Do I maybe exaggerate?

After referring the days 17 and 18 of August to Daniel Estulin book that relates with irrefutable facts the horrible form in that the minds of young and children from United States are deformed by the drugs and the massive media, with the participation aware of the North American and English intelligence organisms, in the final part of the last Reflection I expressed: “It is terrible to think that the intelligence and the feelings of the children and the youths from United States are mutilated in that way.”

Yesterday the cable agencies communicated the offered information of a study published by the University of Beloit, in which points out facts that happen for the first time in the history of United States and the world, associated to the knowledge and the American university students' customs that will graduate in the 2014.

The newspaper Granma informs the news with eloquent language:

1º “they don't take clock to see the hour, but rather use their cellular ones.”

2º “they Believe that Beethoven is a dog that knew in a film.”

3º” That Miguel Ángel is a computer virus.”

4º” That the electronic mail is ‘too much slow',accustomed like they are to type messages in sophisticated wireless telephones.”

5º” Very few of them know how to write in italic.”

6º” they Believe that Czechoslovakia never existed.”

7º “That the North American companies have always made business in Vietnam.”

8º” That the Korean automobiles have circulated the whole time in their country.”

9º” That United States, Canada and Mexico have always been bound for a Treaty of Free Trade.”

One stays cold, when you go to what extent the education can be deformed and prostituted, in a country that counts with more than 8 000 nuclear weapons and the most powerful means of war in the world.

And to think that there are still sensible people able to believe that my warnings are exaggerated!

Fidel Castro Ruz
August 19 , 2010
11. 13 a.m.

The best homage to the mother of a hero

Yesterday died Carmen Nordelo Tejera , the self-denying mother of the Hero of the Republic of Cuba Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, wrongly sanctioned to two life imprisonments and 15 years of prison.

The unusual thing is that single 12 days ago the justice yanki put in freedom to Santiago Álvarez Fernández-Magriñá, to the one who were occupied weapons of war, explosive and other means dedicated to the terrorist plans against our town.

It was about busy weapons to that agent of the CIA who dedicated great part from his life to the terrorism against Cuba to the service of the government of United States.

It would be worthwhile that the advisers of Barack Obama that so much diffuses its speeches for television, requested and showed him copy of the video of the Round Table of Cubavisión where the ridiculous four year-old sanction was approached in a jail of minimum security, applied Santiago Álvarez for the busy weapons, and the worst thing was that reduced him the pain, after giving to the North American Office another bigger load of weapons that the previous.The fellow, also, always sent a group that infiltrated in Cuba, to which commended to make explode an explosive load in the Cabaret Tropicana among other actions, replete of spectators. Irrefutable documental test of that instruction exists.

To another terrorist of Cuban origin, Roberto Ferro, ally to the terrorist mafia of Posada Carriles and Santiago Álvarez, in July of 1991 occupied 300 firearms, detonators and plastic explosive. It was sanctioned to two years. In April of 2006 occupied him, in hidden compartments of his house, 1 571 weapons and hand grenades. He received a five year-old sanction.

It will never be enough what is said around the cynicism of the politics of United States that includes Cuba in the list of terrorist countries, applies the murderous Law of Cuban Adjustment with exclusive character to our nation, and blocks economically, even prohibiting the sale of medical teams and medications.

Yesterday, the Round Table of our television, at the same time that enumerated Santiago Álvarez `s crime, exhibited programs of television of Miami where a connoted agent from United States, Antonio Veciana, narrated the plans with explosive and bullets for the murder of Cuban leaders, among them Camilo and the Che that were with me in a nurtured act of hundred of people's thousands in front of the old Presidential Palacio, or my murder in a press interview in Chile when I visited the president Salvador Allende. After all, like the mercenary admits, when the action the murderers to the service of the CIA lost courage in both cases. It was alone of two of the so many plans magnicids of the government of that country.

Such misdeeds can remember with cold blood except that, like in this case, the narration coincides with the news of the death, after long illness, of a honest mother and brave as Carmen Nordelo Tejera whose son has been wrongly condemned to two life imprisonments and 15 years of isolated and cruel prison and in a jail of high security. What harder pain could exist for her that her son's unjust perpetual prison for crimes that he never made?

It is not possible to deposit on his coffin a flower without denouncing, once again, the repugnant cynicism of the empire.

To it unites another listened atrocious news that same afternoon: the official signature of the agreement by virtue of which United States imposes seven military bases in the heart of Our America, with those that not threatens alone to Venezuela, but to all the towns of the Center and the South of our hemisphere. It is not an act of Bush's government; it is Barack Obama who subscribes that agreement, violating legal, constitutional and ethical norms, when still the fruits of the fateful base military yanki of Palmerola, in Honduras, are exhibited before the world. The military blow in that Central American country was carried out low the current administration.

It never talked to more scorn to the Latin American towns of this hemisphere.

A country like Cuba knows very well that after United States imposes one of its military bases, leaves if wants it, or remains for the force like has made with Guantánamo for more than a hundred years. There it erected the hateful center of tortures whose dungeons, with numerous prisoners, our splendid Rewards Nobel there still is not been able to eliminate. The refund of Blanket in Ecuador was continued immediately by the oficialization of the seven military bases imposed to the town of Colombia. As pretext the fight was used against the trade of drugs that, as the terrible lash of the paramilitarism, it arose of the gigantic North American market of cocaine and other drugs. The bases military yankis in Latin America arose a lot before the drugs, with interventionists ends.

Cuba demonstrated during half century that is possible to fight and to resist. The President of United States makes a mistake, and his advisers make a mistake, if that sordid and pejorative road continues toward the towns of Latin America. Our feelings, without hesitation some, lean toward the town bolivarian of Venezuela, its president Hugo Chávez and its Secretary of External Relationships, denouncing the pact military infamous tax to the Colombian town whose expansionary clauses their authors have not had at least the value to publish.

Cuba will continue cooperating with the programs of health, education and the social development of the countries siblings that, in spite of obstacles, advances and setbacks, will be more and more unyieldingly free.

As Lincoln affirmed: “… one cannot deceive to the whole town the whole time.”

We won't only deposit flowers on Carmen Nordelo`s tomb. We will continue the fight without rest for Gerardo, Antonio, Fernando, Ramón and René freedom, exposing the infinite hypocrisy and the cynicism of the empire, defending the truth!

Alone we will honor this way the memory of the legion of mothers and women as her that have sacrificed the best and more valuable in their life for the Revolution and the Socialism in Cuba.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 3 , 2009
12:35 p.m.

Almeida lives more than ever today

Take hours listening for television the homage from the whole country to the Commandant of the Revolution Juan Almeida Bosque. I think that to face the death was for him a duty as all those that he completed along his life; he didn't know, neither us, how much sadness he would bring us the news of his physical absence.

I had the privilege of knowing it: young black, worker, combative, that successively was boss of revolutionary cell, combatant of the Moncada, prison partner, platoon captain disembarking of the Granma, official of the Rebellious Army—paralyzed in it advance by a shot in the chest during the violent Combat of the Uvero—, Commandant of Column, going to create the Third Oriental Front, partner that shares the address of our forces in the last victorious battles that overthrew to the tyranny.

It was privileged witness of his exemplary behavior during more than half century of heroic and victorious resistance, in the fight against bandits, the counterblow of Girón, the Crisis of October, the internationalists missions and the resistance to the imperialistic blockade.

