The "Black sheep" of the European crisis

Europe is in crisis, it’s what we all know and can’t deny anymore. While travelling to university I like to read the newspapers but lately it’s starting to become highly annoying. Not because the crisis has become a normal fact but simply the focus is only laid on the problem itself. I know the crisis is gigantically damaging for Europe and even for the whole world but what is going on behind the crisis is maybe even more scary.  

So what is going on then, right? Well it is quite simple, people are starting to lose their jobs, earn less money, paying more tax but for who or what? And that is where it goes so wrong this moment. The western European governments are asking their citizens for more and more money, for example increasing tax and cost for social security.  This all while these same governments lent gigantic amounts, talking about millions of Euros, to countries who are in economical crisis. And why are these countries in an economical crisis, well because they were never bothered to care about their finances and lived like we Europeans say;  “As gods in the south of France”.

So now you might think, what is the problem then? Well it’s the opinion of the citizens of west-Europe, let’s say France, Belgium, The Netherland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Scandinavian countries.  I know Switzerland is not part of Europe but geographically it does and so does it support Europe in the battle against the crisis. Those countries all show one thing in common,  the extreme growth in supporters of nationalist and right wing parties and ideas. 

Open the doors for abuse? NO! (Swizterland)

In the Netherland the political party of Geert Wilders, the PVV (Party of freedom), is the second party of the country, in Finland the party called Perussuomalaiset (True Finns) won the election, in Switzerland the party called Schweizerische Volkspartei (Swiss people’s party) is the biggest in parliament and i can continue with this country by country. Everywhere right wing and nationalist parties start to win the confidence and support of the people.

And let us not forget the horrific act of the terror attacks happened in Norway this year by Anders Behring Breivik, killing in Total 77 innocent and young persons. All died because according to Breivik  we should protect and save the European culture.

This move towards the right show the growing opinion that immigrants are the cause of the crisis. Within many countries there is no “us” anymore, there has come a growing “we and them” culture. Of course I speak in general but I’m sure a big majority of Europeans will agree with me on this. Now am I not willing to go as far as comparing this situation with the crisis in Germany in 1930ths . Because of that crisis Adolf Hitler came to power with as result the killing of 6 million Jews and many other persons. But for sure the growth of right wing parties and ideas is something we should pay more attention to than we are giving it now.

Are we willing to give up our ideas of freedom, equal rights included in that?  Freedom that counts for everybody and that we are trying to spread in other part of the world. While more and more people get affected by the crisis, the search for the guilty is getting stronger. And while our political leaders, in general now without nationalist and extreme right ideas, keep silent and keep their eyes closed, it are the nationalist and right wings parties offering that “black sheep”. What will happen in the coming year will greatly depend on how this problem is dealt with right now. We learned for our past that this hate towards immigrants can cause immense damage.

While thinking about this in my daily bus trip to university I came to the simple conclusion. History has always been a circle, through the years we see that same happenings happen all over again. In a different form and identity. Will this be such example, let hope not. Let’s hope we did learn from the past and get back together  to fight the real cause of the crisis, the gigantic failure of our political leaders throughout the last decade. 

Marije

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THE G-20 MEETING

Tomorrow the G-20 Meeting begins, that is the meeting of the most developed and wealthy countries on the planet: the United States, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and the European Union as a separate entity but with the right to participate; they are the fundamental bastions of NATO plus its allies Japan, South Korea, Australia and Turkey in its double aspect of developing country and NATO member, just as Saudi Arabia – a gigantic reservoir of light oil in the hands of western transnationals, extracting from it 9.4 million barrels a day, whose value at current prices totals one billion dollars per day – on one side of the table, and on the other, a group of countries having growing economic and political clout who, as a matter of fact, because of the number of inhabitants and natural resources, are becoming an expression of the interests of the majority of our long-suffering and pillaged world: the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

Spain, also a NATO ally, is just a “Guest Country”.

We are talking about a meeting among the great producers of industrial machinery and articles and of the great suppliers of raw materials that, over half a millennium following the Conquest, were European colonies and in the past century supplied them with agricultural products, minerals and energy resources, victims of a pitiless unequal exchange.

This dark period in history has been going on since the descendants of the Barbarian tribes populating Europe “discovered” and conquered this hemisphere, armed with swords, cross-bows and harquebuses.

“The discoverers”, so covered with excuses by the so-called western world, as if a part of humanity hadn’t been living on the continent for 40 million years, harboured the aim of seeking a shorter trade route to China.

