Reflections of Fidel

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

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

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

Suddenly a rather undiplomatic sharp remark indicated that:

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

the EFE agency writes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I stopped what I was doing to observe the bright, colorful uniforms of the era and other details of the commemoration event.

So many emotional recollections related to the heroic battle that was decisive for Ecuador’s independence! The ideals and dreams of the epoch were present at that event. Together with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, were the guests of honor Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales – who are reliving today the yearning for independence and justice for which the Latin Americans patriots fought and died. Sucre was the main protagonist of that immortal deed, impelled by the dreams of Bolívar.

That struggle has not ended. It is arising once again under very different conditions; conditions that perhaps were not dreamed of at that time.

What came to mind was a speech by Dick Cheney that I read on Saturday; it was about national security and had been delivered at 11:20 on the previous Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute and was broadcast by CNN in Spanish and English. It was a response to the speech given by U.S. President Barack Obama on the same issue at 10:27 that same day, and to which he was adding an explanation on the closure of the Guantánamo prison. I had heard him when he spoke that day.

Mention of this piece of forcibly-occupied national territory struck me, in addition to my logical interest in the subject. I didn’t even know that Cheney would be speaking right after that. That is unusual.

Initially, I thought that it could be an open challenge to the new president, but when I read the official version I understood that the rapid response had been put together beforehand.

The former vice president had written his speech with great care, in a respectful and, at times, sugarcoated tone.

But what characterized Cheney’s speech was his defense of torture as a method of obtaining information under certain circumstances.

Our northern neighbor is a center of planetary power; it is the richest and most powerful nation, possessing a number of nuclear warheads that ranges from 5,000-10,000 that can be made to explode on any place in the planet with utmost accuracy. One would have to add the rest of its military equipment: chemical, biological and electromagnetic weapons as well as a huge arsenal of equipment for ground, naval and air combat. Those weapons are in the hands of those who claim they have the right to use torture.

Our country has sufficient political culture to analyze such arguments. Many people around the world likewise understand the meaning of Cheney’s words. I shall make a brief synthesis selecting his own paragraphs, accompanied by brief commentaries and opinions.

He began by criticizing Obama’s speech: “It is obvious that the president would be sanctioned in a House of Representatives because in the House we have the rule of a few minutes,” he said jokingly, even though he for one spoke at considerable length; the translated official version runs for 31 pages, 22 lines per page.

“Being the first vice president who had also served as secretary of defense, naturally my duties tended toward national security. I focused on those challenges day to day…Today, I’m an even freer man…no elections to win or lose, and no favor to seek.

“And though I’m not here to speak for George W. Bush, I am certain that no one wishes the current administration more success in defending the country than we do.”

“Today I want to set forth the strategic thinking behind our policies. I do so as one who was there every day of the Bush Administration –who supported the policies when they were made, and without hesitation would do so again in the same circumstances.

“When President Obama makes wise decisions, as I believe he has done in some respects on Afghanistan, and in reversing his plan to release incendiary photos, he deserves our support. And when he faults or mischaracterizes the national security decisions we made in the Bush years, he deserves an answer.

“Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense. That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as serious as ever, but the sense of general alarm after September 11th, 2001 was a fading memory.”

He then gives an account of terrorist attacks on the United States over the past 16 years, both inside and outside its borders, listing half a dozen of them.

Cheney’s problem was to broach the thorny issue of torture, so frequently condemned by official U.S. policy.

“Nine-eleven made necessary a shift of policy, aimed at a clear strategic threat – what the Congress called “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”… We were determined to prevent attacks in the first place,” he stated.

He mentioned the number of people who lost their lives on September 11. He compares it to the attack on Pearl Harbor. He does not explain why the complex action was relatively easy to organize, what previous intelligence reports Bush possessed, or what he could have done to avoid it. Bush had been president for almost eight months. It is well-known that he worked very little and rested a lot. He was constantly going off to his ranch in Texas.

“al-Qaeda was seeking nuclear technology, and A. Q. Khan was selling nuclear technology on the black market. We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.

“As you might recall, I was in my office in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour. That was Flight 77, the one that ended up hitting the Pentagon. With the plane still inbound, Secret Service agents came into my office and said we had to leave, now. A few moments later I found myself in a fortified White House command post somewhere down below.”

Cheney’s version makes it clear that nobody had foreseen that situation and he pays lip service to U.S. pride in assuming that someone holed up in a cave some 15,000 or 20,000 kilometers away could force the president of the United States to occupy his command post in the White House basement.

“In the years since,” Cheney goes on, “I’ve heard occasional speculation that I’m a different man after 9/11. I wouldn’t say that. But I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.

“But since wars cannot be won on the defensive, we moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and sanctuaries.

“We did all of these things, and with bipartisan support.

“We didn’t invent that authority. It is drawn from Article Two of the Constitution.

“And it was given specificity by the Congress after 9/11, in a Joint Resolution authorizing “all necessary and appropriate force” to protect the American people.

“…through the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which let us intercept calls and track contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and persons inside the United States.