He listened with pleasure some of his songs, and especially that of lit emotion that before the call of the Homeland to "to conquer or to die" he said goodbye to human dreams. It ignored that he had written more than 300 of them, which added to his literary work, source of interesting reading and of historical facts. It defended principles of justice that will be defended in any time and in any time, while the human beings breathe on the earth.

Let us don't say that Almeida has died! Live more than ever today!

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 13 , 2009
3.12 p.m.

OBAMA HAS NO EASY TASK | Reflections by Comrade Fidel

I remember that, when I visited the People’s Republic of Poland, during Gierek’s government, I was taken to Osviecim, the most notorious of all concentration camps. There I learned about the horrible crimes committed by the Nazis against Jewish children, women and senior citizens, which resulted from the implementation of the ideas contained in the book Mein Kampf written by Adolph Hitler. Those ideas had been implemented before at the time when the territory of the USSR was invaded in the quest for vital space. By that time, the governments of London and Paris incited the Nazi chief against the Soviet State.

The Soviet army liberated the prisoners kept at Osviecim and those of almost all the Nazi concentration camps, condemned those events and took pictures and films which traveled around world.

Obama spoke at the Buchenwald concentration camp, within the German territory. A granduncle of his, who is still alive and was accompanying him at the rally, had helped to release the prisoners of that camp.

The most important activity he carried out in Europe was his attendance to the celebration of the 65^th anniversary of the Normandy landing, where he pronounced a second speech. He went out of his way to praise Dwight Eisenhower, who commanded the landing. He recognized, in all fairness, the courage of the American soldiers who fought down a few kilometers of coastline, with the support of the US and the British navy and of thousands of planes that came mostly from the US factories. The paratroopers divisions were not dropped at the most correct positions and therefore the battle extended unnecessarily.

The bulk of Hitler’s army and its elite divisions had been annihilated by Soviet soldiers at the Russian front, after they recovered from the damages caused by the first military attack. The resistance put up by the city of Leningrad to a prolonged siege, the combats waged by the Siberian divisions a few kilometers away from Moscow, and the battles of Stalingrad and of the Kursk salient will go down in the history of wars as some of the most significant and decisive events.

Obama, who spoke at the celebration of the 65^th anniversary of the Normandy landing, thanks to which, as can be inferred from his speech, Europe was liberated, dedicated only 15 words to speak about the role played by the USSR --hardly 1.2 words per every 2 million Soviet citizens who died in that war. That was not fair.

After the end of that bloody war, Iran, which played a significant role in that war given its natural resources and its geographical position, was turned by the United States into its strongest and better armed gendarme in that strategic Asian region.

The Iranian people, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, with the masses unarmed and ready to make any sacrifice, overthrew the powerful Shah of Iran. That happened during the last two years of the government of Jimmy Carter, who suffered the first consequences of the wrong foreign policy of the United States. That policy shortened his mandate and facilitated Ronald Reagan’s coming to power.

The Shah died on July 27, 1980, in Cairo, the same city where Obama delivered his speech on June 4 last.

The absurd war between Iraq and Iran which began in 1980 lasted 8 years and was not caused by Khomeini. Reagan got as much as he could out of it. He first sold weapons to Iran. With those weapons and the revenues from drug trafficking he funded the dirty war against Nicaragua, thus evading the decisions adopted by the Congress whereby it refused to grant funds for that cruel adventure that took the life of so many ‘Sandinista’ youths. Reagan supported Iraq’s war against Iran.

The US government authorized the supply of raw materials, technology and gases for the chemical war against Iran, which killed tens of thousands of soldiers of that country; the civil population was severely affected. American companies collaborated in the manufacturing of chemical weapons. Besides, satellites provided the necessary information for all land operations; 600 000 Iranians and 400 000 Iraqis died in that war; hundreds of billions of dollars were spent by those two major oil producing countries before both parties accepted the peace project drafted by the United Nations.

It is not an easy task for a US President to deliver a speech at the Muslim University of Al-Azhar of Cairo. Nor is it to be expected that the Iranians and the Arabs would feel very enthusiastic about said speech.

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 14, 2009
4:36 p.m.

The horse of Troya

Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador, of visit in Honduras, in eves of the meeting of the OAS, declared: "I believe that the OAS lost its reason of being, perhaps never was right of being." The news transmitted by ANSA, adds that Belt, "‘predicted the death ' of that organization for the many made errors."

He affirmed "that the countries of the American continent, for geographical conditions, ‘cannot be put all in the same basket ', and for that reason Ecuador proposed the creation of the Latin American Organization of States several months ago.

"‘is not possible that the problems of the region are discussed in Washington, let us build something own, without countries unaware to our culture, to our values, including obviously to countries that unaccountably were separated from the interamerican system, and Irefer to the concrete case of Cuba... it was a real shame and shows the moral double that ' exists in the international relationships ". TO its arrival to Honduras, so much the president Zelaya as him, declared that "the OAS should be reformed and to reinstate Cuba otherwise will have to disappear."

Another office of the agency DPA affirms:

"The reinstatement of Cuba in the American Organization of States (OAS) has passed of being a topic per of the General Assembly of the organism in the Honduran San Pedro Sula to become, once again, in the excuse of a fight of interests that go a lot beyond the limits of the Caribbean island and could question (again) the hemispheric relationships.

"The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, left it very clear when qualifying the hemispheric encounter that begins this Tuesday in Honduras in quasi warlike terms.

"It will be, he said, a ‘battles interesting ' in the one that if it is demonstrated that the OAS ‘continues being then a ministry of the colonies ' that doesn't transform for ‘to be subordinated to the will of the governments that ' conforms it, he will be necessary to think about ‘to be left ' of the organism and to create other alternative."

‘"Latin America is making of Cuba the test of fire of the sincerity of the true approach of the administration Obama ' to the region, the expert sustained in Cuba of the Council of Foreign Relations of Washington, Julia Sweig, to the daily ‘The Washington Post ', in eves of the Honduran encounter."

When resisting the aggressions of the most powerful empire that has existed never, our town fought for the other towns siblings of this continent. The OAS was accomplice of all the crimes made against Cuba.

In a moment or other, the entirety of the countries of Latin America was victims of the interventions and political and economic aggressions. There is not one alone that can deny it. It is frank to believe that the good intentions of a President from United States justify the existence of that institution that he opened the doors to the horse of Troya that supported the Summits of the America, the neoliberalism, the drug traffic, the military bases and the economic crises. The ignorance, the underdevelopment, the economic dependence, the poverty, the mandatory refund of those that emigrate in work search, the robbery of brains, and until the sophisticated weapons of the organized crime were the consequences of the interventions and the looting coming from the North. Cuba, a small country, it has demonstrated that can resist the blockade and to advance in many fields and even to cooperate with other countries.

The speech marked today for the president from Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, in the General Assembly of the OAS, contains principles that can pass to the history. He said admirable things of their own country. I will limit myself to what expressed on Cuba.

"... In the Assembly of the American Organization of States that today begins in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, we should begin the process of wise rectifications of old made errors.

"Us, the Latin Americans that we are here, recently, a couple of weeks or months ago, we had a great summit in the Group of River, in Salvador of Bay, Brazil. There we take a commitment. The commitment that took in writing and unanimously of all Latin America, it is that in San Pedro's assembly Sula, for majority of votes or for consent, he should change that old and wornout error that was made in 1962 of expelling to the Cuban town of this organization.