In that country, with which they had antecedents via the silk merchants and merchants of other products prized by the aristocracy and burgeoning European bourgeoisie, they had found a fabulous civilization having a written language, refined arts, agriculture, metals, gunpowder and advanced principles of political and military organization, including armies with tens or perhaps thousands of cavalry.

They were on the point of capsizing when they sighted land, in the vicinity of Cuba. A short while later Columbus took possession of our island in the name of the King of Spain. Would he have been able to do that had he actually landed in China, as he had proposed? His error cost this hemisphere tens of millions of lives that were lost as consequence of the partitioning of the Americas by the Papal Bull between the two kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, and in the constant conflicts among the medieval nobility.



The Conquest and the search for gold and silver, as the genial native painter Oswaldo Guayasamín pointed out, cost 70 million lives of those living in the hemisphere, birthplace of important civilizations.

Black Africa can also speak about what that Conquest meant for millions of its children, ripped away and sold as slaves in this hemisphere.

The multi-million-dollar oligarchy, whose Heads of State or Government will be meeting in Cannes with the representatives of almost 6 billion inhabitants that aspire to a decent existence for their peoples, should meditate on these realities.

Those countries would like to monopolize technologies and markets through patents, banks, the most modern and costly transportation means, cybernetic supremacy over complex production processes, control of communications and the mass media in order to dupe the world.

Now that the inhabitants of the world number 7 billion, the states representing only one out of seven persons, who, judging by the massive protests in Europe and the United States, are not very happy, put the survival of our species at risk.

Could anyone forget that the US was the country that impeded the Kyoto Agreement when we had a little more time to prevent a catastrophe with the climate change that is being produced as we watch?

On the 28th and 29th of October past, another meeting of Heads of State and Governments took place: the community of Ibero-American countries. Among the calamities that the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking peoples have had to put up with is the fact that they are the region in the world with the most inequalities in terms of the distribution of their wealth.

Cuba’s Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla travelled from the UN meeting in New York on the blockade of Cuba to the capital of Paraguay where that second meeting was being held. There, highly interesting things were being said about the crisis that is sweeping over the European Community.

The new prime minister of Portugal poured out his bitterness with the European Union when he declared that it has become exhausted and without funds with the record rescue of Greece. It could face up to a crisis in Portugal but it would be bankrupt, unable to aid Italy, the seventh world economy, and this would drag down France whose banks hold the greatest part of the Italian debt.

The Iberian leaders doubt that the commitment assumed with Greece would be fulfilled and if it is not fulfilled they predict a longer crisis than that of 1929.

This morning, the news dispatches inform about the drastic consequences of the never-before-seen rainfall in Thailand, the major rice exporter whose sales will be reduced from 25 million tons to 19.

In contrast, news about China increasing its production of metal copper to almost 5 million tons caused considerable effect.

However, while the US keeps intact its veto power at the International Monetary Fund, China is being denied the simple right of approving the Yuan as convertible currency in that body. How long will that tyranny prevail?

It is through this looking-glass that we must analyse every single word that is spoken at the G-20 Summit.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 2, 2011
8:54 p.m.


Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

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NATOS’S GENOCIDAL ROLE (PART FOUR)

On March 2nd, under the title of “NATO’s Inevitable War” I wrote:

“In contrast with what is happening in Egypt and Tunisia, Libya occupies the first spot on the Human Development Index for Africa and it has the highest life expectancy on the continent. Education and health receive special attention from the State. The cultural level of its population is without a doubt the highest. Its problems are of a different sort. […] The country needed an abundant foreign labour force to carry out ambitious plans for production and social development.”

“It had enormous incomes and reserves in convertible currencies deposited in the banks of the wealthy countries from which they acquired consumer goods and even sophisticated weapons that were supplied exactly by the same countries that today want to invade it in the name of human rights.

“The colossal campaign of lies, unleashed by the mass media, resulted in great confusion in world public opinion. Some time will go by before we can reconstruct what has really happened in Libya, and we can separate the true facts from the false ones that have been spread.”

“The empire and its main allies used the most sophisticated media to divulge information about the events, among which one had to deduce the shreds of the truth.”

“Imperialism and NATO – seriously concerned by the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world, where a large part of the oil is generated that sustains the consumer economy of the developed and rich countries – could not help but take advantage of the internal conflict arising in Libya so that they could promote military intervention.”

“In spite of the flood of lies and the confusion that was created, the US could not drag China and the Russian Federation to the approval by the Security Council for a military intervention in Libya, even though it managed to obtain however, in the Human Rights Council, approval of the objectives it was seeking at that moment.”

