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.

As one might imagine, later I avidly read the histories of Alexander the Great, Caesar, Hannibal, Bonaparte and, of course, any book that came into my hands on Maceo, Gómez, Agramonte and other great soldiers who fought for our independence. I did not possess sufficient culture to understand what lay behind history.

Later on, I centered my interest in Martí. In reality I owe my patriotic sentiments to him and the profound concept that “Homeland is humanity.” The audacity, the beauty, the value and the ethics of his thinking helped to convert me into what I believe I am: a revolutionary. Without being a follower of Martí one cannot be a follower of Bolívar; without being a follower of Martí and Bolívar, one cannot be a Marxist and, without being a follower of Martí, Bolívar and a Marxist, one cannot be anti-imperialist; without being those three things a Revolution in Cuba in our epoch could not have been conceived.

Almost two centuries ago, Bolívar wanted to send an expedition under the command of Sucre to liberate Cuba, which really needed it, in the 1820s, as a Spanish sugar and coffee colony, with 300,000 slaves working for their white owners.

With its independence frustrated and converted into a neo-colony, the full dignity of human beings could never be attained without a revolution that would end the exploitation of people by other people.

“…I want the first law of our republic to be the veneration of Cubans for the full dignity of human beings.”

With his thinking, Martí inspired the valor and conviction that led our [26th of July] Movement to the assault on the Moncada Garrison, which would have never entered our heads without the ideas of other great thinkers like Marx and Lenin, who made us see and understand the very distinct realities of the new era that we were experiencing.

Throughout centuries, the odious latifundia ownership and its slave workforce, preceded by the extermination of the former inhabitants of these islands, was justified in the name of progress and development.
Martí said something marvelous and worthy of Bolívar and his glorious life:
“…what he did not leave done, remains undone to this day: because Bolívar has still much to do in America.”

“Let Venezuela show me how to serve her: she has a son in me.”

In Venezuela, as others did in the Caribbean, the colonial power planted sugar cane, coffee, and cacao, and likewise took men and women from Africa as slaves. The heroic resistance of its indigenous peoples, using nature and the vast Venezuelan soil, prevented the annihilation of the original inhabitants.

With the exception of one part of the northern hemisphere, the vast territory of Our America remained in the hands of two kings of the Iberian Peninsula.

Without fear it can be affirmed that, for centuries, our countries and the fruits of the labor of our peoples have been plundered and continue being plundered by the large transnational corporations and the oligarchies that are in their service.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries; in other words, for almost 200 years after the formal independence of Ibero-America, nothing changed in essence. The United States, starting with the Thirteen English colonies that rebelled, expanded west and south. It purchased Louisiana and Florida, snatched more than half of its territory from Mexico, intervened in Central America and took possession of the area of the future Panama Canal, which would link the great oceans east and west of the continent via the point where Bolívar wished to create the capital of the largest of the republics that would be born from the independence of the nations of America.

In that epoch, oil and ethanol were not traded in the world, nor did the WTO exist. Sugar cane, cotton and corn were cultivated by slaves. Machines were still to be invented. Industrialization based on coal was strongly advancing.

Wars gave impulse to civilization, and civilization gave impulse to wars. These changed in nature, and became more terrible. They finally became world conflicts.

Finally, we were a civilized world. We even believed in it as a question of principles.

But we do not know what to do with the civilization attained. Human beings have equipped themselves with nuclear weapons of unbelievable accuracy and annihilation potency while, from the moral and political point of view, they have ignominiously retrogressed. Politically and socially, we are more underdeveloped than ever. Automatons are replacing soldiers; the mass media, educators, and governments are beginning to be overtaken by events without knowing what to do. In the desperation of many international political leaders one can appreciate an impotency in the face of the problems that are accumulating in their offices and steadily more frequent international meetings.

In those circumstances, an unprecedented disaster is taking place in Haiti, while on the other side of the planet, three wars and an arms race are continuing their development, in the midst of the economic crisis and growing conflicts, which is consuming more than 2.5% of the global GDP, a figure with which all the Third World countries could be developed in a short period of time and possibly evade climate change by devoting the economic and scientific resources that are essential to that objective.

The credibility of the world community has just received a harsh blow in Copenhagen, and our species is not demonstrating its capacity for surviving.

The tragedy of Haiti allows me to expound on this point of view based on what Venezuela has done with the countries of the Caribbean. While the large financial institutions vacillate over what to do in Haiti, Venezuela did not hesitate for one second to cancel that country’s economic debt of $167 million.

Throughout close to one century the major transnationals extracted and exported Venezuelan oil at infinitesimal prices. Over the decades, Venezuela became the largest world exporter of oil.

It is known that when the United States spent hundreds of billions on its genocidal war on Vietnam, killing and mutilating millions of the sons and daughters of that heroic people, it also unilaterally broke the Bretton Woods Agreement by suspending the conversion of gold into dollars, as the agreement stipulated, and launching the cost of that dirty war on the world. The U.S. currency was devalued and the hard currency income of the Caribbean countries was not sufficient to pay for oil. Their economies are based on tourism and exports of sugar, coffee, cacao and other agricultural products. A stunning blow threatened the economies of the Caribbean states, with the exception of two of them that are exporters of energy.

Other developed countries eliminated preferential tariffs for Caribbean agricultural exports, like bananas; Venezuela made an unprecedented gesture: it guaranteed the majority of those countries secure supplies of oil and special payment facilities.

On the other hand, nobody was concerned about the destiny of those peoples. If it were not for the Bolivarian Republic a terrible crisis would have hit the independent states of the Caribbean, with the exception of Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados. In the case of Cuba, after the USSR collapsed, the Bolivarian government promoted an extraordin
ary growth in trade between the two nations, which included the exchange of goods and services, which permitted us to confront one of the harshest periods of our glorious revolutionary history.

The finest ally of the United States and, at the same time the basest and vilest enemy of the people, was the fraudster and simulator Rómulo Betancourt, president-elect of Venezuela when the Revolution triumphed in Cuba in 1959.