"We should not leave this assembly, dear dignitaries, without repealing the ordinance of that eighth meeting that sanctioned to a whole town to have proclaimed ideas and socialist principles that today those same principles are practiced everywhere of the world, including United States and Europe (Applauses). The principles, today, of looking for alternative different from development they are evident in the change in fact that there has been in United States when choosing the president Barack Obama...

"We cannot leave this assembly without repairing that error and that infamy, because based on this resolution of the American Organization of States that has already more than four decades, to this town brother of Cuba he has been maintained an unjust and useless blockade, in fact because has not achieved any purpose, but yes it has demonstrated that there, to few kilometers here of our country, in a small island, there is a town willing to resist and to sacrifices for their independence and their sovereignty.

"... not to make it makes accomplices to us of a resolution of 1962 of simply expelling to a State of the American Organization of States because he has other ideas, other thoughts, and it proclaims principles of a different democracy. And we won't be accomplices of that.

"... We cannot leave this assembly without repealing that acted in that time.

"An exceptional Honduran, call in our country—and one of our eminent persons—José Cecilio del Valle, the sage Valle, expressed April of 1826, 17 in his famous article 'Sovereignty and non intervention'—we had just proclaimed our independence of the Spanish Kingdom—: ‘The nations of the world are independent and sovereigns. Anyone that was their territorial extension or the number of inhabitants, a nation should try to others with the same treatment that he wants to receive of these. A nation is not entitled the of intervening in the internal matters of another nation. ' "

With those words of Cecilio del Valle and the mention of Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Morazán, Martí, Sandino and Bolívar, concluded his speech.

Minutes later, in the conference of later press to the opening of the Assembly, he responded questions and reiterated principles. Then it gave the word to Daniel Ortega that was author of one of the deepest reports and argued in the Assembly of the OAS. In the conference made use of the word, invited by Zelaya, Fernando Lugo, president of Paraguay, and Rigoberta Menchú that were expressed in the same address that Zelaya and Daniel.

The Assembly has discussed for hours. In the moment that I conclude this Reflection, almost already at night, there still are not news of the decision. It is known that the speech of Zelaya influenced. Chávez converses with Mature and urges him to maintain firmly that resolution some cannot be admitted that conditions the repeal of the unjust sanction against Cuba. So much rebelliousness was never seen. The battle is without a doubt hard. Many countries depend on the index finger of a hand of the Government of United States pointing to the Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Interamerican Bank of Development or any other address to punish rebelliousness. To have liberated it is already of for yes a prowess of the most rebellious. June 2 2009 will be remembered by the future generations.

Cuba is not enemy of the peace, neither reluctant to the exchange or the cooperation among countries of different political systems, but it has been and it will be uncompromising in the defense of its principles.

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

The claps and the silences

An office of the AFP informed that: “Cuba accepted to reopen the negotiations with United States has more than enough migration and the direct shipment of mail, a new sign of the thaw that takes place in eves of a Summit of the American Organization of States (OAS) in the one that the Cuban case will dominate the conversations.

“The boss of the Section of Interests of Cuba in Washington, Jorge Bolaños, transmitted on Saturday that Cuba ‘hopes to restart conversations has more than enough migration and the service of direct mail ', he said on Sunday a high official of the Department of State that stayed in the anonimity.

“From El Salvador, where attended a ministerial conclave on regional trade, the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said that Washington was pleased of renewing the conversations with Havana on those topics.”

Immediately an exabrupt anything diplomat:

“‘will have an open dialogue as soon as there are changes has more than enough human rights and movements toward the democracy in Cuba”, expressed the agency EFE.

Which is the “democracy” and those “human rights” that United States defends? Was is really necessary to throw that humiliating one and preproccesor warning?

When today I saw by television the taking of possession of Mauricio Funes and this one spoke of reestablishing relationships with Cuba, a deafening applause and screams of joy exploded in that room, as were not listened in any other moment of his speech. There Hillary was among the companies. Previously the speaker that many times moved away from the papers, had made the error of greeting the Clinton that occupies Secretary's of State position, before even that to Lula da Silva, the South American giant's President, there present among a group of Presidents of our area.

The speaker, without still concluding the lingering applause to Cuba--that perhaps would hurt Mrs. Clinton took the word and he mentioned to United States again, with the best intention in the world. However, very few in that great room they applauded to that country.

A culminating and very applauded moment of Mauricio's speech took place before, when he mentioned to the illustrious archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero whose tomb had visited that morning. That defender of the poor had been murdered unpunishedly, when officiated a mass, for the bloody tyranny of the party SAND imposed by the imperialism in El Salvador. The legislators and high officials that represented to the party that he murdered were also in that room; among them, several of the few ones that applauded United States.

In certain circumstances, not only the words speak for themselves, but also the claps and the silences.

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 1º of 2009
2 and 36 p.m.

Anything can improvise in Haiti

I read five days ago a newsy office informing that Ban Ki-moon would name Bill Clinton like its special correspondent for Haiti.

“Clinton accompanied last month of March to the General Secretary to an official visit of two days to Haiti-- affirms the office—to support the development plan elaborated by the Government of Puerto Príncipe that looks for to wake up the made drowsy Haitian economy.

“The ex president has maintained a remarkable philanthropic commitment with the Antillean nation through the Global Initiative Clinton.

“Is a honor to accept the General Secretary's invitation to be the special correspondent for Haiti”, declared the former leader.

“Clinton pointed out that the town and the Government from Haiti have the capacity to overcome the serious damages that caused the four storms that razed the country last year.”

The following day, the same newsy agency informed that Mrs. Clinton, Secretary of State, full with joy, declared that “Bill was a stellar correspondent”. on the other hand, “the Secretary of the UN confirmed that had named Clinton like his new special correspondent for Haiti. We were together two months ago in that country and her presence helped to lift the conscience of the international community on the problems of the Caribbean country.

“The UN fears that after a period of several years of relative calm bolstered by the MINUSTAH the political uncertainty returns to the country.”

Repeats in the new office the history again of “the four hurricanes and storms that 900 deads caused, caused 800 thousand damaged and destroyed the civil scarce infrastructure of the country.”

The history of Haiti and its tragedy is much more complex.

After United States that proclaimed the sovereignty in 1776, Haiti was the second country of this hemisphere that conquered the independence in the year 1804. In the first case, the white descendants of the colonists that the 13 colonies English, fervorosos believing, austere and well educated, that were proprietors of lands were founded and of slaves, shook the yoke colonial English and enjoyed the national independence, didn't seize the autochthonous population, neither the African slaves or descendants that lacked all right, in spite of the principles included in the Declaration of Philadelphia.

In Haiti, where more than 400 thousand slaves worked for 30 thousand white proprietors, for the first time in the humanity's history the men and women subjected to the hateful system were able to abolish the slavery, to maintain and to defend an independent state, fighting against soldiers that had put from knees to the European monarchies.

That stage coincided with the peak of the capitalism and the emergence of powerful colonial empires that dominated the lands and the seas of the planet during centuries.

The Haitians were not the culprits of their current poverty, but the victims of a system imposed to the world. They didn't invent the colonialism, the capitalism, the imperialism, the unequal exchange, the neoliberalism neither the forms of exploitation and looting that have reigned in the planet during the last 200 years.