“The real fact is that Libya is now wrapped up in a civil war, as we had foreseen, and the United Nations could do nothing to avoid it, other than its own Secretary General sprinkling the fire with a goodly dose of fuel.

“The problem that perhaps the actors were not imagining is that the very leaders of the rebellion were bursting into the complicated matter declaring that they were rejecting all foreign military intervention.”

One of the rebellion’s ringleaders, Abdelhafiz Ghoga, declared on February 28th, in an encounter with journalists: “What we want is intelligence information, but in no case that our sovereignty is affected in the air, on land or on the seas.”

“The intransigence of the people responsible for the opposition on national sovereignty was reflecting the opinion being spontaneously manifested by many Libyan citizens to the international press in Benghazi”, informed a dispatch of the AFP agency this past Monday.



“That same day, a political sciences professor at the University of Benghazi, Abeir Imneina, adversary of Gaddafi stated:

“There is very strong national feeling in Libya.”

“‘Furthermore, the example of Iraq strikes fear in the Arab world as a whole’, she underlined, in reference to the American invasion of 2003 that was supposed to bring democracy to that country and then, by contagion, to the region as a whole, a hypothesis totally belied by the facts.”

“‘We know what happened in Iraq, it’s that it is fully unstable and we really don’t want to follow the same path. We don’t want the Americans to come to have to go crying to Gaddafi’, this expert continued.”

“A few hours after this dispatch was printed, two of the main press bodies of the United States, The New York Times and The Washington Post, hastened to offer new versions on the subject; the DPA agency informs on this on the following day, March the first: “The Libyan opposition could request that the West bomb from the air strategic positions of the forces loyal to President Muamar al Gaddafi, the US press informed today’.”

“The subject is being discussed inside the Libyan Revolutionary Council, ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The Washington Post’ specified in their online versions.”

“’In the event that air actions are carried out within the United Nations framework, these would not imply international intervention, explained the council’s spokesperson, quoted by The New York Times‘”.

“‘The Washington Post’ quoted rebels acknowledging that, without Western backing, combat with the forces loyal to Gaddafi could last a long time and cost many human lives.”

In that Reflection, I immediately wondered:

“Why the effort to present the rebels as prominent members of society demanding bombing by the US and NATO in order to kill Libyans?”

“Some day we shall know the truth, through persons such as the political sciences professor from the University of Benghazi who, with such eloquence, tells of the terrible experience that killed, destroyed homes, left millions of persons in Iraq without jobs or forced them to emigrate.”

“Today on Wednesday, the second of March, the EFE Agency presents the well-known rebel spokesperson making statements that, in my opinion, affirm and at the same time contradict those made on Monday: “Benghazi (Libya), March 2. The rebel Libyan leadership today asked the UN Security Council to launch an air attack ‘against the mercenaries’ of the Muamar el Gaddafi regime.’”

“Which one of the many imperialist wars would this look like?

“The one in Spain in 1936? Mussolini’s against Ethiopia in 1935? George W. Bush’s against Iraq in the year 2003 or any other of the dozens of wars promoted by the United States against the peoples of the Americas, from the invasion of Mexico in 1846 to the invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982?

“Without excluding, of course, the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs, the dirty war and the blockade of our Homeland throughout 50 years, that will have another anniversary next April 16th.

“In all those wars, like that of Vietnam which cost millions of lives, the most cynical justifications and measures prevailed.

“For anyone harbouring any doubts, about the inevitable military intervention that shall occur in Libya, the AP news agency, which I consider to be well-informed, headlined a cable printed today which stated: “The NATO countries are drawing up a contingency plan taking as its model the flight exclusion zones established over the Balkans in the 1990s, in the event that the international community decides to impose an air embargo over Libya, diplomats said’.”

Any honest person capable of objectively observing the events can appreciate the danger lying in the ensemble of cynical and brutal events that characterize United States policy and explain the embarrassing solitude of that country in the UN debate on “The need to put an end to the economic, commercial and financial embargo on Cuba”.

I am closely following the Pan-American Games of Guadalajara 2011, despite my work.

Our country swells with pride for those young people who exemplify for the world their selflessness and spirit of solidarity. I warmly congratulate them; nobody can take away from them the place of honour they have earned.

To be continued on Sunday the 30th.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 28, 2011
7:14 p.m.


Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

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NATO’S GENOCIDAL ROLE (PART THREE)

On February 23rd, under the title of “The Cynical Danse Macabre”, I set out:

“The policy of plundering imposed by the United States and their NATO allies in the Middle East has gone into a crisis. ”

“Thanks to the treason committed by Sadat at Camp David, the Palestinian State has not been able to exist, despite the UN treaties of November 1947, and Israel became a strong nuclear power, an ally of the United States and NATO.