“The program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of The New York Times got it and put it on the front page. After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11.

“It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn’t serve the interests of our country, or the safety of our people.

“In the years after 9/11, our government also understood that the safety of the country required collecting information… that could be gained only through tough interrogations.

“I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program.

“The interrogations were used… after other efforts failed.

“They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do.

“Our successors in office have their own views on all of these matters.

“By presidential decision, last month we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public’s right to know.

“…the public was given less than half the truth.

“It’s hard to imagine a worse precedent… than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors.

“One person who by all accounts objected to the release of the interrogation memos was the Director of Central Intelligence, Leon Panetta.”

Reaching this point however, Cheney had to explain what happened at the Abu Ghraib prison, which filled the world with horror.

“At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulations, and simple decency.

“We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance…[we] were not trying to … simply avenge the dead of 9/11.

“From the beginning of the program, there was only one focused and all-important purpose. We sought…information on terrorist plans.

“For the harm they did, to Iraqi prisoners and to America’s cause, they deserved and received Army justice.

Apart from the thousands of young Americans killed, maimed and wounded in the Iraq War and the huge funds invested there, hundreds of thousands of children, young and old people, men and women who were not to blame for the attack on the Twin Towers have lost their lives in that country after the invasion ordered by Bush. That enormous mass of innocent victims did not even receive a mention in Cheney’s speech.

He skips that and goes on:

“If liberals are unhappy about some decisions, and conservatives are unhappy about other decisions, then it may seem to them that the President is on the path of sensible compromise.

“But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed.

“When just a single clue goes unpursued that can bring on catastrophe.

“On his second day in office, President Obama announced that he was closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. This step came with little deliberation and no plan.

“The administration has found that it’s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo. But it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America’s national security.

“In the category of euphemism, the prizewinning entry would be a recent editorial in a familiar newspaper that referred to terrorists we’ve captured as, quote, “abducted.”

“…and a major editorial page makes them sound like they were kidnap victims…

“The enhanced interrogations…and the terrorist surveillance program have without question made our country safer.

“When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists.

“Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority…

“Releasing the interrogation memos was flatly contrary to the national security interest of the United States.

“The harm done only begins with top secret information now in the hands of the terrorists…

“Across the world, governments that have helped us capture terrorists will fear that sensitive joint operations will be compromised.

“President Obama has used his declassification power to reveal what happened in the interrogations…

“President Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, has put it this way: “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.”

“Admiral Blair put that conclusion in writing, only to see it mysteriously deleted in a later version released by the administration…

“…the missing 26 words that tell an inconvenient truth. But they couldn’t change the words of George Tenet, the CIA Director under Presidents Clinton and Bush, who bluntly said: “I know that this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.

“If Americans do get the chance to learn what our country was spared, it’ll do more than clarify the urgency and the rightness of enhanced interrogations in the years after 9/11.

“We focused on getting their secrets, instead of sharing ours with them.

“It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed. Along the way there were some hard calls. No decision of national security was ever made lightly, and certainly never made in haste.

“As in all warfare, there have been costs – none higher than the sacrifices of those killed and wounded in our country’s service.

“Like so many others who serve America, they are not the kind to insist on a thank-you.”

His attacks on the Obama administration were really fierce but I don’t wish to voice my opinions on that subject. I will however recall that terrorism did not come out of the blue: it is also the method that has been used by the United States to combat the Cuban Revolution.

General Dwight Eisenhower himself, president of the United States, was the first one to use terrorism against our homeland and this wasn’t just a group of bloody actions against our people but dozens of events beginning in 1959 itself, later escalating to hundreds of acts of terrorism every year, using flammable substances, high-power explosives; precision infrared-ray sophisticated weapons; poisons such as cyanide; fungi, hemorrhagic dengue, swine fever, anthrax; viruses and bacteria that attacked crops, plants, animals and human beings.

There weren’t just attacks on the economy and the people; they were also aimed at eliminating the leaders of the Revolution.

Thousands of people were affected, and the economy, whose objective is to sustain alimentation, healthcare and the most basic services for the people, has been submitted to a relentless blockade that is being applied in extraterritorial terms.

I am not inventing these facts. They are on record in declassified U.S. government documents. In our country, despite the very serious dangers that have threatened us for decades, we have never tortured anyone to obtain information.

However painful the actions against the people of the United States on September 11, 2001 – actions that everybody condemned – torture is a cowardly and shameful act that can never be justified.

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 27, 2009
12:54 p.m.

Tomorrow is International Workers’ Day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I confess that many times I have meditated on the dramatic story of John F. Kennedy. It was my fate to live through the era when he was the greatest and most dangerous adversary of the Revolution. It was something that didn’t play a part in his calculations. He saw himself as the representative of a new generation of Americans who were confronting the old-style, dirty politics of men of the sort of Nixon whom he had defeated with a tremendous display of political talent.

He had behind him his history as a combatant in the Pacific and of his adroit pen.