Haiti has 27 750 square kilometers of surface where, according to dear reliable, the population already reached, in the 2009, the figure of 9 million inhabitants. The number of people for square kilometer of arable earth rises at 885, one of the highest of the world, without development some of industries or other resources that allow him to acquire the minimum of indispensable material means for the life.

The population 53 percent lives in the field, the firewood and the coal constitute the only available domestic fuel for great part of the Haitian families, what hinders the reforestation. The absence of forests that with the fluffed floor of leaves, branches and roots, they retain the water, facilitates the human and economic damage that the intense rains cause in towns, roads and cultivations. The hurricanes, like it is known, cause considerable additional damages that will be every bigger time if the climate continues changing quickly. It is not a secret for anybody.

Our cooperation with the population from Haiti began ten years ago, when in fact the hurricanes George and Mitch whipped the Caribbean and to countries of Central America.

René Preval exercised the position of President from Haiti and Jean-Bertrand Aristide was boss of Government. The first contingent of 100 Cuban doctors was correspondent December 4 ,1998. The figure of Cuban collaborators of the health in Haiti rose later on to more than 600.

It was in that occasion when belived the Latin American School of Medicine, ELAM, where they study at the moment more than 12 thousand Latin American youths. Starting from then were granted the Haitian youths hundred of scholarships in the Ability of Medicine of Santiago de Cuba, one of the most experienced of the country.

In Haiti the number of primary schools had grown and went advancing. Until the humblest families desire that their children study, as only hope that can survive the poverty working inside or outside of their country. The Cuban program of doctors' formation was well received. The youths selected to study in Cuba had good basic preparation, inheritance maybe of the advances of France in that land. They should use one year in the course premedic that also included the Spanish language. It has constituted a good quarry of doctors of quality.

In our medical abilities have graduated as specialists in General Integral Medicine 533 Haitian youths, of them, 52 study in Cuba a second specialty that is needed at the moment. Another group of 527 occupies the registrations that correspond to the Republic of Haiti.

In that country work 413 Cuban professionals of the health that lend services gratuitously to that town brother at the present time. The Cuban doctors are present in the ten departments of the country and in 127 of the 137 communes. They also lend services more than 400 Haitian doctors formed in Cuba, and the students of the last year that carry out the educational practice in the own Haiti--next to our doctors--, that makes a total of more than 800 Haitian youths consecrated to the medical services in their Homeland. That force will grow more and more with the new ones graduate Haitian.

The challenge was hard, the Cuban doctors met with difficult problems. The infantile mortality was superior at 80 for each thousand born alive, the perspective of life was below the 60 years, the prevalence of the AIDS in the mature population in the year 2007 reached the figure of 120 thousand citizens. Dozens of children thousands and adults of diverse ages still die every year for illnesses infectilely like tuberculosis, malaria, diarrheas, fastidiousness and for bad nutrition, to point out alone some indexes. The own HIV is already an illness that can face and to guarantee the life of the patients. But this is not achieved in one year; it is indispensable a culture of health that the Haitian town acquires with growing interest. Advances are observed that demonstrate the possibility to improve the indexes of health considerably.

In three oftalmologyc centers created in Haiti, have been operated of the view 37109 patients. The cases that there cannot be operated by thier complexity, are sent to Cuba, where are assisted without cost some.

With the economic cooperation of Venezuela, 10 Integral Centers of Diagnosis are creating, equipped with modern technology that is already acquired.

More important than the resources that the international community can contribute, is the human personnel that uses such resources.

Our modest support to the town of Haiti has been possible although the hurricanes that Clinton spoke they also hit us. A good test that what it has lacked in the world is the solidarity.

It could be spoken equally from the Cuban contribution to the literacy programs and in other fields, in spite of our limited economic resources. But I don't want to extend neither it is desirable to make it to speak of our contribution. I concentrated on the health, because it is an unavoidable topic. We don't fear that others make what we are making. The Haitian youths that are formed in Cuba are becoming the priests of the health that in growing number that town brother requires.

The most important thing is the creation in new cooperation ways that this so much selfish world needs. The organisms of United Nations can testify that Cuba is contributing what they qualify like Integral Programs of Health.

Anything can improvise in Haiti and anything will be fruit of the philanthropic spirit of institution some.

To the project of the Latin American School of Medicine, was added the new formation program later in doctors' coming from Venezuela Cuba, Bolivia, the Caribbean, and other countries of the Third World, as their programs of health demanded him with urgency. Today they surpass the young figure of 24 thousand of the Third World those that study Medicine in our Homeland. Helping to other has also developed ourselves in that field, and we constitute an important force. That, and not the robbery of brains, is what we practice! Can they affirm the same thing the rich and overdeveloped countries of the G-7? Others will follow our example! Nobody doesn't doubt it!

Fidel Castro Ruz

May 24 of 2009

4 and 17 p.m.

UNEQUIVOCAL SIGNS

There are not two different opinions on the A H1N1 issue.

I unhesitatingly supported the decision adopted by the Revolutionary Government of Cuba as soon as it got news of the epidemic.

Our country has accumulated a significant experience in the protection of our people in cases of disasters, epidemics, plagues and other similar situations whether natural, accidental or intentional.

Our unchangeable policy of cooperation with other peoples has also been proven.

The criticism made of the Government of Cuba was absolutely unfair, the same as the threat of retaliation it contained. Additionally, we were portrayed as a hostile nation to the Mexican people.

It was not the tourist travels that determined the measure but the almost four hundred Mexican youths studying Medicine at the Jaguey Grande School, like 24 thousand other students from Latin America, the Caribbean and other peoples of the world --some from very distant nations in Oceania-- who pursue the same career in other Medical Schools.

Cuba does not steal other peoples’ talents or doctors to the detriment of healthcare in those countries and the loss of countless lives. This is done by the United States, the United Kingdom and other wealthy and developed nations.

The measure adopted by the Civil Aviation Institute of Cuba literally reads: “As of midnight April 29, 2009, regular flights and charters operating between Mexico and Cuba will be temporarily suspended.”

“Once the causes for this decision cease to exist, air operations will be resumed and those interested will be timely informed.”

The measure was implemented six days after the drastic decisions made by the Mexican authorities who shutdown schools attended by 33 thousand students and took other similar actions which we cannot judge since only the Mexican authorities could do that knowing the real situation.

Our measures also meant sacrifices for Cuba. But the most important thing for our government was the protection of our people in the framework of the established regulations.

Now the epidemic has spread extensively through the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain and Europe in general, as well as scores of other countries. It will be necessary to apply protection methods in accordance with the new reality.

The Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Patricia Espinosa had really made efforts lately to improve relations between her country and Cuba; relations that irresponsible leaders --for reasons that I’d rather not mention now-- had significantly deteriorated at a time when George W. Bush was trying to find a pretext to launch a “preemptive” attack on our Homeland, as one of the “60 or more dark corners of the world.”

The Mexican foreign relations ministry published that despite criticism by Fidel Castro, at the Rio Group-European Union meeting in Prague, the minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla had signed a statement expressing his recognition to the Mexican authorities.

What Bruno did in Prague was absolutely correct. He took all the time required to listen attentively to the foreign minister and exchange views with her. He communicated to her everything related to Cuba’s conduct. To avoid complications, I will not elaborate on the details of that conversation or the views transmitted about the meeting of a senior official of the Mexican foreign ministry with the Cuban ambassador in Mexico.

