Reflections of Fidel

I liked history, as most boys do. Wars as well, a culture that society sowed in male children. All the toys offered us were weapons.

In my childhood they sent me to a city where I was never taken to a movie theater. Television did not exist then, and there was no radio in the house in which I lived. I had to use my imagination.

In the first boarding school, I read with amazement about the Universal Flood and Noah’s Ark. Later on I came to the conclusion that maybe it was a vestige that humanity retained of the last climate change in the history of our species. It was possibly the end of the Ice Age, which is thought to have taken place thousands of years ago. (more…)

AS the Revolution celebrated its 51st anniversary two days ago, memories of that January 1st of 1959 came to mind. The outlandish idea that, after half a century — which flew by — we would remember it as if it were yesterday, never occurred to any of us. (more…)

The United States, in its struggle against the Revolution, had in the Venezuelan government its best ally: the choice specimen Mr. Romulo Betancourt Bello. We did not know it then. He had been elected President on December 7, 1958; he had not taken office yet when the Cuban Revolution triumphed on January 1st, 1959. Weeks later I had the privilege of being invited by the provisional government of Wolfgang Larrazabal to visit Bolivar’s homeland, which had been so supportive of Cuba.

Very seldom in my life had I seen a warmer people. The film images are still preserved. We drove down the broad highway that replaced the paved road I was taken through the first time I traveled to Venezuela in 1948 -from Maiquetia to Caracas- by the most reckless drivers I had ever seen.

That time I heard the noisiest, longest and most embarrassing booing of my life when I dared to mention the name of the recently elected President-to-be. The more radical masses of the heroic and combative Caracas had overwhelmingly voted against him.

The “illustrious” Romulo Betancourt was referred to with interest by Latin America and Caribbean political circles.

What was the explanation for that? He had been so radical when he was young that at the age of 23 he became a full member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Costa Rica and remained there from 1931 to 1935. Those were the hard times of the Third International. From Marxism-Leninism he learned about the class structure in a society, the exploitation of men by men throughout history and the development of colonization, capitalism and imperialism in recent centuries.

In 1941, together other leftist leaders, he founded the Partido Accion Democratica (Democratic Action Party) in Venezuela.

He acted as provisional president of Venezuela from October 1945 to February 1948 by virtue of a civic and military coup d’etat. He went again into exile when the eminent Venezuelan writer and intellectual, Romulo Gallegos, was elected Constitutional President and almost immediately after was ousted.

The well-lubricated machinery of his party elects him President during the elections held on December 7, 1958, after the Venezuelan revolutionary forces, led by Junta Patriotica (Patriotic Junta) that was headed by Fabricio Ojeda, overthrew the dictatorship of General Perez Jimenez.

By the end of 1959, when I spoke at Plaza del Silencio, where hundreds of thousands of people had gathered, and I mentioned, out of sheer courtesy, the name of Betancourt, there was this colossal booing that I mentioned earlier against the President-elect. To me that was a true lesson of political realism. Later I had to pay a visit to him, since he was the President-elect of a friendly nation. I found him to be an embittered and resentful man. He was already the model of “democratic and representative” government the empire needed. He collaborated as much as he could with the Yankees previous to the mercenary invasion through Giron.

Fabricio Ojeda, a sincere and unforgettable friend of the Cuban Revolution, whom I had the privilege to meet and with whom I talked extensively, told me later much about the political process in his homeland and the Venezuela he dreamed of. He was one of the many persons assassinated by that regime, which was totally to the service of the imperialism.

Almost half a century has gone by ever since. I can attest to the exceptional cynicism of the empire that we, the Revolutionary Cubans, the proud heirs of Bolivar and Marti, have indefatigably confronted.

During all these years, ever since the days of Fabricio Ojeda, the world has changed significantly. The military and technological power of that empire has grown bigger, and so have its experience and total absence of ethics. Its media is ever more costly and less committed to moral standards.

To accuse Hugo Chavez, the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, of inciting a war against the people of Colombia and unleash an arms race, to portray him as the mastermind and promoter of drug trafficking, and accuse him of repressing the freedom of expression, violating human rights and other similar misdeeds is a repugnant and cynical action, as everything else that the empire has done, still does and promotes. We can neither ever forget nor stop reiterating realities. Objective and well-reasoned truth is the most important weapon with which we should ceaselessly hammer into the conscience of peoples.

The US government -it is necessary to remind us of that- promoted and supported the fascist coup d’etat in Venezuela on April 11, 2002, and after it failed, it pinned all its hopes in an oil coup, supported with technical programs and resources capable of destroying any government, thus underestimating the people and the revolutionary leadership of that country.