Because he was over-confident, he was dragged into the Bay of Pigs adventure by his predecessors, since he had no doubts about the experience and professional capacity of all those men. His failure was bitter and unexpected, a scant three months after his inauguration. Even though he was on the point of attacking the Island with his country’s powerful and sophisticated weaponry, on that occasion he didn’t do what Nixon would have done: use the fighter-bombers and land the Marines. Rivers of blood would have flowed in our Homeland where hundreds of thousands of combatants were ready to die. He controlled himself and came up with a categorical phrase that is hard to forget: “Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”

His life continued to be dramatic, like a shadow that accompanied him at all times. On the strength of wounded pride, he again succumbed to the idea of invading us. This brought on the October [Missile] Crisis and the most serious risks of thermonuclear warfare that the world has ever known until the present day. He emerged from this test as an authority thanks to the mistakes of his chief adversary. He seriously wanted to talk with Cuba and that’s what he decided to do. He sent Jean Daniel to talk with me and return to Washington. His mission was being carried out at that moment when the news of President Kennedy’s assassination arrived. His death and the strange way in which it was orchestrated and carried out, was truly sad.

Later I met close family members who visited Cuba. I never mentioned the unpleasant aspects of his policy against our country, nor did I refer at all to the attempts to eliminate me. I met his son when he was an adult, who had been a young child when his father had been the president of the United States. We got together as friends. His own brother Robert was also assassinated, multiplying the drama shadowing that family.

At the distance of so many years, information arrived about a gesture that impressed me.

These days, while so much was being said about the lengthy and unfair blockade of Cuba in the upper echelons of the continent’s countries, I read a news item in Mexico’s La Jornada: “At the end of 1963, the then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sought to overturn the ban on travel to Cuba and today his daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, wrote that President Barack Obama ought to take this into account and support legislative initiatives that would allow all Americans to travel to the island.

“In official documents declassified by the National Security Archive research centre it is recorded that on December 12, 1963, less than one month after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sent a communication to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, urging the removal of regulations prohibiting Americans from traveling to Cuba.

“Robert Kennedy claimed that the prohibition violated American freedoms. According to the document, he affirmed that the current restrictions on travel are inconsistent with traditional American freedoms.

“That position was unsuccessful inside the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and the State Department decided that to suspend the restrictions would be perceived as a softening of the Cuban policy and that they were part of the joint effort made by the United States and other American republics to isolate Cuba.

“In an editorial article by Kathleen Kennedy printed today in The Washington Post, Robert’s daughter expresses her wish that her father’s position be adopted by the Barack Obama government, and that this should be the position promoted by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. while the Obama government weighs the next step it will take with Cuba, one that should be pushing for allowing more than just Cuban-Americans to travel freely to the island and dealing with the rights of all Americans, most of whom are not free to go.

“Kathleen Kennedy writes that just as Obama found out at the summit meeting last week-end, Latin American leaders have adopted a coordinated message on Cuba: the time is here to normalize relations with Havana. By keeping on trying to isolate Cuba, they essentially told Obama, Washington has only succeeded in isolating itself.

“Thus, the niece of the president who attempted to invade and overthrow the Cuban Revolutionary government and impose the blockade, adds her voice now to the ever-growing chorus in favor of reversing these policies which were put in place half a century ago.”

A worthy article by Kathleen Kennedy!

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 24, 2009
1:17 p.m.

Pressure against the U.S. blockade of Cuba was so great that on the day Raúl categorically declared that our country would not join the OAS, the secretary of the discredited institution began to prepare the terrain for Cuba’s participation in an eventual future Summit of the Americas. His recipe is to abolish the resolution which decided the expulsion of the Island for ideological reasons. Such an argument is truly laughable when important countries such as China and Vietnam, which the world today cannot do without, are being lead by Communist parties that were created on the same ideological foundations.

Historical events prove the hegemonic policies of the United States in our region and the disgusting role of the OAS as the hideous instrument of the powerful country.

Insulza’s formula consists of wiping the criminal agreement off the map. Raúl declared in Cumaná that Cuba would never rejoin the OAS. Using Marti’s scathing phrase, he expressed that first “the Southern sea would join the Northern sea, and a serpent would be born from the eagle’s egg”.

At that same occasion, in response to an alleged gesture by Obama which offered a conversation with Cuba about democracy and human rights, he replied that the government of Cuba was willing to discuss any subject on the basis of the most absolute respect for the equality and sovereignty of both countries. Our country knows full well the meaning and dignity of those words.

Among Obama’s public demands is the liberation of those imprisoned for their treacherous services to the United States which, during almost half a century, has been assaulting and blockading our Homeland.

Raúl stated that Cuba was willing to show clemency if the United States would receive them and if it would free the five Cuban anti-terrorist heroes.

However, both the government of the United States and the maggot’s nest inside and outside of Cuba have reacted with all kinds of arrogance.

AP and other cable news agencies have suggested divisions in the heart of our revolutionary leadership.

According to AP, “a prominent human rights activist” said that “most of the two hundred Cuban prisoners prefer serving long sentences on the Island rather than being exchanged for five Communist agents being held in prisons in the United States, as President Raúl Castro has suggested.