He was the principal accomplice of the pirate attacks, acts of terrorism, aggressions against and the blockade of our homeland.

When Our America most needed it, the Bolivarian Revolution finally broke out.

Invited to Caracas by Hugo Chávez, the members of the ALBA committed themselves to lend maximum support to the Haitian people at the saddest moment in the history of that legendary people, who carried out the first victorious social Revolution in world history, when hundreds of thousands of Africans, in rising up and creating in Haiti a republic thousands of miles away from their native lands, undertook one of the most glorious revolutionary actions of this hemisphere. In Haiti, there is African, Indian and white blood; the Republic was born from the concepts of equality, justice and liberty for all human beings.

Ten years ago, at a point when the Caribbean and Central America lost tens of thousands of lives during the tragedy of Hurricane Mitch, the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) was created in Cuba to train Latin American and Caribbean doctors who, one day, would save millions of lives, but especially and above all, would serve as an example in the noble exercise of the medical profession. Together with the Cubans, dozens of young Venezuelans and other Latin American graduates of ELAM will be in Haiti. News has arrived from all corners of the continent of many compañeros who studied at ELAM and now want to collaborate with them in the noble task of saving the lives of children, women and men, young and old.

There will be dozens of field hospitals, rehabilitation centers and hospitals, in which more than 1,000 doctors and students in the final years of medical school from Haiti, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile and other sister countries will be providing services. We have the honor of already being able to count on a number of American doctors who also studied in ELAM. We are prepared to cooperate with those countries and institutions which wish to participate in these efforts to provide medical services in Haiti.

Venezuela has already contributed tents, medical equipment, medicine and foodstuffs. The Haitian government has given full cooperation and support to this effort to bring health services free of charge to the largest possible number of Haitians. It will be a consolation for everybody in the midst of the greatest tragedy that has taken place in our hemisphere.

Fidel Castro Ruz

February 7, 2010
8:46 p.m.

The post The Bolivarian Revolution and the Caribbean appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

What’s incredible is that only 12 days ago the Yankee legal system released Santiago Alvarez Fernandez-Magriña, who at the moment of his arrest was in possession of 1500 war weapons, hand grenades and other means to be used in terrorist actions against our people.

It was the second batch of weapons supplied to the CIA agent who, at the service of the US government, has dedicated a large part of his life to terrorism against Cuba.

It would be worthwhile that Barack Obama’s advisors, who so often broadcast his speeches on television, request and show to the president a copy of the Cubavision Round Table which analyzed the ridiculous four-year sentence in a minimum security prison given to Santiago Alvarez for the weapons seized from him. Worse still, his sanction was reduced after he surrendered to the US Attorney’s office another batch of weapons larger than the previous one. The man had also sent a group to infiltrate into Cuba with instructions to, among other things, blast an explosive charge inside the always crowded Tropicana Cabaret. There is irrefutable material evidence of such instructions.

Another terrorist of Cuban descent, Roberto Ferro, an ally of the Posada Carriles’ and Santiago Alvarez’s terrorist Mafia, was arrested on July 1991 with a cache of 300 fire arms, detonators and plastic explosive. He was sentenced to two years in jail. In April 2006, the authorities found in hidden compartments in his house 1571 hand weapons and grenades. He was given a five-year prison sentence.

No matter how much is said it will never be enough to describe the cynical US policy that includes Cuba in the list of terrorist countries and applies the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act only to our nation, which it targets with an economic blockade preventing even the sale of medical equipment and medicines. Yesterday, our TV Round Table listed Santiago Alvarez crimes while it showed Miami broadcasts where a notorious US agent, Antonio Veciana, related the plans they had to use explosives and bullets to murder Cuban leaders, including Camilo and Che, who were with me at a massive rally of hundreds of thousands of people in front of the old Presidential Palace, or to murder me during a press conference in Chile when I visited President Salvador Allende. Ultimately, as the mercenary himself confessed, the CIA hirelings were overcome by fear. And these were only two of the many assassination plans conceived by the government of that country.

Such misdeeds can be remembered in cold blood except when, as it is the case now, their description coincides with the news of the death, after a lengthy illness, of an honest and brave mother like Carmen Nordelo Tejera whose son has been unfairly given two life-sentences plus 15 years of isolated and cruel incarceration in a high security prison. What pain could be tougher for her than the unjust life-sentence given to his son for crimes he never committed?

It is impossible to lay a wreath on her grave without denouncing once again the repugnant cynicism of the empire.

This combines with another terrible news received this same afternoon: the official signing of the agreement allowing the United States to establish seven military bases in the heart of Our America to threaten not only Venezuela but also every other people in the Center and South of our hemisphere. This is not the action of the Bush Administration; it is Barack Obama who’s signing that agreement, in violation of legal, constitutional and ethical norms, at a moment when the fruits of the nefarious Yankee military base of Palmerola, in Honduras, are still there for the world to see. The military coup d’etat in that Central American country was dealt under the current administration.

Never before had the peoples of this hemisphere been so despised.

A country like Cuba is well aware that after the United States has established one of its military bases it only leaves if it wants to or it forcibly stays as it has done in Guantanamo, for over one hundred years. It was there that the US established the hateful torture center whose dungeons with numerous prisoners our distinguished Nobel Prize has not been able to remove. As soon as the return of the Manta base in Ecuador became effective, the seven military bases imposed to the Colombian people were made official. The pretext was the fight on drug-trafficking which, like the scourge of the paramilitaries, came up from the enormous US market for cocaine and other drugs. The Yankee military bases in Latin America came into existence long before the drugs did only to be used as an instrument of interventionism.

For half a century, Cuba has proven that it is possible to fight and to resist. The US President and his advisors are wrong to carry on that sordid and contemptuous policy towards the peoples of Latin America. We do not hesitate to take sides with the Bolivarian people of Venezuela, its President Hugo Chavez and his minister of Foreign Affairs, in denouncing the infamous military pact imposed to the Colombian people, a pact whose expansionist provisions its authors have not even dared to make public.