Ever since then, the US government has ceaselessly plotted against the Venezuelan revolutionary process, just as it did and has continued to do against the Revolution in our Homeland for fifty years now. The United States is far more interested in controlling Venezuela -given its huge energy resources and the other raw materials it has, which are obtained at negligible prices, as well as the huge facilities and services owned by transnationals- than Cuba.

After violently crushing the Revolution in Central America and thwarting, by bloody and repressive coups, the democratic and progressive advances in South America, the empire could not resign itself to the construction of socialism in Venezuela. This is a real fact that could not be denied by or hidden from those with a minimum political education in Latin America or elsewhere in the world.

It is worthwhile remembering that not even after the coup promoted by the United States on April 2002 the Venezuelan government armed itself. One oil barrel was hardly 20 dollars worth, a currency that was already devalued since 1971, when Nixon suspended the gold standard mechanism, almost thirty years before Chavez became President. When he took office, the Venezuelan oil was hardly 10 dollars worth. Afterwards, when prices went up, he invested the country’s resources in social programs, development and investment projects and cooperation with several Caribbean and Central American nations and other poorer economies in South America. No other country had offered such a generous cooperation.

He did not buy a single rifle during the first years of his government. He even did something that no other country would have done at a time when his integrity was at stake: he legally suspended the obligation of every honest and revolutionary citizen to defend their country with the arms in their hands.

I would rather say that the Bolivarian Republic waited for too long to acquire new weapons. The infantry rifles they had were the same that existed more than 50 years ago, when the head of the Provisional Government, Admiral Larrazabal, presented me with an automatic FAL rifle on November 1958, the penultimate month of the war. Venezuela continued to use that kind of infantry weaponry for several years after Chavez took office.

It was the US government the one that decreed the disarmament of Venezuela, when it banned the supplies of spare parts for all the Yankee military equipment which it had traditionally sold to that country, including fighting planes, military transport aircraft and even communication equipment and radars. Accusing Venezuela of engaging in an arms build-up is an extremely hypocritical attitude.

Quite on the contrary, the United States has supplied billions of dollars worth in arms, means of combat, aircraft and training to the Armed Forces of the neighboring Colombia. The pretext was the struggle against the guerrillas. I can bear witness to the efforts made by President Hugo Chavez in his quest for the internal peace in that sister nation. The Yankees not only supplied weapons; they also instilled feelings of hatred against Venezuela among the troops they trained, as they did in Honduras, through the Task Force based in Palmerola.

Wherever the US has military bases, it supplies the combat units with the same type of uniform and equipment used by the interventionist troops of that country anywhere else in the world. The United States does not need soldiers of its own, as in Iraq, Afghanistan or the northern region of Pakistan, to plot acts of genocide against our peoples.

The imperialist extreme right, which holds the reins of power, resorts to brazen lies to mask its plans.

The Venezuelan-American lawyer and analyst, Eva Golinger has shown how the strategic arguments used in the message sent on May, 2009, to the United States Congress to justify an investment in the military base of Palanquero were absolutely altered in the agreement whereby the United States received that same base together with several other civil and military facilities. The document sent to the Congress on November 16 entitled “Addendum to reflect terms of the US-Colombia Defense Cooperation Agreement” that signed on October 30, 2009, has been completely altered, as was explained by the analyst. The document is no longer about “the mobility mission providing access to the entire South American continent with the exception of Cape Horn.” All references to global reach operations, security theaters and increased capability of the US Armed Forces to launch an expeditious warfare in the region have also been modified, according to the sharp and well informed analyst.

Furthermore, it is obvious that the President of the Bolivarian Republic is striving very hard to overcome the obstacles put by the United States against Latin American countries, among them, social violence and drug trafficking. The American society was not able to prevent drug trafficking and consumption, the consequences of which are affecting many countries of the region.

Violence has been of the most exported products by the United States capitalist society during the last half a century, through the increasing use of the media and the so called entertainment industry. Those are new phenomena that the human society did not know about before. Such means could be used to create new values in a more humane and just society.

Developed capitalism created the so called consumption societies and with that it also created problems that it is not able to solve today.

Venezuela is the country that has more rapidly been implementing the social programs that can counteract those extremely negative trends. The colossal successes achieved in the last Bolivarian Sport Games is a proof of that.

At the UNASUR meeting, the Foreign Minister of the Bolivarian Republic made a crystal-clear explanation about the problem of peace in the region. What is the position adopted by each country regarding the installation of Yankee bases in South America? This is an obligation not only of each and every State, but also a moral obligation of each and every conscious and honest man and woman of our hemisphere and the world. The empire should know that whatever the circumstances, Latin Americans will fight tirelessly for their most sacred rights.