“It is practically unanimous among the prisoners that they not be exchanged for soldiers who were arrested red-handed spying in the United States”, the agency stated, citing the head of the ill-named “Cuban Commission for Human Rights and Conciliation”. One would now have to see who they would classify with this concept. Pope John Paul II made no difference between political and ordinary prisoners when he visited Cuba, and he sought clemency for a number of them. Actually, the majority of those classified as ordinary prisoners in the United States are, generally speaking, the poorest and most discriminated against people.

“Nevertheless Obama -AP later goes on to say- could suffer serious political consequences if he were to agree to the exchange of five Communist agents who were condemned for spying in 2001. The leader of the group was implicated in the deaths of four Cuban exiles when their planes were shot down by Cuban fighter planes in 2001.” Isn’t that cable an indirect threat to the president of the United States?

The alleged mercenary leader was a sectarian coming from the youth section of the former Communist Party that later joined the new party created by the Revolution. When we found ourselves in the necessity to disagree with the USSR for its incorrect decision to negotiate an agreement for the October [Missile] Crisis with the United States without first consulting our country, the individual became an enemy of the Revolution. He served the superpower during the entire Bush term in office. Now he is enjoying the privilege of being instrumental in threatening Obama.

AP says not one word about the life sentences passed on the Five Heroes in cooked trials, the lies concocted with the complicity of the authorities, the cruel treatment they have received and many more details related to the case. Those are the slanderous rumours being printed in much of the news media throughout the world.

Whenever the state of health of any of the mercenaries warrants it, the government of Cuba has never failed to show clemency, without the United States having to demand it.

On the other hand, the government of Cuba never used torture, something that is acknowledged by the world. The president of Cuba cannot order the assassination of an adversary. Has the new U.S. president condemned that horrible practice? If he does so, believe me that I shall not hesitate to acknowledge the impression of sincerity he gave all of us at the beginning.

Tomorrow we shall be meeting again with Daniel. In less time than he had to wait in the LACSA plane under the intense tropical heat in Port of Spain, the Cuban plane will return him to his beloved homeland.

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 23, 2009
2:54 p.m.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yesterday I referred to what was funny about the “Declaration of Commitment of Port of Spain”.

Today I could refer to what is tragic about it. I hope our friends do not take any offence in this. There were some differences between the draft that we received, which was going to be submitted by the hosts of the Summit, and the document that was finally published. In all that last-minute haste, there was hardly any time for anything. Some items had been discussed at long meetings held some weeks previous to the Summit. At the very last moment, proposals such as the one submitted by Bolivia, complicated even more the whole picture. The Bolivian proposal was included as a note in the document. It stated that Bolivia considered that the implementation of policies and cooperation schemes aimed at expanding the use of bio-fuels in the western hemisphere could affect and have an impact on the availability of foodstuffs, the increase of food prices, deforestation, the displacement of populations as a result of the land demand, and that consequently this could make the food crisis to be even worse, which will directly affect low income persons and, most of all, the poorest economies among developing countries. The note added that the Bolivian government, while recognizing the need to look for and resort to environmentally friendly alternative sources of energy, such as the geothermal, solar, and eolic sources of energy, and to small and medium size hydro-power generators, it advocates for an alternative approach, based on the possibility of living well and in harmony with nature, in order to develop public policies aimed at the promotion of safe alternative energies that could ensure the preservation of the planet, our ‘mother land’.

When analyzing this note submitted by Bolivia please bear in mind that the United States and Brazil are the two biggest producers of bio-fuels in the world, something that is opposed by an increasing number of persons on the planet, whose resistance has been growing since the dark days of George Bush.

Obama’s advisors published on the Internet their version -in English- of the interview the US president granted to some journalists in Port of Spain. At one point, he asserted that there was something he found interesting -and added that he had known of it in a more abstract way but that he found it interesting in more specific terms- which was listening to these leaders who, when speaking about Cuba, did so referring specifically to the thousands of doctors Cuba is disseminating throughout the region, and finding how much these countries depended on them. He said this reminded them in the US of the fact that if their only interaction with many of these countries was the war on drugs; that if their only interaction was of a military character, then it was possible that they would not be developing connections that, with time, could enhance their influence with a positive effect when they may find it necessary to advance policies of their interest in the region.

He said he thought that was the reason why it was so important -for the sake of their interaction, not only here in this hemisphere, but in the whole world- to recognize that their military power was just part of their power, and that they have to resort to diplomacy and their aid to development in a more intelligent way, so that peoples could see concrete and practical improvements in the life of ordinary citizens, based on the foreign policy of the United States.

Jake, one of the journalists, said thanks to the President and added that in Port of Spain the President had listened to many Latin American leaders who want the US to lift the embargo against Cuba. The journalist reminded the President he had said that was an important influence that should not be eliminated. But he added that in 2004 the President did support the lifting of the embargo. He reminded the President he had said that the embargo had not managed to raise the standards of living, that it had squeezed the innocent, and that it was high time for the US to recognize that that particular policy had failed. The journalist wondered what made the President change his opinion with regards to the embargo.