Cuba shall continue to cooperate with the healthcare, education and social development programs of the fraternal peoples that despite obstacles, advances and setbacks will be increasingly free and unbeatable.

As Lincoln said: “you cannot deceive all of the people all of the time.”

We shall not only take flowers to the grave of Carmen Nordelo. We shall keep on restlessly struggling to free Gerardo, Antonio, Fernando, Ramon and Rene, exposing the endless hypocrisy and cynicism of the empire, and defending the truth!

This is the only way to honor the memory of the legions of mothers and women like her in Cuba who have sacrificed the best and most precious in their lives for the Revolution and for Socialism.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 3, 2009
12:35 pm

The post The Best Tribute to a Hero's Mother appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

On October 28, at 7:30 am, the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the physical disappearance of Camilo Cienfuegos; the sad event occurred one stormy evening as he was traveling in a light aircraft from Camaguey to the capital, along the north of Cuba.

He had fought his last victorious battle against the tyranny in Yaguajay, at the end of December 1958. The mausoleum was dedicated in that area where the remains of those who fell during the war in the Las Villas North Front or after January 1st, 1959 have been laid to rest; they will later be joined by those who fought with his Invading Column or connected with it in the center of the island, and who are still alive. Somebody then called him the Hero of Yaguajay and the title stuck to him. But he was more than that: he was the Hero of the Antonio Maceo Invading Column. The brave commander was advancing with his light column towards Pinar del Rio, and he would have reached its mountains if he had not received an order from the Sierra Maestra to stay in the center of the island and fight there with Che under his command. It was not necessary to put him at risk in that mission which was an incorrect interpretation of the historic circumstances. On January 2, he started with Che the historic march to the capital. There is so much to research and to reflect on that event!

Following a decision of the Party and the Government, as of this 50th Anniversary his steel silhouette shines together with that of the Heroic Guerrilla from the Revolution Square, guarding the statue of Our National Hero Jose Marti.

Also on October 28, at 9:00 in the morning, as fate would have it, the debate started on the resolution introduced by Cuba against the economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed by the US to our homeland. Numerous leaders from Third World countries spoke moving words that gave testimony of their appreciation for the indomitable and supportive country that for half a century has faced the ruthless and genocidal empire which emerged in the proximity of our island. A great number of countries felt that Cuba’s resistance was a struggle for their own right to sovereignty.

The discreet and supportive work of our people from the first years of the Revolution, and its heroic resistance despite the United States cruel blockade, was not forgotten by the overwhelming majority of the 192 sovereign states of the world.

The irrefutable arguments of our Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez sounded like a terrible pounding in that room sitting at the very heart of New York, and very close to Wall Street.

For the first time in many years of debate, every UN member state took part in the discussion of the thorny and compromising issue.

Even the European allies –members of NATO– and the developed, consumer-oriented and rich countries that make up the European Community felt obliged to express their disagreement with the economic blockade of Cuba. Our foreign minister gave a vigorous reply to the justifying and plaintive remarks of the US representative.

When the President of the Assembly took a vote on the resolution, of the 192 states present only three delegations voted against Cuba: the United States and its ally in the Palestinian holocaust, Israel, and the island of Palau. An American lawyer with Israeli citizenship, the representative of Palau, –a 281.2 sq. miles territory in the Pacific Ocean which spent nearly fifty years under the Yankee administration– sided with the United States at the UN. Two other states abstained and 187 condemned the blockade.

However, as fate would have it, these were not the only remarkable events for Cubans that day. That evening marked the end of the visit to our Homeland of Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), accompanied by Mirta Roses, Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Both represent the two most important international agencies taking responsibility for that crucial task. Last Tuesday I had the honor of meeting with them.

Since the issue of the A H1N1 influenza epidemic is of such great interest to every nation, especially those of the Third World, which have been the most affected by the consequences of plundering and exploitation, I asked them to make space in their tight schedule to have this meeting.

Despite the concern and efforts of our ministry of Public Health and its information programs intended for our people, I felt it could be advisable to delve into the epidemic subject.

Public health was one of the causes that made a Revolution necessary in Cuba. It is not my intention to relate the progress obtained which has turned us into the country with the largest number of medical doctors per capita in the world -an example of what can be done for other peoples even when this nation has been blockaded and attacked for half a century by the mighty empire. Our Homeland was not only the victim of a ruthless brain drain but also a target of biological aggressions by the US administration that not only used viruses and bacteria against plants and animals but also against the population. The dengue fever afflicted more than 300 thousand people. Actually, serotype 2 was introduced in Cuba and the hemisphere when it was not present as an epidemic in any other country.

Leaving out many data to make the story short, suffice it to remember in this Reflection that the dengue is transmitted by the mosquito but the A H1N1 influenza spreads more easily and directly through the respiratory tract.

Our people should know that at the end of World War I, an influenza epidemic took the lives of tens of millions of people at a time when the population of the planet hardly exceeded 1.5 billion. On the other hand, humanity had much less scientific and technical resources available than today.

This reality, however, should not lead us to be overconfident. When such epidemics break out, resources are needed to prevent and fight them, as it was the case with yellow fever, polio, tetanus and others, and the vaccines that for years have protected children and the population at large from many extremely harmful diseases.

Today, there are also other types of vaccines, especially those protecting the people from various flu viruses, which are given to those cases at greater risk due to permanent or temporary causes.

Our people should be mindful that it is more difficult to have vaccines against certain viruses because of their genetic mutations, as it is the case of those related to the A H1N1 flu and others.

The highly developed and rich countries have quite sophisticated and costly laboratories. Even Cuba, despite underdevelopment and the Yankee blockade, has been able to establish several labs for the production of vaccines and medications.

Internationally, there is a logical fear of the above-mentioned flu, given its dissemination capacity and its effects on certain more vulnerable persons. Aside from the aspects related to the international cooperation offered by our doctors, who have given Cuba great moral authority and prestige, I was interested in examining with the Director General of the WHO the issue of the A H1N1 epidemic. She confirmed to me that the difficulty with the vaccine is that laboratories with the capacity to produce them in Europe, the United States and Canada are turning out a much lower volume of vaccines than are required; there was a great demand in the developed nations and the first vaccines will not be available to the rest of the countries until the end of the year; at the same time, their prices show a marked growing trend. She has included Cuba among the countries which have been given a priority due to its international cooperation and its capacity to immediately vaccinate the most vulnerable through its network of hospitals.