There are far more serious and pressing problems affecting all peoples in the world: climate change is perhaps the worst and most urgent at this moment.

Before December 18, each State should adopt a decision. Once again the illustrious Peace Nobel Laureate, Barack Obama, should define his position regarding this thorny issue.

Since he accepted the responsibility of receiving the Prize, he will have to respond to the ethical request launched by Michael Moore when he heard the news: “now you should earn it!” I wonder if he could. At a time when there is a unanimous demand on the part of scientific circles to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by no less than 30 per cent of the levels attained in 1990, the United States is only offering to reduce 17 per cent of what it emitted in 2005, which hardly accounts for 5 percent of the minimum that Science demands from all the inhabitants of this planet by the year 2020. The United States consumes twice as much per inhabitant than Europe, and its emissions exceed those of China, despite its 1.338 billion inhabitants. An inhabitant of the society that consumes the most, emits tens of times more CO2 per capita that a citizen from a poor country of the Third World.

In only thirty more years, the no less than 9 billion human beings that will inhabit the planet will require that the carbon dioxide volumes emitted into the atmosphere be reduced to no less than 80 per cent of the 1990 levels. Such figures are being bitterly understood by an increasing number of leaders of rich countries. But the hierarchy that leads the most powerful and rich country in the planet, the United States, comforts itself by asserting that such predictions are scientific inventions.

Everybody knows that in Copenhagen, countries will, at best, agree on continuing discussions so that an agreement could be reached among the more than 200 States and institutions that should discuss about the commitments, among them, a very important one: which will be the rich countries that will contribute to the development and energy saving of the poorest countries and how much resources will they give?

Is there any margin for hypocrisy and deceit?

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 29, 2009
7:15 p.m.

Last July 16, I literally said that the coup d’etat in Honduras “was conceived and organized by unscrupulous characters on the far-right who were officials in the confidence of George W. Bush and had been promoted by him.”

I mentioned the names of Hugo Llorens, Robert Blau, Stephen McFarland and Robert Callahan, Yankee ambassadors to Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua appointed by Bush in the months of July and August 2008; the four pursued the line of John Negroponte and Otto Reich, two characters with an ominous history.

I then indicated that the Yankee base at Soto Cano had provided the main backup to the coup and that “the idea of a peace initiative from Costa Rica was transmitted to the president of that country from the State Department when Obama was in Moscow and he was declaring at a Russian university that the only president of Honduras was Manuel Zelaya,” and added: “With the Costa Rica meeting, the authority of the UN, the OAS and the other institutions that committed their support to the people of Honduras is being questioned.” “The only correct thing to do at this moment is to demand that the government of the United States ceases its intervention, stops giving military aid to the coup and pulls out its Task Force from Honduras.”

The US response to the coup d’etat in that Central American country has been to strike an agreement with the government of Colombia in order to set up seven military bases similar to that of Soto Cano in that sister nation thus menacing Venezuela, Brazil and every other people in South America.

At a critical moment, when the tragedy of the climate change and the international economic crisis are under discussion at a UN summit conference of heads of States, the putschists in Honduras are threatening the immunity of the Brazilian Embassy where President Zelaya, his family and a group of followers were forced to seek sanctuary.

The fact is that the government of Brazil had absolutely nothing to do with the situation created there.

Consequently, it is inadmissible –actually inconceivable– that the Brazilian Embassy may be assaulted by the fascist government, unless it intends to commit suicide dragging the country to a direct intervention of foreign forces, –as it was the case in Haiti which would mean the intervention of Yankee troops under the UN flag. Honduras is not a remote isolated country in the Caribbean. An intervention in Honduras with foreign forces would unleash a conflict in Central America and bring political chaos to the entire Latin American region.

The heroic struggle of the Honduran people during almost 90 days of ceaseless battle has placed the fascist pro-Yankee government, which is crushing unarmed men and women, in a critical situation.

We have seen the emergence of a new conscience among the Honduran people. Legions of social fighters have gained experience in that battle. Zelaya delivered on his promise to return. He is entitled to his position in the government and to preside over the elections. New and admirable cadres are outstanding in the combative social movements; they are capable of leading that people through the hazardous journey ahead of the peoples of Our America. A Revolution is in the making there.

The current session of the United Nations General Assembly can be a historic one depending on its rights and/or wrongs.