The President responded that the year 2004 seemed to be thousands of years ago, and wondered what he himself was doing in 2004.

The journalist answered that back then he was running for the Senate. The President added that the fact that Raul Castro had said his government was ready to talk with the US government not only about the lifting of the embargo but also about other issues, namely, human rights and political prisoners, was a signal of progress. He said there were some things the Cuban government could do. He added that Cuba could release the political prisoners, reduce the surcharge imposed on remittances, which will correspond with the policies that they have applied, whereby Cuban-American families are allowed to send remittances. He said that it so happened that Cuba applies a very high surcharge. He said that Cuba is exacting significant profits. He added that this would be an example of cooperation where both governments would be working to help the Cuban family and improve the living standards in Cuba.

There is no doubt that the President misinterpreted Raul’s statements.

When the President of Cuba said he was ready to discuss any topic with the US President, he meant he was not afraid of addressing any issue. That shows his courage and confidence on the principles of the Revolution. No one should feel astonished that Raul spoke about pardoning those who were convicted on March, 2003, and about sending them all to the United States, should that country be willing to release the Five Cuban Anti-Terrorism Heroes. The convicts, as was already the case with the Bay of Pig’s mercenaries, are at the service of a foreign power that threatens and blockades our homeland.

Besides, the assertion that Cuba imposes a very high surcharge and obtains significant profits is an attempt by the President’s advisors to cause trouble and division among Cubans. Every country charges a certain amount for all hard currency transfers. If those are made in dollars, all the more reason we have to do it, because that is the currency of the country that blockades us. Not all Cubans have relatives abroad that could send them remittances. Redistributing a relatively small part of them to benefit those more in need of food, medicines and other goods is absolutely fair. Our homeland does not have the privilege of converting the money minted by the State into hard currency -something the Chinese very often call “junk money”- as I have explained on several occasions, which has been one of the causes of the present economic crisis. With what money the US is bailing out its banks and multinationals, while plunging future generations of Americans into indebtedness? Would Obama be ready to discuss those issues?

Daniel Ortega stated it very clearly when he remembered the first conversation he had with Carter, which today I will once more repeat:

“I had the opportunity to meet with President Carter, and when he told me that now, after the Somozas’ tyranny had been ousted, and the Nicaraguan people had defeated the Somozas’ tyranny, it was high time ‘for Nicaragua to change’, I said: ‘No, Nicaragua does not need to change; you are the ones that need to change. Nicaragua has never invaded the United States. Nicaragua has never mined the US ports. Nicaragua has never launched a single stone against the American nation. Nicaragua has not imposed any government on the United States. You are the ones that need to change, not the Nicaraguans.’”

At the press conference, as well as in the final meetings of the Summit, Obama looked conceited. Such attitude by the US President was consistent with the abject positions adopted by some Latin American leaders. Some days ago I said that whatever was said and done at the Summit will be known anyway.

When the US President said, in answering to Jake, that thousands of years had elapsed since 2004 until the present, he was superficial. Should we wait for so many years before his blockade is lifted? He did not invent it, but he embraced it just as much as the previous ten US presidents did. Should he continue down that same path, we could predict he would face a sure fiasco, just as all his predecessors did. That is not the dream entertained by Martin Luther King, whose role in the struggle for human rights will ever more illuminate the American people’s path.

We are living in a new era. Changes are unavoidable. Leaders just pass through; peoples prevail. There would be no need to wait for thousands of years to pass by; only eight years will be enough so that a new US President -who will no doubt be less intelligent, promising and admired in the world than Barack Obama- riding on a better armored car, or on a more modern helicopter, or on a more sophisticated plane, occupies that inglorious position.

Tomorrow we shall have more news about the Summit.

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 21, 2009
5:34 p.m.

While neither represented at nor excommunicated from the Port of Spain Summit we were able to find out what has been discussed there up until today. We were led to fully expect that the meeting would not be private, but the stage managers deprived us of that highly interesting intellectual exercise. We would be informed of the essence, but not the tone of voice, nor the eyes, nor the faces which so much reflect people’s ideas, ethics and characters. A Secret Summit is worse than the silent movies. To Obama’s left was a man whom I could not identify very well when he placed his hand on Obama’s shoulder, like an eight-year-old school student to a compañero in the first row. Beside him, standing, another member of the retinue who interrupted him to talk with the president of the United States; I could see in those persons importuning him the stamp of an oligarchy that has never experienced hunger and which, in the powerful nation of Obama, expect to have the shield to protect the system from the feared social changes.

Up to that point, there was a strange atmosphere at the Summit.

The artistic show organized by the host country really sparkled. I have only seen anything like it on a very few occasions, if ever. A good speaker, seemingly a Trinidadian, had proudly stated that it was unique.