Dr. Chan knows that wherever the Cuban doctors are, they will cooperate in the speedy vaccination of the people.

These are obviously positive news for our compatriots. However, we must bear in mind certain circumstances.

It will be several weeks or maybe two or three months before the first vaccines get here.

The main concern of the WHO is that the mutation capacity of the virus may quickly overtake the effect of the vaccines and then it would be necessary to start again the search for another effective vaccine. In my view, this determines the importance of an adequate network of medical services as we have in our country and of the systematic orientation to a population with high educational levels to obtain its cooperation in the relevant actions.

The lack of adequate medical services in many countries, including the United States where nearly 50 million people do not have access to medical care, raises considerably the number of potential victims. That country has declared a state of Health Emergency. Two days ago, I listened to a report that between November and March the A H1N1 flu could be the cause of 90 thousand deaths in the United States since winter favors the development of the epidemic. I wish such estimates are wrong and there is no such damage. With a population that is at least 27 times that of Cuba, it would be tantamount to over 3 thousand deaths in our country, and many million people in the world, in spite of the scientific breakthroughs.

The initial symptoms of the A H1N1 appeared in Mexico in the first quarter of the current year, and almost simultaneously in the United States and Canada. From there it extended to Spain, one of the first European countries where the epidemic spread.

When the current US President lifted the restrictions to Cuban Americans for travelling to Cuba, the epidemic had already extended to many states of the union. Thus, the four countries where the largest number of tourists and other travellers originate were precisely those where the epidemic had mostly spread in the world.

The first carriers of the virus here were travellers from overseas. Relatively few people were infected in our country and for months we had no virus-related deaths but as the virus extended to every province, mainly those with a higher number of relatives resident in the United States, it became necessary to purchase new laboratory equipment for the Pedro Kouri Tropical Medicine Institute and to multiply our efforts, while still fighting dengue.

So, we were faced with the intriguing situation that, on the one hand, the United States authorized the travelling of the largest number of virus carriers while, on the other, it banned the acquisition of equipment and medication to fight the epidemic. Of course, I don’t think it was the intention of the US administration, but it is the reality resulting from the absurd and shameful blockade imposed to our people.

With the equipment purchased elsewhere we are in a position to know, with absolute precision, the total number of people affected by the epidemic and those whose death may be related to the presence of the virus.

Fortunately, in addition to the services and the well-trained medical personnel in our country, there is in the international market an antiviral medication particularly effective when given to the people with clear symptoms of carrying the virus and to those providing direct care to them.

We have that antiviral and also the necessary raw material to continue producing a similar amount to that available; additionally, we shall spare no effort to have the indispensable doses.

Even if many countries fail to provide the international agencies with the relevant information about the epidemic, for lack of networks of services and medical personnel, we know that our government is determined to communicate with absolute accuracy to such agencies the number of cases and deaths related to the epidemic, as we have always done with the public health data of Cuba.

Fortunately, our country has an extensive network of healthcare services. The possibility to provide immediate care to those afflicted by the disease is real; we also have a sufficient number of medical doctors with quality training, many of whom have fulfilled honorable and unforgettable internationalist missions.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 30, 2009
2:52 pm

The post Relevant News appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

Something quite different is thinking bitterly about those countries which do not have these equipment; sadder still is the fact that a country from the Third World realizes that all its efforts are hindered because of a stupid measure imposed by a rich and powerful country on those who manufacture those equipment: to discontinue the supply of spare parts required for their use.

Cuban cardiology specialists both in Venezuela and in Cuba operate 28 Philips echocardiographs, without which an accurate and completely safe diagnosis would be impossible. For every one of them that goes out of order, five hundred patients will stop receiving that vital service every month.

In our country, cardiopathies account for the first cause of death; in Venezuela the situation is more or less the same. Defibrillators are the instruments par excellence that allow patients to recover from a cardiac arrest, from which they could die if they don’t receive urgent assistance. Of the 3,553 equipment bought from Philips, 2,000 were of this type, and were being used in the Cuban Polyclinics as well as in the Venezuelan ‘Barrio Adentro’ Diagnostic Centers.

The 12 different Philips equipment which were bought at a price of 72,762,694 dollars, were all indispensable to offer high-quality services in Cuba and in the ‘Barrio Adentro’ No.1 and No. 2 programs in Venezuela, which were being implemented with the participation of Cuban doctors and specialists. Those equipment were bought and paid for by our country, as had been previously agreed.

The Siemens equipment, with the exception of some that were sent to Bolivia, were operating in Cuba and in the two Venezuelan programs. The total cost of the equipment bought from that firm amounted to 85,430,000 dollars. In addition to the two aforementioned companies, others from Europe and Japan supplied important additional equipment for the 27 High-Tech Diagnostic Centers of ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 2.

Philips does not question the data published. The complete discontinuation in the supply of spare parts started as from the end of the year 2006; almost three years have elapsed ever since.

That firm recognizes that the demands of the US government had been the reason behind the discontinuation of supplies until recently, when it paid a fine of 100,000 Euros, a ludicrous figure as compared to the 72 millions that were paid to that company for those equipment.

As far as we understood, there was no violation whatsoever of any of the rules imposed on the world by the empire. We were dealing with medical equipment, destined to save lives; those are not weapons.

In January, 2007, the Bush administration appointed John Negroponte -the scourge of the Nicaraguan people during the dirty war that was waged against that country, which began in 1981 from the Yankee base of Palmerola in Honduras- as Under-secretary of State. He had accumulated a sinister record during the wars of aggression against Vietnam and Iraq. He was the Director of the powerful National Intelligence Agency. He accompanied the US President at the White House Conference held by mid 2007, where so much was talked about education and health. They were both aware that our specialists offered their medical services using Philips equipment in Cuba and in Venezuela. They had exerted some pressures on the Dutch firm and managed to prevent this from supplying spare parts for those equipment.