I will simply add that the meeting that Bruno and Patricia had in Prague was respectful and candid. Our foreign minister conveyed to his Mexican counterpart Cuba’s solidarity with her country and our willingness to cooperate with the Mexican people to face the epidemic.

Bruno addressed the Rio Group-European Union ministerial meeting to clearly explain Cuba’s position and the actions taken by our government to protect its people; the epidemics introduced in our country, including the hemorrhagic dengue which took the lives of 102 children; Fidel’s Reflections; the close unity among revolutionaries; and, the international cooperation Cuba provides in the area of healthcare.

Resorting to intrigue, lies and threats is an unequivocal sign that the ideological adversary is losing the battle.

Fidel Castro Ruz

May 16, 2009

7:45 p.m.

Reflectionsby Comrade Fidel Castro

On April 25, 2009, El Universal from Mexico published that “Francis Plummer, a scientist with the Canadian government microbiology laboratory stated that the influenza virus attacking the Mexicans is new not only to humans but to the world. Just one week ago…he was asked to
analyze some specimens from Mexico…”

“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 scorted 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.

What went through my mind

TODAY the presence of the Influenza A (H1N1) virus in Cuba was announced. The carrier is a young Mexican citizen who is studying medicine in our country. The only thing that can be affirmed for now is that the CIA did not introduce it. It came from Mexico.

What was the Mexican president complaining about in relation to the measures adopted by Cuba in accordance with established regulations and without the least intention of affecting the sister people of Mexico? We were far from imagining that the epidemic would be unleashed there and in the United States.

The Mexican authorities did not inform the world of the presence of the virus while awaiting Obama’s visit, and now they are threatening us with suspending that of President Calderón, previously suspended for other, understandable reasons unconnected to the epidemic. At this point we and dozens of other countries are carrying the can and, over and above that, we are being accused of adopting measures that are damaging to Mexico.

"In fact, I was going to go to Cuba in the next few days or weeks, but given that Cuba has suspended flights to Mexico," stated the president of Mexico, "I am probably not going to be able to, that could be one of the unforeseen consequences which lack a sufficient technical basis," Calderón added, according to a major European news agency.

The next day another agency from that continent published the same news. The country’s authorities were not even clear on that. Now we have been labeled as the unjust party, without technical bases and a country hostile to the people of Mexico.

The Mexican students are not in the least to blame, they are excellent people, as are the Cuban professors and workers at the school, rigorously fulfilling the pertinent control measures that the circumstances have imposed.

The fairest thing is that the Mexican people should be informed that the three final paragraphs of the Final Declaration of the Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement affirm:
"The ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement… express their profound concern for and solidarity with the government and people of Mexico in the context of the grave situation created by the outbreak of swine fever in that country.

"The ministers ask the World Health Organization and the international financial agencies to give total logistic and financial support to the government and people of Mexico in their efforts to combat this epidemic immediately and in an effective manner.

"In this context, the ministers have urged the World Health Organization, in conjunction with the Mexican authorities, to guarantee systematic and appropriate follow up with a view to containing the subsequent propagation of this epidemic."

I am simply expressing the ideas of what went through my mind as the news was coming in.

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 11, 2009
9:38 p.m.

The struggle has barely begun

GOVERNMENTS might change, but the instruments with which they converted us into colonies are still the same.

For one president in the United States with a sense of ethics, in the last 28 years we have had three who committed genocides and a fourth who internationalized the blockade.

The OAS was the instrument of those crimes. Only its costly bureaucratic apparatus takes the IACHR agreements seriously. Our nation was the last of the Spanish colonies after four centuries of occupation and the first to liberate itself from the dominion of the United States after more than six decades.

"Freedom comes at a very high price, and it is necessary either to live without it or to decide to buy it at its price", the Apostle of our Independence taught us.

Cuba respects the opinions of governments of the sister nations of Latin America and the Caribbean who think differently, but it does not wish to be part of this institution.

Daniel Ortega, who gave a valiant and historic speech in Port of Spain, explained to the Cuban people that the independent nations of Africa did not invite the former colonial powers of Europe to be part of African Unity. It is a position worthy of being taken into account.

The OAS did not prevent Reagan from unleashing the dirty war against his [Ortega’s] people, mining their ports, resorting to drug trafficking in order to acquire weapons of war, with which he financed the death, maiming, or serious wounding of tens of thousands of young people in a country as small as Nicaragua.

What did the OAS do to protect that country? What did it do to prevent the invasion of the Dominican Republic, the hundreds of thousands of people murdered or disappeared in Guatemala, the air attacks, the assassination of prominent religious figures, the mass repression of the people, the invasions in Granada and Panama, the coup d’état in Chile, the torture and disappearances there, in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and other places? Did it ever accuse the United States? What is its historic evaluation of these events?

Yesterday, Saturday, Granma published what I wrote on the IACHR anti-Cuba agreement. Afterward, I felt a curiosity to discover the one it had adopted against Venezuela. It was more or less the same garabage.

The Bolivarian Revolution’s accession to power was different from that of Cuba. In our country, the political process had been abruptly interrupted by a cunning military coup promoted by the U.S. government on March 10, 1952, just a few weeks before the general elections that should have taken place on June 1 of that year. In Cuba, once again, the people had no other option but to resign themselves to the situation. The Cuban people fought again, on this occasion the outcome was very different. Almost seven years later, the Revolution emerged victorious for the first time in history.

With a minimum of weaponry - more than 90% of which was seized from the enemy during 25 months of war backed by the people - and in the final offensive a revolutionary general strike, the revolutionary combatants trounced the dictatorship and took control of all its weapons and centers of power. The victorious Revolution became the source of law as in any other historical era.

That was not the case in Venezuela. Chávez, a revolutionary soldier like others in our hemisphere, came to power under the rules of the established bourgeois constitution, as leader of the 5th Republic Movement allied with other left-wing forces. The Revolution and its instruments were yet to be created. If the military uprising led by him had triumphed, the Revolution in Venezuela would possibly have taken another course. However, he abided by the established legal regulations already within his reach as the principal course of struggle. He developed the habit of consulting the public as often as was necessary.

He submitted the new constitution to a popular referendum. It was not long before he became aware of the methods of imperialism and its allies in the oligarchy to recoup and hold on to power.

The coup d’état on April 11, 2002 was the counterrevolution’s response.

The people reacted and brought him once again to power when, isolated and incommunicado, he was on the point of being eliminated by the right, who were forcing him to sign his resignation.

He did not submit; he resisted until the Venezuelan marines themselves freed him and Air Force helicopters took him back to Miraflores Palace, which had been occupied by the people and the army in Fuerte (Fort) Tiuna, who rose up against the senior officers perpetrating the coup.

At the time, I thought that his politics would become more radical; however, concerned over unity and peace, at the moment of his greatest strength and support, he was generous and conversed with his adversaries, seeking their cooperation.

The response to that attitude by imperialism and its accomplices was the oil industry coup. Perhaps one of the most brilliant battles he fought during that period was the one to supply fuel to the people of Venezuela.

We had spoken many times since he visited Cuba in 1994 and spoke at the University of Havana.

He was a genuinely revolutionary man, but as he gained awareness of the injustice rampant in Venezuelan society his thinking became more profound, until he arrived at the conviction that Venezuela had no alternative other than radical and total change.