It was a veritable extravaganza of both culture and luxury. I meditated a while. I calculated what all that would have cost and I suddenly realized that no other country in the Caribbean could give itself the luxury of presenting such a spectacle, that the venue of the Summit is immensely wealthy, a species of the United States surrounded by small poor countries. Could the Haitians with their extremely rich culture, or Jamaica, Grenada, Dominica, Guyana, Belize or any other, be the venue of such a luxurious Summit? Their beaches might be marvelous, but they are not surrounded by the towers that characterize the Trinidadian landscape and, with that non-renewable raw material, accumulate the copious resources that currently sustain that country’s wealth Almost all the other islands integrating the Caribbean community, located further to the north, are directly lashed by the hurricanes of growing intensity that scourge our beautiful Caribbean islands every year.

Might somebody at that meeting have remembered that Obama promised to invest whatever money is required in order to make the United States self-sufficient in fuel? Such a policy would directly affect many of the states meeting there who will not possess the technology and the vast investments required for an effort in that or another direction.

Something really made an impact on me on the stage of the Summit that has taken place up until today, Saturday, April 18, at 11:47, when I am writing these lines: Daniel Ortega’s speech. I have promised myself not to publish anything until Monday, April 20 in order to observe what happened in the famous Summit.

He did not speak as an economist, a scientist, an intellectual or a poet. Daniel did not select over-elaborate words in order to impress his audience. He spoke as the president of one of the five poorest countries in the hemisphere, as the revolutionary combatant, on behalf of a group of Central American and countries and the Dominican Republic that are members of the SICA (Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana).

It would suffice to be one of the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans who learned to read and write in the initial stage of the Sandinista Revolution, during which the illiteracy rate was reduced from 60% to 12%, or when Daniel returned to power in 2007, when illiteracy had risen to 35%.

His speech lasted approximately 50 minutes, delivered in a measured and calm voice, but if it was to be reproduced in full, it would make this reflection too extensive.

I will synthesize his unique speech using his own words in each of the basic ideas that he transmitted. I won’t use dot, dot, dot and I will only use internal quotation marks when Daniel refers to the textual words of another person or institutions:

“Nicaragua had recourse to the International Court of Justice in the Hague: it filed its case against the policy of war, the terrorist policy that President Ronald Reagan was developing on behalf of the United States.

Our crime: having liberated ourselves from the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, imposed by the intervention of yanki troops in Nicaragua.

Central America has been shaken since the century before last by what have been expansionist policies, policies of war that led us to unite as Central Americans to defeat them.

Then came the interventions, which extended from 1912 to 1932 and left as a result the imposition of the dictatorship of the Somozas, armed, financed and defended by U.S. governors.

I had the opportunity to meet with President Reagan in full wartime; we shook hands and I asked him to end the war on Nicaragua.

I had the opportunity to meet with President Carter and when he told me that “now that the Somoza dictatorship has gone, it was time for the Nicaraguan people to change Nicaragua.” I said to him: No, Nicaragua does not have to change, it is you that have to change, Nicaragua has never invaded the United States; Nicaragua has never mined U.S. ports; Nicaragua has never thrown a single stone against the U.S. nation; Nicaragua has not imposed governments on the United States; you are the ones who have to change, not the Nicaraguans.

Nicaragua was still subjected to the war imposed by the United States; in response to the case that Nicaragua brought before the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the Court found and ruled; it said with total clarity that: “The United States should stop all military action, the mining of ports, funding the war; that it should indicate where the mines were that it had placed and refused to give that information;” it also instructed the United States to compensate Nicaragua for the economic-commercial blockade that it had imposed on it.

The struggles that we are waging in Nicaragua, in Central America and in Latin America to liberate our peoples from illiteracy are struggles that we are waging with the unconditional, generous solidarity of the sister people of Cuba, of Fidel, who was the one who promoted those cooperative literacy processes, and its President Raúl Castro, who has given continuity to these programs, open to all of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples.

Then the Bolivarian people, the people of Venezuela, with their President Hugo Chávez Frías, joined in.

Present here are a large majority of the presidents and heads of government of Latin America and the Caribbean; the president of the United States, the prime minister of Canada are participating; but here there are two major absentees: one, Cuba, whose crime has been to fight for its independence, for the sovereignty of the peoples; lending solidarity, without conditions, to our peoples, and for that it is being sanctioned, for that it is being punished, for that it is being excluded. For that reason, I do not feel comfortable at this Summit, I feel ashamed of participating in this Summit in Cuba’s absence.

Another nation is not present here because, unlike Cuba, an independent nation of solidarity, that other nation is still being subjected to colonialist policies: I am referring to the sister people of Puerto Rico.

We are working to build a great alliance, a grand unity of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples. The day will come when the people of Puerto Rico will also be here in that great alliance.

In the decade of the 50s racial discrimination was institutionalized, it was part of the American way of life: black people could not enter white restaurants, or white bars; children of black families could not go to the schools in which white children studied. In order to break down that wall of racial discrimination – and President Obama knows that better than we do – Martin Luther King said; “I have a dream.” The dream was made real and the wall of racial discrimination was brought down in the United States of America, thanks to the struggles of that people.