Social programs in Venezuela emerged as a result of the Bolivarian Revolution. I do not need to praise the close historical links and the friendship ties that unite both peoples.

I already explained the decision taken by President Hugo Chavez which gave rise to our cooperation programs. Likewise, on the early days of 2007, he came across the idea of adding the ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 3 program to the already existing ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 1 and No. 2 programs. This new program would be carried out by Venezuelan doctors and the cost of the equipment would be covered by Venezuela.

Chavez, who knew very well about our experience in negotiating with the medical equipment manufacturing firms, and the excellent prices that we got, given the volume of the operations, asked our country to buy medical equipment, instruments and inputs hundreds of millions of dollars worth. The aim of such an investment was to incorporate a significant number of hospitals to the services that were being offered to the Venezuelan people through ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 1 and No. 2 programs; all of these were in addition to the program in Cuba to train thousands of Venezuelan youths for them to become doctors ready to offer their services anywhere, both inside or outside the country. The graduates from the Latin American School of Medicine are an encouraging proof of their spirit of sacrifice. Even in Venezuela we were helping to train more than 20,000 students of Medicine.

Our staff made contact again with the best firms that supplied medical equipment, components and furniture, with the exception -of course- of the US companies, which were completely banned from sending even the tiniest supply to Cuba.

Although the medical equipment manufactured by that country are of quality, their prices are quite often abusively high. In the international market there are specialized firms whose equipment are considered to be the world’s best. It is perfectly possible to dispense with the US equipment if you want to avoid the risks of a criminal blockade like the one that has been imposed on Cuba for 50 years. In the hospitals of Japan, a country whose population records the highest average life rates, the overwhelming majority of the medical equipment is Japanese; the rest are imported from Europe or the United States.

In the most industrialized countries of the old Europe, where the health rates are also higher than those in the United States, hardly 30 per cent of the equipment come from Japan or the United States. They rather use European equipment. In Japan as well as in Europe, quality standards are much stricter that in the United States.

I am pleased to see that the strategy followed by the Cuban enterprise specialized in the purchase of medical equipment has strictly observed the principles established in previous purchases.

More than 50 well known firms were considered. I will just mention the ones that competed in quality and price. The biggest volume was negotiated with the German firm Siemens -73,910,000 dollars; Drager, 37,277,000 dollars; Toshiba, 36,123,000 dollars; Nihon Kohden, 30,516,000 dollars. We also signed contracts with Olympus, Karl Storz, Aloka, Carl Zeiss, Pressure, and others well known to our specialists. All of them are representative of the revolutionary progress that has taken place in the field of medical technology in the last 20 years.

Considering the standards of quality and price, we would have bought from the Dutch company Philips, which was considered and included among the most important firms, a total value of 63,065,000 dollars. But that moment coincided with the discontinuation of the supplies of spare parts for the equipment already bought from that firm which were operating in Cuba and in Venezuela. We had no other choice but to suspend the drafting of the contract.

Not all of the equipment of the total amount agreed have been received in Venezuela, but the number of equipment, instruments and components received are worth 271 million dollars. This situation forced Venezuelans and Cubans to make a special effort to fully develop the important ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 3 program, which complements and articulates one of the most important social and human programs of the Bolivarian Revolution. Both countries are aware of that obligation.

In addition to that, we intend to make the necessary effort to take ‘Barrio Adentro’ No. 1 and No. 2 programs to unheard-of levels by incorporating more than 2,500 advanced students of Medicine who are being trained in Cuba, so that they, together with the General Comprehensive Medicine specialists who teach them classes, can join the ‘Barrio Adentro’ project.

Optimal medical assistance to patients was always the raison d’etre of the doctors’ offices, the Diagnostic Centers and other services in which Cuba participates. The response given by the Cuban health collaborators to my former Reflection has been excellent. No wonder they reaffirm that the imperialism will not win this battle against Barrio Adentro.

No one can compete today with the United States in the manufacturing and trade of weapons destined to war and destruction. They control two thirds of the world’s arms trade; those are the fruits of the Industrial Military Complex. Today, that imperial power, with less than 5 per cent of the world’s population, not only consumes 25 per cent of the fossil energy; it pollutes the atmosphere, destroys the environment, threatens the world with its extermination weapons and is the biggest arms trader and manufacturer. However, it can not guarantee health to almost 25 per cent of its people.

We will not refuse to deal with any company willing to manufacture or trade in medical technologies. We will gladly accept any rectification. Humanity has to cope with very difficult problems. I wish our species is not faced with disaster, and many of us could have a clear conscience for having done our best to prevent it.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 10, 2009
3:11 p.m.

The post With a Clear Conscience appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

Public healthcare is one of the most advanced fields in our country, despite the fact that the United States stole close to 50% of the doctors who had graduated from the only university in Cuba, a figure in excess of 5,000, many of whom lacked employment.

In that area, one of the most beautiful pages of international cooperation on the part of the Cuban Revolution was written, initiated thanks to a group of doctors who were sent to the recently-independent Algeria almost half a century ago. That policy has not ended, and in that highly humane field our country enjoys universal recognition.

No one supposes that it has been an easy task. The United States has done everything possible to prevent it from happening. During the time that has passed, it has made maximum efforts to sabotage it. It applied against Cuba all possible variants of its criminal economic blockade which, later on, in virtue of the Helms-Burton Act, acquired an extraterritorial nature during the administration of Bill Clinton.

When the socialist bloc collapsed and, months later, its principal bastion the Soviet Union disintegrated, Cuba decided to keep on fighting. By then, our people had acquired a high level of awareness and political culture.

In 1992, Hugo Chávez led a military uprising against the bourgeois oligarchic government of the Punto Fijo pact that had pillaged Bolívar’s homeland for more than three decades. He suffered imprisonment, just as we did. He visited Cuba in 1994 and years later, with the full support of his people, he assumed the presidency and initiated the Bolivarian Revolution.