He knows the most minuscule details of the ideas of the Liberator [Simón Bolívar], whom he profoundly admires.

His adversaries know that it is not easy to win when faced with the tenacity of a man who does not rest for a minute. They could opt to take his life, but both internal and external enemies know what that would mean for their interests. Irrational lunatics and fanatics may exist, but neither leaders, the peoples, nor humanity itself are exempt from such dangers.

Thinking objectively, Chávez today is a formidable adversary of the capitalist system of production and imperialism. He has become a veritable expert on many fundamental problems within human society. I have seen him in the last few days, while he was opening dozens of healthcare facilities. He is impressive. He forcefully criticizes what was occurring with vital services such as hemodialysis, which were in the hands of private centers paid by the state. Poor people were condemned to die if they did not have the money available. This also happened with many other services; today, they are available at new facilities that have been fitted out with state of the art equipment.

He masterfully handles even the smallest details of national production and social services. He dominates the theory and practice of socialism that his country requires, and he strives for his most profound convictions. He defines capitalism as it is: he does not paint caricatures, he demonstrates X-rays and images of the system.

It is about a peculiar and odious ensemble of exploitation of forms of human labor: unjust, unequal and arbitrary. He does not just talk about the workers, he shows them on television producing with their own hands, demonstrating their energy, their knowledge, their intelligence, creating essential goods or services for human beings: he asks them about their children, their families, wives or husbands, close relatives, where they live, what they are studying, what they are doing to improve themselves, their ages, wages, future retirement, the grotesque lies about property circulated by the imperialists and capitalists. He shows hospitals, schools, factories, boys and girls, he offers details on factories that are being built in Venezuela, mechanisms, employment growth figures, natural resources, designs, maps and news about the latest discovery of natural gas. The most recent measure adopted by Congress: the law nationalizing the 60 key companies lending their services every year to PDVSA, the state oil company, to the tune of more than $8 billion dollars. They were not private property but created by neoliberal governments of Venezuela with resources that belonged to PDVSA.

I had never seen an idea so clearly transformed into images and broadcast on television. Chávez not only possess a special talent for capturing and transmitting the essence of processes; he accompanies that with a privileged memory; it would be difficult for him to forget a word, a phrase, a verse, a musical intonation; he combines words that express new concepts. He speaks of a socialism that seeks justice and equality; "while cultural colonialism continues to live in people’s minds, the old will never die and the new will never be born." He combines eloquent verses and phrases in articles and letters. Most of all, he has demonstrated that he is the political leader in Venezuela capable of creating a party, incessantly transmitting revolutionary ideas to his followers and politically educating them.

Above all, I observed all the faces of the captains and other crew members of the ships of the nationalized companies; their words reflect an inner pride, gratitude for the recognition, security in the future; the faces of jubilant young economy students who name him "godfather of the promotion" at the point of finishing their university studies, when he tells them more than 400 of them are needed to move to Argentina, who must be ready to work in the management of the 200 new factories of the program agreed with that country, where they will be dispatched when their course ends to be trained in production processes.

Ramonet was with him; he was amazed at Chávez’ work. When, about eight years ago, we initiated our revolutionary cooperation with Venezuela, he was in the Palace of the Revolution, asking me hundreds of questions. The writer knows about the issue and was racking his brains trying to guess what would replace the capitalist system of production. The Venezuelan experience will surely be filling him with astonishment. I have been witness to a unique effort in that direction.

It is a battle of ideas lost beforehand by the adversary, which has nothing to offer humanity.

No wonder the OAS is hypocritically trying to present him as an enemy of freedom of expression and democracy. Almost half a century has gone by since those chipped and hypocritical weapons came up against the steadfastness of the Cuban people. Today, Venezuela is not alone and it has the experience of 200 years of exceptional patriotic history on its side.

It is a struggle that has barely begun in our hemisphere.

Fidel Castro Ruz

May 10, 2009

1:36 p.m.

ONCE AGAIN, THE ROTTEN OAS

Yesterday the German cable service DPA revealed that the ICHR of the OAS approved a report pointing out that Cuba “continued to transgress” on fundamental rights by keeping “restrictions” on the population’s political and civil rights, while at the same time continuing to be the “only” country in the region where there is absolutely no freedom of expression.Is there really an ICHR within that rotten institution? Yes, there is, I answer myself. And just what is its mission? To judge the human rights situation in the OAS member countries. Is the U.S. a member of that institution? Yes, it is one of the most honorable members. Has it ever condemned the government of the United States? No, not ever. Not even the crimes of genocide that Bush committed, exacting the lives of millions of people? No! Never! How could it commit that injustice? Not even the tortures at the Guantánamo Base? As far as we know, not one single word.

On the Internet we obtained a copy of the agreement against Cuba. It’s pure rubbish. It is dedicated to counterrevolutionary gossiping. It is long, in the style of those State Department documents, the political paradigm and head of the OAS. How right Roa was when he called it the Yankee Ministry of Colonies!

We could ask that shameless institution: if we were expelled from the OAS for proclaiming our convictions and we are not members of that institution, what right do they have to pass judgment on us? Would the OAS do likewise with the Peoples’ Republic of China, Vietnam or other countries who, like Cuba, have proclaimed their allegiance to Marxist-Leninist principles?

The OAS should know that for a while now we are not part of that church, nor do we share in its teachings. We start from different positions. If we speak of freedom of expression, we must remind it that in our country we do not recognize private ownership of the media. It was always the owners of these media who decided what was to be written and who would be doing the writing, what would be broadcast or not, what would be shown and what would not. Illiterate and semi-literate people cannot do it, and for hundreds of years, while colonialism reigned and the capitalist system was developing since the invention of the printing press, four-fifths of the population could neither read nor write and there was no free and public education system.

The modern media have changed all that. Today, through huge investments alone one can have centers which broadcast the news throughout the planet and only those who direct them decide what is broadcast and how it is broadcast, what is printed and how it is printed.

The efforts made by the Pentagon to monopolize information and the Internet networks are obvious. Our own country is blocked from access to those sources. It would be better that the ICHR accounts to the world the resources that its bureaucracy is spending on stupidities, instead of analyzing these realities and informing Latin American countries about the very serious dangers threatening the freedom of expression of all the peoples of the world.

To question Cuba’s role in this area, it would have to start with the outright recognition that this has been the nation which has done the most for education, science and culture among all the peoples of the planet, and that its example is followed today by other revolutionary and progressive governments. If they have any doubt whatsoever, let them ask the United Nations.

In this hemisphere, the poor never had freedom of expression because they never received quality education and knowledge was reserved solely for the privileged and bourgeois elite. Don’t blame Venezuela now, which has done so much for education since the Bolivarian revolution, or the Republic of Haiti, crushed by poverty, diseases and natural catastrophes, as if any of these were ideal conditions for the freedom of expression proclaimed by the OAS. Do what Cuba is doing: first help to massively train quality healthcare personnel and send revolutionary doctors to the most remote corners of the country so that they may contribute to the saving of lives, and transmit to them educational programs and experiences; insist that the financial institutions of the developed and rich world send resources to build schools, train teachers, produce medicines, develop their agriculture and industries, and then talk about the rights of Man.

Fidel Castro Ruz

May 8, 2009

12:14 p.m.