This meeting, this encounter is beginning precisely on the day that the invasion of Cuba was initiated in 1961. Talking with the president of Cuba, Raúl Castro, Raúl gave me some information: “Daniel, President Obama was born on August 4, 1961, he was three-and-a-half months old when the Bay of Pigs victory was won on April 19 of that year; evidently, he had no responsibility for that historic event. On April 15, the bombardments; on the 16th, socialism was proclaimed, by Fidel, at the burial of the victims; the invasion started on the 17th; the fighting continued on the 18th and the 19th, the victory, in less than 72 hours. Raúl.” (Raúl told me on his return from Cumaná, that when he wrote a note for Daniel, he made a rapid calculation and made an error on affirming that the Bays of Pigs invasion happened when Obama was three-and-a-half months old, when he should have said that he was born three-and-a-half months afterward; that he was responsible for that error).

That is history. In 2002, likewise in the month of April, on April 11, came the coup d’état with the intention of assassinating a president-elect of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela; President Hugo Chávez was captured, and the order went out to assassinate him. When the puppet government emerged, the U.S. government – via its spokesman – recognized the coup leaders and gave the right to the coup leaders. We have the right to say that that is not history; barely seven years ago came those acts of violence against the institutionality of a people, of a progressive nation, in solidarity and revolutionary.

I think that the time I am taking is far less than that I had to spend – three hours – waiting at the airport inside a plane.

Freedom of expression has to be for the large and the little: Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic as an associate. The territorial area is 568, 988 square kilometers. The population adds up to a little more than 41.7 million inhabitants.

We propose that TPS (Temporary Protection Status) is given to all immigrants in the United States, but the causes of emigration lie in underdevelopment, in the poverty in which Central American peoples live.

The only way of halting the flow of emigrants toward the United States is not by raising walls, reinforcing military patrols on the borders is not the only way.

The United States needs the Central American labor force, like it needs the Mexican labor force; when that labor force reaches beyond the demands of the U.S. economy, then come the repressive policies; it is contributing funds without political conditions, without the conditioning of the International Monetary Fund.

We have the thankless task of having to look after the borders with the United States on account of drug consumption.

In Nicaragua alone, last year, the national police seized more than 360 tons of cocaine. That, at the market price in the United States, certainly adds up to more than $1 billion.

How much is the United States contributing to Nicaragua for looking after its borders? It is contributing $1.2 million.

It is not just, it is not equitable, it is not moral that it is the G-20 that keeps on making the major decisions; the hour has come for it to be the G-192; in other words, every country in the United Nations.

Those who have had negotiations with the Fund (IMF) know perfectly well what the Fund has signified, how they have sacrificed social programs, agricultural programs, productive programs, in order to pull out the resources and pay the debt, the debt imposed by the regulations established by global capitalism.

It has been no more than an instrument for establishing and developing – from the metropolises – colonial, neocolonial and imperialist policies.

In that heroic struggle that Mahatma Gandhi waged for India’s dependence from Britain, he said: “Britain has utilized one quarter of the planet’s resources to reach its present state of development. How many resources will India need to reach that same development?”

Now in the 21st century, and since the end of the 20th century, it wasn’t only Britain but all of the developed capitalist countries establishing their hegemony at the cost of the destruction of the planet and of the human species, by imposing the consumer values of their model.

The only way of saving the planet and with that the sustainable development of humanity, will be to establish the bases of a new international economic order, of a new social, political economic model, which is genuinely just, cooperative and democratic.

In the project known as PETROCARIBE and in the ALBA – virtually all the Caribbean countries are in PETROCARIBE – but some Central American countries are also in it. There are SICA countries that are in PETROCARIBE: Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Panama.

“The heads of state and government of the Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela, member countries of ALBA, consider that the draft declaration of the 5th Americas Summit is insufficient and unacceptable for the following reasons:

(He immediately reads the ALBA statement on the document proposed for the Americas Summit.)

“It does not give any response to the issue of the Global Economic Crisis, despite this constituting the greatest challenge that humanity has had to confront in decades.

“It unjustifiably excludes Cuba, without mentioning the general consensus that exists in the region for condemning the blockade and the attempts at isolation to which its people and government have been incessantly subjected in a criminal manner.

“What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature and not just another cyclical crisis.

“Capitalism has provoked the ecological crisis by submitting the necessary conditions for life on the planet to the predominance of the market and profits.”

In order to avoid this outcome it is necessary to develop an alternative model to the capitalist system. A system in harmony with our Mother Earth and not of the plunder of natural resources; a system of cultural diversity and not of the crushing of cultures and the imposition of cultural values and lifestyles that are far from the realities of our countries; a system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist politics and wars; a system that does not reduce them to mere consumers or merchandise.

In relation to the U.S. blockade of Cuba and the exclusion of this country from the Americas Summit, the countries of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America reiterate the declaration that all the Latin American and Caribbean countries adopted last December 16, 2008, on the need to put an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the government of the United States, including the application of the so-called Helms-Burton Act, widely known to everybody.