The Venezuelan people, like that of Cuba, soon had to confront the hostility of the United States, which planned the fascist coup d’état in 2002 that was defeated by the people and revolutionary military personnel. Months later, came the oil coup, creating the most difficult moment and one in which, once again, the leader, the people and the Venezuelan military were outstanding. Chávez and Venezuela offered us total solidarity in the midst of the Special Period and we have given them ours.

At that time, our country had no less than 60,000 specialized doctors, more than 150,000 experienced teachers and a people who had written brilliant internationalist pages. After the oil coup, the river of our cooperative workers in education and healthcare programs began to flow, and they cooperated with the Bolivarian Revolution in one of the most profound and rapid social programs undertaken in any Third World country.

I cite these precedents because they are indispensable when it come to judging the treachery of imperialism and comprehending the issue that I am tackling today: the abandonment and betrayal of Cuba and Venezuela by what was a well-known and relatively prestigious European multinational: the Dutch transnational Philips, which specializes in the manufacture of medical equipment.

I wrote a Reflection on this subject two years ago – July 14, 2007 – but I did not want to mention that company by name. I still held out the hope that the situation would be rectified.

We had cooperated with the Venezuelan people in order to create one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Tens of thousands of specialized doctors and other Cuban healthcare professional had lent their services there. President During one of his visits to Cuba, Hugo Chávez, satisfied with the work of the first contingents who traveled to Venezuela to work within Barrio Adentro – the program aimed at providing healthcare services in the country’s poorest urban and rural areas – asked us to create a program that could benefit every sector of Venezuelan society, working class, middle class or the rich. This led to the emergence of the Advanced Technology Diagnosis Centers; these would complement the task of the 600 Comprehensive Diagnosis Centers which, like polyclinics with a wide range of services, with their laboratories and equipment, would support the Barrio Adentro doctors’ offices. A significant number of rehabilitation centers would assume the humane task of attending to any patient with physical or learning disabilities.

In virtue of this request from the president, we acquired the relevant equipment for 27 Advanced Technology Diagnosis Centers distributed throughout the 24 states of Venezuela, three of which possess two each because of the size of their populations.

It is standard practice for us to always purchase medical equipment from the most prestigious and advanced companies at world level. We even try to ensure the participation of at least two of the most specialized companies in the supply of the most complex equipment.

In this way, the most sophisticated and costly medical imaging equipment, such as multi-slice computed tomography (CT), nuclear magnetic resonance, diagnostic ultrasound and other similar machines were purchased from the German firm Siemens and the Dutch company Philips. Neither of the two produces all of the equipment but they do manufacture some of the most complex and sophisticated equipment. Both are in competition with each other in terms of quality and price. We acquired diagnostic equipment from the two companies for Venezuela and for Cuba, where we were developing a similar plan for medical services that had received very few resources in the most difficult years of the Special Period.

For more than 10 different specialties, we acquired equipment from the two companies for services in the two countries. I will not mention those of the German firm Siemens, which met its commitments. I will confine myself to Philips; this company supplied equipment for 12 specialties sharing the provision of the most important and costly items with the other company: 15 40-slice CT machines, 28 0.23 Tesla Nuclear Magnetic Resonance machines, eight tele-command stations for Urology, 37 3D diagnostic ultrasound machines, two neurological angiograms, two cardiology angiograms, two polygraphs, one double-headed gamma camera, three single-head gamma cameras, 250 mobile X-ray machines, 1,200 non-invasive monitors and 2,000 cardioversion monitors.

In total, 3,553 machines at a value of $72,762,694.

I personally participated in negotiations with these two companies for these purchases.

The prices discussed for each piece of equipment implied significant price reductions, given the quantity – the items for both Cuba and Venezuela together – and the fact that they were to be paid for in cash. It would not be possible to urgently acquire the goods as required, particularly in that country, given the accumulated needs of the poorest sectors of its total population, which numbered 27 million people at that time.

The most complex equipment were destined for the Advanced Technology Centers, the less sophisticated and plentiful items for the Barrio Adentro Diagnosis Centers, although they were not the only ones to use this equipment. Almost all of them were purchased at the beginning of 2006.

I became seriously ill at the end of July of that year. Philips supplied items until the end of 2006. In 2007, it stopped completely: not a single item was supplied.

In March of that year, a Cuban delegation was sent to Brazil where the Philips headquarters for Latin America – the branch that negotiated with Cuba – is located. They began to explain their difficulties. The Bush government had requested detailed information on equipment supplied to Cuba by their company, alleging that some of them contained programs and, occasionally, components bearing a yanki patent, and Philips provided the information requested on the purchases made by Cuba and Venezuela. There had never been any problem with that before.

The director of Philips in Brazil textually informed the Cuban delegation: “There is brutal intransigence on the part of the U.S. government in relation to regulations regarding equipment and the request for permits with respect to Cuba.

“I know that the problem is affecting the Comandante’s plan. Our organization is being affected and threatened. All our organizations are very scared.” He immediately reiterated: “They are very scared.”

Finally, they added that they wished to cooperate and find solutions.

In mid-July 2007, in a so-called White House Conference on the Americas, Bush, the secretary of state, and other U.S. government leaders “talked nineteen to the dozen” according to an AP report, on issues of education and healthcare. It seemed unreal. They were promising to distribute healthcare services throughout Latin America.

They placed special emphasis on the Confort, a former aircraft carrier converted into the “biggest hospital boat in the world,” according to the report, which was to visit each country in this hemisphere south of the United States for 10 days at a time. That was their healthcare program. What they did not say at the time, was that, in Venezuela, they were sabotaging the most serious healthcare program ever proposed for a Third World country.

Despite the coincidence of the timing, at that moment I did not wish to directly tackle the Philips problem. The company had promised to resolve the problem the following March. I still held out the hope that it could be rectified.

I limited myself to writing in that very Reflection: “The problem is that the United States cannot do what Cuba is doing. On the contrary, it is brutally pressuring the manufacturing companies of the excellent medical equipment that is being supplied to our country to prevent them from replacing certain computer programs or providing some spare parts that are under U.S. patents. I could cite concrete cases and the names of the companies. It is repugnant…”

Despite Philips’ solemn promise to Cuba, the rest of 2007 passed by, as well as the whole of 2008 and half of 2009 without a single piece of equipment arriving from that company.