The Only American Ex-President I Have Met

Carter is the only ex-president of the United States that I have had the honor of meeting, other than Nixon who was not one yet.

I had visited Washington to take part in a press conference that meant a tough challenge for me because of the questions that the expert reporters would be asking. The president had suggested to Nixon that he invite me for a conversation in his office. He was deceitful and hypocritical. He left that office with the idea of recommending the destruction of the Cuban Revolution.

Following his advice, Eisenhower was the author of the first plans to eliminate me physically, of the terror campaign against Cuba and the mercenary Bay of Pigs invasion.

The year 1959 marked the beginning of the treacherous history that President Carter tried to rectify 18 years later.

I knew, or rather I guessed, that he was a man of a religious ethics, from a long interview in which difficult subjects were broached and which he handled with sincerity and modesty. In those days, there were strong tensions between Panama and the United States. The leader of that country, Omar Torrijos, was an honest, nationalist and patriotic soldier. He could be persuaded by Cuba to not adopt extreme positions in his struggle for the return of the Canal territory which, like a sharp knife, was splitting his country in two. Perhaps because of that, the
small nation was able to avoid a blood-bath although later on the country would be portrayed to the people of the United States and to the world as an aggressor.

Later, and without talking to anyone in the United States, I could predict that maybe Carter was the only president of that country with whom it would be possible to reach an honorable agreement without spilling one single drop of blood.

Not much time had passed before Washington would sign the agreement between the United States and Panama in the presence of other heads of state, excluding Cuba of course.

I mention this because Omar Torrijos himself, on a visit he made to our country, spoke about the efforts Cuba had made in this respect.

As president of the United States, Carter agreed with Cuba to create the Interests Sections in Havana and Washington. With that move we saved a lot of diplomatic procedures and paperwork that were driving the austere and meticulous Swiss diplomats insane. Maintaining the colossal building in the former United States Embassy in Havana was already in itself quite
a feat for Switzerland.

Another thing: Carter discussed major issues with Cuba, such as the limits of territorial waters and the rights of each, the use of energy resources included in the jurisdictional waters of Mexico, Cuba and the United States as well as fishery resources and other subjects of inescapable attention. Not all the agreements favored Cuba. Our fishing fleet had been catching in international waters, as it was established, 12 miles off the coasts of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. However, in solidarity, Cuba was supporting Chile, Peru and other Latin American
countries in their right to exploit fishery resources on their respective sea shelves. The final result was that our modern expensive fishing boats finally ceased to work in those waters, when such a battle was finally won. The requisites established by the U.S. authorities were such on the rich shelves where our boats were fishing near the coast of that country, and other limitations in the light of the new law, that they priced themselves out of the market.

When Carter became president of his country, the aggressions, terrorism and blockade against the people of Cuba had existed for many years. Our solidarity with the peoples of Africa and many other poor and underdeveloped nations in the world could not be the object of negotiations with the U.S. government. Nor would we leave Angola, or suspend the assistance already committed to the African countries.

Carter never actually requested it but it is clear that many in the United States were thinking along those lines.

The defense of our sovereignty not only unleashed deep contradictions with the U.S. but also with the USSR, our ally, when as a result of the October [Missile] Crisis, without consulting our country, the USSR negotiated a mutually convenient agreement with the U.S. by which the
blockade, terrorist actions and the Guantanamo Base remained intact in exchange for strategic concessions by the two superpowers. We did not seek unilateral advantages. Revolutionaries who act that way do not survive their mistakes.

Compliance with the international standards would have never been an obstacle for Cuba and, as we have often said, peace is also an unavoidable objective of the Cuban Revolution. Many forms of cooperation are possible between peoples with different political concepts.

One proof of that is the war against drug trafficking, organized crime and the trafficking of human beings; this can be extended to many forms of cooperation in the fight against epidemics, natural catastrophes and other problems.

The Revolution has never used terrorism against the United States.

That country invented plane hijackings to strike against Cuba. That action, in a society with so many social conflicts, became an epidemic. How could they have resolved it without Cuba’s cooperation? We had adopted severe laws to punish the culprits, but it was useless. Finally,
we made the decision to return them in the very same hijacked planes after warning them about it earlier.

Thus, the first plane we returned was the last one hijacked in the U.S.; this coincided exactly with the Carter years. I have spoken about this at greater length. I’m not saying anything new.

After Carter, Reagan took the dirty war to Nicaragua, using drugs to get around the laws of Congress and with the incomes supply weapons to the counterrevolution, mining ports; his policy took thousands of Sandinista lives while many were wounded and maimed.

Bush senior carried out the horrible slaughter of El Chorrillo to punish Panama and erase the marks left by Carter’s gesture.

When Carter visited Cuba between May 12 and 17 of 2002, he knew that he would be welcomed here; I attended his lecture at the University of Havana; I invited him to an important baseball game played between the national Occidentales and Orientales teams at the Latin American
Stadium. Both of us were there at the opening pitch to which he was invited, with no bodyguards whatsoever, surrounded by 50,000 people in the stands, perfect targets for any sharp-shooter hired by the CIA. Bush Jr. was already governing the U.S. I only wanted to show Carter the
relationship of the country’s leaders with the people. When we arrived at the stadium, he accepted with dignity my invitation to persuade his chief of security to leave him on his own, and that’s what he did.

What I know about forestry in the U.S. was explained to me by Carter at the dinner we hosted for him on the last day: how the trees are planted, what varieties, the time they need to grow, production per hectares, and so on and so forth.

I observed his faith in the capitalist system where he was raised and educated; I respect that.

When he was in the government, times were difficult. He had to carry the burden of the effects of an economic crisis, but he was austere, he didn’t drown the future generations in debt. His successor, Ronald Reagan, would squander all the savings Carter had made. He was a movie
actor and handled the teleprompter well, but he never asked himself where the money was coming from.

Yesterday, former President Jimmy Carter said to the Folha de São Paulo newspaper: “’I would like (the embargo) to end today. There is no reason why the Cuban people should continue to suffer’, stated the former president who heads a human rights organization and this week was
visiting Brazil to meet with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“According to Carter, the initiatives adopted so far by Obama to ease the restrictions dictated against the island were less daring than what would be desired.

“’I think that Obama’s initiatives were not as good as those of the two U.S. Congress houses which today are one step ahead of the president with regards to Cuba.

“’The next step should be immediate removal of all travel restrictions to the island, not just for Cuban-Americans. It was what I did when I was president 30 years ago. The end of the embargo will follow suit’, the former president said.

Carter finally expressed that results were also depending on the Cuban leaders; surely, on us and on all the Cubans who have struggled and are willing to struggle.

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 7, 2009
7:15 p.m.

A QUESTION WITH NO ANSWER

Our world is not only threatened by the cyclical economic crises which are ever more serious and frequent. Unemployment, bankruptcy, and the huge losses in goods and wealth are inseparable companions of the blind market laws which govern the world economy today. Neo-liberalism proscribes any interference by the State, considering it a disturbing element for the economy, as if the domestic order, the army, health, education, culture, science, the courts, the judges, and many other activities could exist without the State and its laws.

Obviously, the State, with its rigor and coercive force, was considered an obstruction by those like Marx, Lenin and other theoreticians, who saw it as an instrument used by the exploiters to impose the heinous capitalist system, and conceived the idea of turning it into an instrument of the Revolution in the stage of transition to and entirely new society.