The world leaders have presented very interesting and complex subjects, which reflect the enormity of the tasks facing humanity and the little time available.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 24, 2009
1:23 PM

I have been watching for hours now on television the tribute that the entire country is paying to Commander of the Revolution Juan Almeida Bosque. I think that facing death was for him just another duty as so many others he discharged throughout his life. He did not know (neither did we) how much sadness the news of his physical absence would bring to us.

I was privileged to know that young black militant worker who would successively be the leader of a revolutionary group, a combatant at the Moncada, a comrade in prison, a platoon captain at the time of the Granma landing, an officer with the Rebel Army –held back by a shot on his chest during the violent combat at Uveroâ the Commander of a column marching on to create the Third Eastern Front, and the comrade sharing the leadership of our forces in the last successful battles to overthrow the tyranny.

I was an exceptional witness to his exemplary conduct for over half a century of heroic and victorious resistance in the struggle against the bandits, during the Giron counteroffensive, the Missile Crisis, the internationalist missions and the resistance to the imperialist blockade.

It was a pleasure to listen to some of his songs, especially the one particularly emotional where he bade farewell to human dreams in response to the homeland’s call to “win or die”. I was not aware that he had composed over 300 songs in addition to his literary work, a source of historical narratives and enjoyable readings. He defended principles of justice that will be defended at any time and age while human beings breathe on Earth.

Let’s not say that Almeida is dead! Almeida lives today more than ever!

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 13, 2009
3:12 P.M.

Three days ago, in the evening of Thursday 25th, I wrote in my Reflections: “We do not know what will happen tonight or tomorrow in Honduras, but the courageous behavior adopted by Zelaya will go down in history.”

Two paragraphs before I had indicated that: “The situation that might result from whatever occurs in that country will be a test for the OAS and the current US administration.”

The prehistoric Inter-American institution met in Washington the following day and in a halfhearted and spiritless resolution promised to immediately make the necessary efforts to bring about harmony between the contending parties; that is, a negotiation between the putschists and the Constitutional President of Honduras.

The high ranking military chief who was still in command of the Honduran Armed Forces was making public statements different from the President’s position while recognizing his authority in a merely formal way.

The putschists needed barely anything else from the OAS. They couldn’t care less for the presence of a large number of international observers who had traveled to that country to bear witness to a referendum and who had been talking with Zelaya until late into the night. Today, before dawn, they launched on the President’s home about 200 well-trained and equipped professional troops who roughly set aside the members of the Guard of Honor and kidnapped Zelaya –who was sleeping at the moment– taking him to an air base and forcibly putting him on a plane to Costa Rica. At 8:30 a.m. we learned from Telesur of the assault on the Presidential House and the kidnapping. The President was unable to attend the initial activity related to the referendum that was to take place this Sunday and his whereabouts were unknown.

The official television channel was silenced. They wanted to prevent the early spread of the news of the treacherous action through Telesur and Cubavision Internacional, which were reporting the events. Therefore, they first suspended the broadcasting centers and then cut off electricity to the entire country. At the moment, the Supreme Court and the Congress involved in the conspiracy had yet to make public the decisions that justified the plot. They first carried out the indescribable military coup and then legalized it.

The people woke up to a fait accompli and started to react with growing indignation. Zelaya’s destination was unknown. Three hours later the people’s reaction was such that we could see women punching soldiers with their fists and the latter’s weapons falling off their hands as they were nervous and confused. At the beginning, their movements resembled a strange combat with ghosts; later, they tried to cover Telesur’s cameras with their hands and nervously aimed their guns at the reporters. Sometimes, when the people advanced the troops stepped back. At this point, armored vehicles carrying cannons and machineguns were sent in as the people fearlessly discussed with the crews of the armored vehicles. The people’s reaction was amazing.

Approximately at 2:00 in the afternoon, a tamed majority in Congress –in coordination with the putschists– toppled Zelaya, the Constitutional President of Honduras, and appointed a new head of State announcing to the world that the former had resigned and showing a forged signature. A few minutes later, from an airport in Costa Rica, Zelaya related everything that had happened and categorically refuted the news about his resignation. The plotters had placed themselves in a ridiculous situation in the eyes of the world.

Many other things happened today. Cubavision took all of its time to expose the coup and keep our people informed.

Some events were purely fascist in nature and even if expected they are still astonishing.

Honduran Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas was the putschists’ main target, second only to Zelaya. Another detachment was sent to her residence. She was brave and determined, and she acted quickly; she did not waste time and started denouncing the coup in every way possible. Our ambassador contacted Patricia to learn about the situation; other ambassadors did likewise. At a given moment, she asked the diplomatic representatives of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba to meet with her since she was being fiercely hounded and required diplomatic protection. Our ambassador, who from the first moments was authorized to offer the minister all the constitutional and legal support, proceeded to visit her in her own residence.