In June 2009, after paying a fine of 100,000 euros to the Barack Obama government, not so distant from the practices of his illustrious predecessor, Philips deigned to communicate that it was about to provide equipment for Cuba.

On the other hand, nobody has recompensed the Cuban people, or the Venezuelan patients of our doctors in the Barrio Adentro program and those attending the Advanced Technology Diagnostic Centers for the human damages that have occurred.

As is logical, we have not acquired a single piece of equipment from Philips since the last purchase in early 2006.

On the other hand, we have cooperated with Venezuela in purchasing medical equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars for its national healthcare network, with a wide range of sophisticated state of cutting-edge equipment from other prestigious European and also Japanese companies. I wanted to believe that that company would make an effort to meet its commitment.

Venezuela now possesses modern equipment in its public hospital network; the richest private clinics will only have been able to acquire some of them. Now, all the rest will depend on the country’s efficiency in its services. The Venezuelan president is seriously interested in achieving this objective. I believe that it will do so very well if it mitigates the Venezuelan custom of purchasing U.S. medical equipment, not on account of its quality – which is very good although with less demanding regulations than those of Europe – but because of what lies at the heart of the policy of this country, capable of blocking the supply of equipment as it did with Cuba.

Of course, we have dispatched to the Venezuelan Diagnosis Centers, the Advanced Technology Centers and others where our doctors are in attendance, equipment of known international makes such as Siemens, Carl Zeiss, Drager, SMS, Schwind, Topcon, Nihon Kohden, Olympus and other European and Japanese companies, some of which were founded more than 100 years ago.

Now that Bolívar’s homeland, which Martí asked to serve, is more threatened than ever by imperialism, the organization, work and efficiency of our efforts must be greater than ever; not just in the healthcare sector, but in all the fields of our cooperation.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 6, 2009
7.17 p.m.

The post Philips' Double Betrayal appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

He stated “that because of geographic conditions the countries on the American continent cannot ‘all be lumped together,’ and for that reason several months ago Ecuador proposed the creation of the Organization of Latin American States.

“‘It is not possible that the region’s problems are discussed in Washington; let us make something that is our own, without countries alien to our culture, to our values, obviously including counties that were inexplicably separated from the inter-American system, and I refer to the specific case of Cuba, it was a real embarrassment and shows the double standards existing in international relations’”. Upon his arrival in Honduras, both President Zelaya and Correa declared that “the OAS ought to be reformed and reincorporate Cuba or it would have to disappear”.

Another dispatch from the DPA Agency states:

“Reintegrating Cuba into the Organization of American States (OAS) has moved from being a subject per se of the General Assembly of the body in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula to become, yet again, the excuse for a struggle of interests that go far beyond the limits of the Caribbean island and could question (again) the state of hemispheric relations

“The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, put it perfectly clear when he described the hemispheric meeting starting this Tuesday in Honduras in quasi military terms.

“It will be, he said, an ‘interesting battle’ where if it is shown that the OAS ‘continues to be a ministry of the colonies’ which isn’t changing to ‘subordinate itself to the will of the governments making it up,’ it will be necessary to consider ‘exiting’ from the body and creating another alternative.”

“‘Latin America is making Cuba the litmus test for the sincerity of the Obama administration’s true rapprochement’ in the region, Julia Sweig, the Cuba expert of the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, declared to ‘The Washington Post’ on the eve of the encounter in Honduras.”

By resisting the aggressions of the most powerful empire ever to exist, our people struggled for the other sister nations of this continent. The OAS was an accomplice to all the crimes committed against Cuba.

At one time or another, every one of the Latin American countries was victim of interventions and politic and economic aggressions. There is not one that could deny it. It is naive to think that the good intentions of a president of the United States could justify the existence of that institution that opened the doors to the Trojan horse that supported the Summits of the Americas, neoliberalism, drug- trafficking, military bases and economic crises. Ignorance, underdevelopment, economic dependency, poverty, the forced return of those who emigrate in search of jobs, the brain drain, and even the sophisticated weapons of organized crime were the consequences of the interventions and pillage coming from the North. Cuba, a tiny country, has demonstrated that it is possible to resist the blockade and move forward in many areas, even to cooperate with other countries.

The speech given today by President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras at the OAS General Assembly contains principles that may go down in history. He said admirable things about his own country. I shall limit myself to what he said about Cuba.

“At the Assembly of the Organization of American States starting today in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, we must initiate the process of making wise repairs to old errors committed.

“We, Latin Americans here present, a short while ago, a few weeks or months ago, had a great summit meeting of the Rio Group in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. There we entered into a commitment. That commitment, taken down in writing and by the unanimity of all of Latin America, is that in this San Pedro Sula assembly, by majority of votes or by consensus, that old and time-worn error committed in 1962 to expel the people of Cuba from this organization should be redressed.

“My fellow dignitaries, we should not leave this assembly without abolishing the decree of that eighth meeting which sanctioned an entire people for having proclaimed its socialist ideas and principles, the very same principles that today are being practiced everywhere in the world, including in the United States and in Europe (Applause). Today, the principles of seeking different development alternatives are evident in the change that has occurred in the United States with the election of President Barack Obama.

“We cannot leave this assembly without redressing that error and that infamy because based on this OAS resolution which is now more than four decades old, this sister nation of Cuba has been kept under an unfair and useless blockade, precisely because it hasn’t served any purpose, but it has indeed shown that over there, a few miles away from our country, on a small island, there are a people ready to resist and sacrifice for their independence and sovereignty.

“To not do so would make us accomplices of a resolution in 1962 to expel a state of the Organization of American States simply because it espouses other ideas, other thoughts, and because it proclaims the principles of a different democracy. And we are not going to be accomplices to that.

“We cannot leave this assembly without abolishing what was done in that era.

