that Afghanistan, a traditionally rebellious country, was invaded; the nationalist tribes, former allies of the United States in its struggle against the USSR, were bombed and massacred.  The Dirty War spread throughout the world.  Iraq was invaded under excuses that turned out to be false, its abundant oil resources were handed over to the hands of Yankee companies, millions of persons lost their jobs and were forced to move both inside the country and abroad, their museums were sacked and innumerable citizens lost their lives or were massacred by the invaders.

Returning to the Reflection, I pointed out:

“An AFP dispatch from Kabul, dated today on March 9th, reveals that: “Last year was the most deadly for civilians in nine years of war between the Taliban and international forces in Afghanistan, with almost 2,800 dead, 15% more than in 2009, a UN report indicated on Wednesday, underlining the human cost of the conflict for the population.”

“With exactly 2,777 the number of civilian deaths in 2010 increased 15% as compared to 2009, indicates the annual joint report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan…”

“President Barack Obama stated on the 3rd of March his “profound condolences” to the Afghan people for the nine dead children; US General David Petraeus, commander in chief of the ISAF and Secretary of the Defence Robert Gates made similar statements.”

“…the UNAMA report emphasizes that the number of civilian dead in 2010 is four times greater than the number of international forces soldiers killed in combat in that same year.

Referring to Libya, I indicated:

“For 10 days, in Geneva and in the UN more than 150 speeches were made about violations on human rights that were repeated millions of times by TV, radio, Internet and the printed press.

“Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez, in his speech on March 1st before the Foreign Ministers meeting in Geneva, stated:

“Human conscience rejects the deaths of innocent people in any circumstance and in any place.  Cuba fully shares world concern for the losses in civilian lives in Libya and wishes that their people attain a peaceful and sovereign solution to the civil war happening over there, without any foreign interference, and ensuring the integrity of that nation.”

“If essential human rights are a right of life, is the Council ready to suspend the membership of states that unleash war?”

“Will it suspend states that finance and supply military aid used by the receiving state in massive, flagrant and systematic violations on human rights and in attacks on civilian populations, such as what is happening in Palestine?”

“Will it apply that measure against powerful countries that carry out extra-judicial executions on the territory of other states, using high technology such as smart bombs and unmanned planes?

“What would happen with states that accept on their territory illegal secret prisons, facilitate secret flights carrying kidnapped persons or participate in acts of torture?”

“We are against the internal war in Libya, in favour of immediate peace and full respect for life and the rights of all citizens, with no foreign intervention that would only serve to prolong the conflict and NATO interests.”

Yesterday, on October 31st, an event was produced that, among others, bears witness to the total lack of ethics in Yankee policy.

UNESCO had just adopted a courageous decision: to grant the heroic people of Palestine the right to participate as an active member of UNESCO; 107 states voted in favour, 14 were opposed and 52 abstained from voting.  We all know the reason perfectly well.

The United States representative to that institution, following instructions from the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, immediately stated that as of that moment, their country would be suspending all economic aid to the organization that was destined by the UN for education, science and culture.

The dramatic tone with which the lady announced the decision was totally unnecessary. Nobody was surprised by the expected and cynical decision.

Moreover, as if it were not enough, all we need to do is read the AFP cable dated in Washington this afternoon at 16:05:

“‘After the G20 Summit (…) the president (Obama) and President Sarkozy will take part in a ceremony in Cannes to celebrate the US-France alliance’, the office of the US president indicated, adding that the leaders would also be meeting with ‘US and French soldiers who had participated together in the operation’ in Libya.”

I shall continue shortly.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 1, 2011
4:32 p.m.

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.