Colonialists, capitalists and imperialists have created their own codes of conduct and imposed their values. They talk about freedom, democracy, human rights and so on. After the United States was founded, millions of human beings continued working as salves; the Creator had not granted them any right, as was stated in the Philadelphia Declaration. During almost 100 years they were like merchandise which was bought and sold in the market, and for another 100 years, after the civil war, they were atrociously discriminated against and marginalized. Today, together with the American Indians and the Latin Americans, they are the poorest citizens to be found in the US prisons; they do the toughest and worst paid jobs.

It is never said that billions of people in the world suffer the consequences of ignorance, unemployment, underdevelopment, diseases that curtail their life span to two thirds or by one half –and sometimes less than that- as compared to the life span enjoyed by people in rich countries.

New problems, such as drug trafficking, organized crime, brain drain and illegal migration, add to the old ones. There is even an attempt to submit the human minds using the mass media and the most modern techniques of the so called entertainment industry.

What supports that order? Wealth and the use of force. For that they have all the money in this world and the most sophisticated military means. Besides, they are the big producers and exporters of weapons that pose no threat whatsoever to their international hegemony, but spur local wars, multinationals profits and their allies’ dependence.

They mint unlimited amounts of the hard currency required by international trade, and with that they acquire properties for their multinationals and take hold of the natural resources and the fruits of peoples’ labor in order to prop up the societies of consumption and waste that they have created.

Furthermore, the United States keeps a monopolist control over the international credit and investment agencies.

Whenever these concerns start going around the minds of many millions in the world who do not let themselves be misled by the lies that are proclaimed, news begin to flow showing different realities.

For example: In the year 2004, the last shown by statistics, the US multinationals’ profits abroad amounted to 700 billion dollars, for which they paid to the Treasury only 16 billion dollars in discounts, which grant special privileges to US companies investing in other countries, thus affecting those which do it inside the US and create jobs in that country. The mere attempt by the present US administration to reduce that privilege gave rise to a protest by important US business organizations whose economic and political power no one can deny.

Gathering a number of national and international news showing the national privileges that country has imposed on the whole world could even be an enlightening pastime. There are politicians inside and outside the United States who take offense if someone dares to describe that system as an empire, as if there were another word that could better define it.

The other side of the coin offers a much gloomier picture. On several occasions reference was made to the seven fleets with which the US imposes its military might on the world, resorting to more than 800 military bases scattered throughout the planet. Guantánamo, whose prison camps and tortures astonished the world’s public opinion, is only one of the hundreds of military bases that they have.

Maybe we could have a better idea of the military power with which the superpower supports the economic and social system it has imposed on humankind by referring to some data which were recently published by the specialized press.

The US military power is based on its nuclear arsenal.

It has 534 Minuteman III and Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM); 432 Trident C-4 and D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) installed on board of 17 Ohio submarines; and around 200 long-range nuclear bombers that can be supplied in mid-air, among them 16 invisible B-2. The missiles carry several warheads. The number of nuclear warheads deployed ranges between five thousand and ten thousand. Its Armed Forces are made up by more than 2 million men. Added to all these there are hundreds of military and communication satellites which make up the space shield and are the means for an electromagnetic war.

Russia, the other big nuclear power, has been surrounded by offensive nuclear weapons.

It is hardly necessary to add one more word, except for being reminded that thanks to the monopoly over money and natural resources, the United States announced yesterday through the Pentagon’s principal commander for cyber-war that that country was determined to lead the global effort to use computer technology to deter or defeat the enemies, while protecting people’s constitutional rights. The news was broadcast by the AP, the main US news agency.

How much security can be found in today’s world? That is a question with no answer!

Fidel Castro Ruz

May 6, 2009

3:32 p.m.

CUBA: A TERRORIST COUNTRY?

Thursday, April 30 was unlucky for the United States. On that day it occurred to them to include Cuba yet again on the list of terrorist countries. Committed as they are to their own crimes and lies, perhaps even Obama himself was unable to untangle himself from that mess. A man whose talent nobody denies must feel ashamed about the empire’s cult of lie. Fifty years of terrorism against our Homeland come to light in an instant.

What can one explain to those who know about the horrific event of a plane blown up in mid flight, with its passengers and crew, about the participation of the United States in the events, the recruiting of Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles, and the supplying of explosives, funds and the complicity of the intelligence agencies and the authorities of that country? How can one explain the campaign of terror that preceded and followed the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs, the attacks on our coasts, towns, transport and fishing vessels, the terrorist actions inside and outside of the United States? How can one explain the hundreds of frustrated assassination plots on the lives of Cuban leaders? What can one say about the introduction of viruses such as hemorrhagic dengue and swine fever that genetically had never even existed in the hemisphere? I am merely mentioning some of the acts of terror in which the United States has played a part, the ones recorded in their own declassified documents. Don’t these events embarrass the current administration?

I could put together an endless list of abhorrent activities.

At our request, Bruno Rodríguez, Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent me the exact words used by a France-Presse reporter to ask him a question on April 30, along with his compelling answer.

Rigoberto Díaz, of AFP: “Coinciding with the final moments of this meeting and also on a subject that has been dealt with during this event, the US government has once more included Cuba on the list of countries sponsors of terrorism along with Sudan, Iran and Syria. I would like to hear your opinion on this.”

Bruno’s reply:

“We do not recognize any political or moral authority to the US government to make any list on any subject, or to “certify” good or bad behavior.

The Bush government was “certified” by world public opinion as a government violating international law; as being aggressive and war-mongering; as a government that tortures and that is responsible for extrajudicial executions.

“Bush has been the only president who has boasted in public, in the US Congress, about having carried out extrajudicial executions. That is a government which kidnapped people and transported them illegally, created secret prisons that nobody knows whether they are still in existence, and a concentration camp where torturing is going on in the part of territory usurped from the Republic of Cuba.

“In the matter of terrorism, the US government has historically held a long record of State terrorism acts, not only against Cuba.

“In the US, Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles are free to come and go; these two who are responsible for numerous terrorist acts including the blowing up of a civilian Cuban plane in mid-flight. There is no answer to Venezuela’s official request for the extradition of Posada Carriles who is being tried for various charges, but not as a notorious international terrorist.

“The US government held a travesty of a trial against the five young Cuban anti-terrorist activists who are today being held as political prisoners in its jails.

“The US government covers up acts of State terrorism committed by Israel against the Palestinian people and the Arab peoples. And, it kept silent before the crimes taking place in the Gaza Strip.

“Therefore one shouldn’t recognize that the United States has any moral authority whatsoever, and I, frankly, believe that nobody pays any attention or reads those documents, among other things, because the author is an international outlaw in many of the matters which it criticizes.

“Cuba’s position against all manifestations and forms of terrorism, wherever they may be committed, against any state that may be affected, in any form it may be carried out, for whatever purpose, is clear and consistent with its actions.

“Cuba has been the victim of terrorism for many years and it has a completely clean record in this matter. Cuban territory has never been used to organize, fund or execute terrorist acts against the United States of America. The State Department which issues those reports cannot say the same.”

This declaration, issued at the ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Countries, is not yet widely known by the population which in these days has been receiving plenty of news of all kinds. If the State Department wishes to discuss this with Bruno, there is sufficient information to bury it in its own lies.

Fidel Castro Ruz

May 2, 2009

7:12 p.m.