“Jose Cecilio del Valle, an exceptional Honduran and one of our national heroes, who was called “Wise Man Valle” in our country, said on April 17, 1826, in his famous article -’Sovereignty and Non-intervention’ -we had just declared our independence from Spain: ‘The nations of the world are independent and sovereign. Whatever their territorial size or the number of inhabitants, a nation must treat others in the same way it wishes to be treated by them. A nation does not have the right to intervene in the internal affairs of another nation.’”

With these words spoken by Cecilio del Valle and mentioning Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Morazan, Marti, Sandino and Bolivar, he concluded his address.

Minutes later, at the press conference following the opening of the assembly, he answered questions and reiterated principles. He then gave the floor to Daniel Ortega who was the author of one of the most profound and articulated presentations at the OAS assembly. By invitation of Zelaya, the following also spoke: President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay and Rigoberta Menchu, both expressing themselves in the same vein as Zelaya and Daniel.

The assembly has been in session for hours. At the moment I am finishing this Reflection, practically night-time, there is still no news of the decision. We know that Zelaya’s speech had an influence. Chavez chats with Maduro and urges him to be firm on the fact that no resolution can be passed that places conditions on the repeal of the unfair sanction against Cuba. Never had so much rebellion been seen. It is certainly a tough battle. Many countries depend on the index finger of the hand of the U.S. government, the one pointing to the Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank or any other outfit to punish rebellion. Having waged this battle is in itself a heroic deed of those who are the most rebellious. The date of June 2, 2009 will be remembered by future generations.

Cuba is no enemy to peace, nor is it reluctant to exchanges or cooperation between countries with different political systems, but it has been and will be uncompromising in its defense of its principles.

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 2, 2009
6:56 p.m.

The post The Trojan Horse appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

“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.

The post Applauses and Silences appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.

“The tests that revealed this new virus were only conducted with the specimens sent by the Mexican authorities, he emphasized regarding the 16 positive cases out of the 50 specimens sent from Mexico…”

Two days later, La Jornada newspaper relates that on the 5th of the same month it had received an information from its reporter in Veracruz, Andres Timoteo, who literally said that “the Health Department had laid an epidemic cordon to La Gloria village, municipality of Perote, because the people there were being affected by a strange outbreak of acute respiratory infections… three children under two years of age had died and 60% of the three thousand population were suffering from respiratory disease.”

La Jornada then adds that “the reporter’s note states that the villagers relate the outbreak of infections to the contamination produced by the pig breeders of the transnational Carroll Farms.

“…dozens of families suddenly fell ill from respiratory diseases.

“Municipal agent Bertha Crisostomo appealed to the health authorities for help, since dozens of families suddenly fell ill from respiratory diseases,” says the reporter.

“The symptoms of the villagers there, according to witnesses, were high temperature, severe coughing and phlegm; they need to stay in bed as if stricken by one of the seasonal infections that appear in winter.”

Actually, the Canadian laboratory of Dr. Plummer was not the first to discover anything. The Atlanta CDC had already done it on April 17. The AH1N1 was a new and potentially very dangerous virus.

But, there is more. On the 11th of that month, the Pan American Health Organization Watch Group, based on the reports of the abovementioned Mexican press, asked the Health Department to check on an alleged outbreak of influenza at La Gloria community in Perote, Veracruz, arguing that it could pose an internationally significant health risk.

Faced with such information, any country would have considered it imperative to undertake an immediate and serious investigation into the matter.

I have always admired Mexico’s achievements in Social Security. It was the most advanced in this continent. After the victory, we found friends there who helped us in the first years of our Revolution.

It hurts to even say it, but actually four or five days would have sufficed to discover that the people were being affected by that virus; it was not necessary to send a specimen to that laboratory in Canada. How can it be explained that such a test was not made anywhere since the onset of the events leading to action by the PAHO Watch Group?

As of April 24, the first information is given to the international community on the epidemic; the news was disquieting. Let’s take a look at some of them:

May 2: 397 cases, 16 dead.

May 5: 866 cases, 26 dead.

May 9: 1626 cases, 48 dead.

May 12: 2282 cases, 58 dead.

Every day there were reports of other affected countries and almost without exception there was a connection with persons returning from Mexico.

Three days ago it was announced that China, a huge nation with a population of 1.3 billion, had reported a case positive to the AH1N1 virus; in this case it was a Chinese young man studying in the United States. This latter country and Mexico have become the world exporters of the epidemic. Perhaps that sudden and devastating spread of the disease could have been averted. It is not as if the Mexican government was doing a favor to the world as some would have us believe. Now we would have to thank the three partners of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The three were present in Port of Spain on April 18 and 19. Obama had visited Mexico on the 16th and 17th of the same month.

What does one of these epidemics mean to Cuba? Our country is prevented from purchasing any medication, raw material, equipment or components of diagnostic equipment manufactured by the U.S. transnationals on the basis of the extraterritorial laws that the U.S. administration has imposed to the world. Why were we accused of being enemies of the Mexican people when we adopted measures devised in advance to protect our people? Who is now telling China how to protect its population? Why all of this lying? Why talk about such alleged retaliatory measures as the suspension of an already suspended trip? Is it perhaps that money from tourism and the airlines is more important than the life of a compatriot? Why the threats? We are not accountable for the drastic measures that the epidemic forced the Mexican government to take.

When the United States launched its mercenaries through the Bay of Pigs escorted by the Marine Corps, General Lazaro Cardenas, who had won great glory by recovering the Mexican oil, did not threatened us; quite the opposite, he wanted to come to Cuba to fight alongside our people. That is the Mexico whose example we pay tribute to.

Is it possible that on April 16 and 17 nobody in Mexico knew anything about the gift the world would receive from that country six days later? Is it that not even the information experts of the U.S. Intelligence Agencies knew what was about to happen?

Nothing has changed in Mexico in the past eight years, except the virus. In 1918, the influenza killed more people than World War I.

It was news that shook the world! Let’s have confidence in science!

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 14, 2009
7:43 am.

The post News That Shook the World appeared first on Reflections of Fidel.