When the diplomats were already in her house, the putschist command sent Major Oceguera to put her under arrest. The diplomats stood between the woman and the officer and claimed she was under diplomatic protection and could only be moved accompanied by them. Oceguera discussed with them in a respectful fashion. A few minutes later, 12 or 15 men in uniform and covering their faces with ski masks rushed into the house. The three ambassadors embraced Patricia but the masked men using force managed to separate the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan ambassadors; Hernandez held her so strongly by one arm that the masked men dragged them both to a van and drove to an air base where they finally separated him and took her away. As he was there in custody, Bruno, who had news of the kidnapping called him to the cell phone; one of the masked men tried to violently snatch the phone out of his hands and the Cuban ambassador, who had already been punched in Patricia’s home, shouted: “Don’t push me, cojones!” I don’t remember if the term was ever used by Cervantes, but there is no doubt that ambassador Juan Carlos Hernandez has enriched our language.

Later, he was abandoned in a road far from the Cuban mission not before being warned that something worse could happen to him if he talked. “Nothing can be worse than death,” he answered with dignity, “and still I’m not afraid of you.” Then people from the area helped him to return to the embassy and from there he immediately called Bruno again.

There is no way to negotiate with that putschist high command. They must be asked to abdicate while other younger officers, uninvolved with the oligarchy, take charge of the military command; otherwise, there will never be in Honduras a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

There is no hope for the cornered and isolated putschists if the problem is faced with determination.

Even Mrs. Clinton stated this afternoon that Zelaya is the only President of Honduras and the Honduran putschists can’t even breathe without the support of the United States of America.

Zelaya, a man who was in his pyjamas just a few hours ago, will be recognized by the world as the only Constitutional President of Honduras.

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 28, 2009
6:14 PM.

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.

If I said that chaos prevails in the United States it would be considered an overstatement; it would be said that that country is a democracy where there is justice, respect for human rights and a division of powers based on the principles of Montesquieu and the Philadelphia Declaration.

Of course, I’m not referring to Cheney’s spirited defense of the right to torture or to Bush’s remarks in Toronto while hundreds of protesters claimed for his impeachment as a war criminal.

But you would be amazed to look at the bulletin with press dispatches. Several news agencies have reported that a judge granted an over 1 billion dollar compensation in damages on the part of the government to a Cuban American involved in the capture and death of revolutionary Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, on account of the suicide of the man’s father in 1959.

“Judge Peter Adrien from the Miami Dade Circuit said on Friday that he wanted to send a message to the Cuban people.

“The magistrate’s ruling responded to a lawsuit filed by Gustavo Villoldo who blamed Guevara, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and others for his father’s suicide in Cuba in 1959. The family escaped to the United States and subsequently Villoldo took part in the Bay of Pigs invasion and in Guevara’s capture in Bolivia.

“Villoldo’s father took his life with an overdose of barbiturates on February 1959, that is, shortly after Fidel Castro, Guevara and other guerrillas took power in Cuba. Villoldo senior was a prominent Cuban businessman. He was also an American citizen, and the owner of a major General Motors concession, a 13,000 hectare farm (33,000 acres) and other properties.

“Villoldo junior later joined the U.S. Armed Forces and the CIA. A few years down the road, he was with the group that captured Che in Bolivia in 1967. Subsequently, Guevara was executed and buried in the South American nation.”

Another press dispatch reads that: “The compensation is the largest granted so far in lawsuits brought against the Cuban government after a $253 million one accorded to the children of Cuban Rafael del Pino Siero who died in jail after he separated from the Castro regime.” It doesn’t say a word about the traitor sentenced to prison for selling Granma’s secrets for 35,000 dollars -the equivalent of almost a million dollars now- risking the lives of the 82 members of the expedition.

“A compensation of 187 million dollars was also paid to the families of three pilots. These were the members of the exile group ‘Brothers to the Rescue’ whose aircrafts were shot down in 1996 by Cuban planes in international waters.” They were real pirates who used military aircraft bought after the Vietnam War to break into our air space and fly at low altitude over the capital of the country.

Just three days ago it was reported that, under pressure from Dan Burton and other anti-Cuban lawmakers, the Mayor of New York had ordered a statue of Che –by German artist Christian Jankowski– to be taken away from Central Park. This was on display as part of a travelling exhibition called “Live Sculptures” which included the figure of the man whose assassination was dictated by the government of that country. Such is justice in the United States!

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 30, 2009
4:15 p.m.