In my country, Nicaragua, the governments that preceded me fulfilled neoliberal policies to the letter. From 1990, when the Sandinista Front left government, to January 10, 2007, when the Sandinista Front returned to government; it was applied for 16 years.

When the Revolution triumphed in Nicaragua in 1979, the dictatorships and governments imposed and sustained by U.S. governors in Nicaragua, the democrats who had called themselves democrats, left Nicaragua with 60% illiteracy.

Our first great battle was to do away with illiteracy and we began that great battle and managed to reduce illiteracy to 11.5-12%. We were unable to go any further because a policy of war was imposed on us by the Reagan administration.

We handed over government in 1990 with a 12.5% illiteracy rate in the country and received the country, in January 2007, with an illiteracy rate of 35%.

These are not figures invented by the government, they are data worked out by specialized educational and cultural agencies.

That is the result of the neoliberalism applied to Nicaragua, of the privatizations applied in Nicaragua, because public health was privatized, education was privatized, the poor were excluded; for other people the change was good, because they grew rich; the model has demonstrated that it is very successful in terms of accumulating wealth, successful in terms of expanding poverty. It is a great concentrator of wealth and a great multiplier of destitution and poverty.

It is a problem of an ethical order, a problem of a moral order on which the future rests, not only that of the most impoverished countries, like the five countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that I have mentioned here, in which we have nothing much more to lose than our chains, if there is not a change of values that allows us to be really sustainable.

It is no longer a matter of ideology, it is not a political matter; it is a matter of survival. And all of us are going there, from the G-20 to the G-5, we, the most impoverished of Latin America and the Caribbean.

I think that we have to take on this crisis that is affecting the world and which is leading to discussions, debates, the search for solutions, taking into account that the current model of development is no longer possible, is no longer sustainable.

The only way of saving all of ourselves is by changing the model.

Thank you very much.”

Daniel’s phrases at the opening of the Summit resembled the pealing of a bell tolling for a politics of centuries applied up until recently to the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

It is 19:58. I have just listened to the words of President Hugo Chávez. It would seem that Venezolana de Televisión smuggled a camera into the “Secret Summit” and transmitted some of his words. Yesterday, we saw him amiably returning Obama’s gesture of going over to where he was and greeting him, doubtless an intelligent gesture on the part of the president of the United States.

This time Chávez got up from his chair, went over to Obama’s chair at the head of a rectangular room together with Michelle Bachelet, and presented him with the well-known book by Galeano, The Open Veins of Latin America, systematically brought up to date by the author. I don’t know at which point in the day that took place, I’m simply mentioning the time when I heard it.

It was announced that the Summit is to end tomorrow at midday.

The president of the United States has been very active. According to the news he not only met with the Summit plenary, but also with all the sub-groups in the region.

His predecessor went to bed early and slept for many hours. It would seem that Obama works a lot and sleeps little.

Today, the 19th, at 11:57, I haven’t seen anything new. The CNN channel is without fresh news. I heard the 12 chimes of the clock; at that moment the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago took the Summit platform. I dedicated myself to listening to him, and noticed some rather strange things. Manning’s face was tense. After a while, Obama spoke and then responded to questions from the press; I saw him brusquer, although calm. What most caught my attention is that a press conference was organized, made up of various leaders, at which none of those who opposed the [final] documents spoke.

Manning had previously stated that the document was prepared two years ago when there was not a profound economic crisis and thus the current problems were not approached with total clarity. Undoubtedly, I thought, McCain was missing. Definitely the OAS, Leonel and the Dominican Republic recalled the surname of the military chief of the 1965 invaders and the 50,000 soldiers that occupied it to prevent the return of Juan Bosch, who was not a Marxist Leninist.

Those present at the press conference were prime minister of Canada, an openly rightist man and the only one to have been ill-mannered toward Cuba; Felipe Calderón, the president of Mexico; Martin Torrijos of Panama; and, logically, Patrick Manning. The Caribbean leader and the two Latin American ones were respectful toward Cuba. None of them attacked it and they had expressed their opposition to the blockade.

Obama spoke of the military might of the United States, which could help in the war on organized crime and the importance of the U.S. market. He likewise acknowledged that the programs being carried out by the Cuban government, such as sending medical contingents to Latin American and Caribbean countries, could be more effective than Washington’s military strength at the hour of winning influence in the region.

As Cubans, we do not do that in order to win influence; it is a tradition that began in Algeria in 1963, when it was fighting against French colonialism, and we have done so in dozens of Third World countries.

He was brusque and evasive in relation to the blockade in his interview with the press; but he was already born and will be 48 on August 4.

That same month, nine days later, I shall be 83, almost double his age, but now I have much more time to think. I wish to remind him of an elemental ethical principle related to Cuba: any injustice, any crime, in any epoch has no excuse whatsoever for lasting; the cruel blockade against the Cuban people costs lives, costs suffering; it also affects the economy on which a nation is sustained and limits its possibilities of cooperating with services in health, education, sport, energy savings and environmental protection with many poor countries of the world.

Fidel Castro Ruz
April 19, 2009
2:32 p.m.