The US Military Industrial Complex supplied Israel with tens of billions of dollars every year as well as to the very Arab States that were submitted and being humiliated by Israel.

The genie has escaped from the bottle and NATO doesn’t know how to control it.

They are going to attempt to wrest the most benefits from the regrettable events in Libya. Nobody can know at this moment what is happening over there. All the figures and versions, even the most implausible ones, have been spread by the empire via the mass media, sowing chaos and disinformation.

It is obvious that inside Libya a civil war is brewing. Why and how did this happen? Who will pay the consequences? Reuters Agency, echoing the opinion of the well-known Nomura Bank of Japan, stated that oil prices could go beyond any limits:”

“…What would be the consequences in the midst of the food crisis?

“The main NATO leaders are all worked up. British Prime Minister David Cameron, ANSA informed, ‘…admitted in a speech in Kuwait that the western nations made a mistake in backing non-democratic governments in the Arab world.’.”

“His French colleague Nicolas Sarkozy stated: ‘The extended brutal and bloody repression of the Libyan civilian population is disgusting.”

“Italian Chancellor Franco Frattini stated as ‘believable’ the figure of one thousand dead in Tripoli […] ‘the tragic numbers shall be a bloodbath’.”

Hillary Clinton stated: “…the ‘bloodbath’ is ‘completely unacceptable’ and ‘it has to stop’…”

“Ban Ki-moon spoke: “‘The use of violence in the country is absolutely unacceptable’.”

“…‘the Security Council will act according to whatever the international community decides’.”

“‘We are considering a series of options’.”

What Ban Ki-moon is really hoping is that Obama pronounces the last word.

The president of the United States spoke this Wednesday afternoon and stated that the Secretary of State would be leaving for Europe in order to agree with their NATO allies on the measures to be taken. On his face once could note the opportunity to spar with John McCain, the far-right-wing Republican senator, pro-Israel Senator Joseph Lieberman from Connecticut and the leaders of the Tea Party, in order to ensure the Democratic Party demands.



The empire’s mass media has prepared the terrain for action. There would be nothing strange about a military intervention in Libya; besides, with that, Europe would be guaranteed almost two million barrels of light oil per day, unless before that events would put an end to the leadership or the life of Gaddafi.

“Anyway, Obama’s role is rather complicated. What will the reaction of the Arab and Muslim world be if blood should flow in abundance in that country as a result of that exploit? Would NATO intervention in Libya stem the revolutionary tidal wave surging in Egypt?

In Iraq, the innocent blood of more than a million Arab citizens was spilt when the country was invaded under false pretexts. ”

“Nobody in the world would ever agree with the deaths of defenceless civilians in Libya or anywhere else. And I wonder: will the US and NATO apply that principle on the defenceless civilians that the unmanned Yankee planes and the soldiers of that organization kill every day in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

It is a cynical danse macabre.”

While I was meditating upon these events, the debate scheduled for yesterday, Tuesday, October 25th, began at the United Nations, on the “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”, something that has been addressed by the immense majority of the member countries of that institution over the course of 20 years.

This time, the numerous basic and just reasons – that for US administrations were nothing more than rhetorical exercises – made clear as never before the political and moral weakness of the most powerful empire that has existed, to whose oligarchic interests and insatiable lust for power and wealth all the inhabitants of the planet have been submitted, including the people of that very country.

The United States tyrannizes and pillages the globalized world with its political, economic, technological and military might.

That truth becomes ever more obvious after the honest and valiant debates that have been taking place in the last 20 years at the UN, with the support of the states that one presumes express the will of the immense majority of the planet’s inhabitants.

Before Bruno’s address, many countries’ organizations expressed their points of view via one of their members. The first of these was Argentina on behalf of the Group of 77 and China; Egypt followed on behalf of the Non-Aligned Nations; Kenya on behalf of the African Union; Belize on behalf of CARICOM; Kazakhstan on behalf of the Islamic Cooperation Organization; and Uruguay on behalf of MERCOSUR.

Besides these group-based expressions, China, a country with growing political and economic clout in the world, India and Indonesia firmly supported the Resolution through their ambassadors; among the three of them they represent 2.700 million inhabitants. The ambassadors of the Russian Federation, Belorussia, South Africa, Algeria, Venezuela and Mexico also spoke. Among the poorest countries of the Caribbean and Latin America, there were vibrating words of solidarity, such as the ones by the ambassador of Belize, who spoke on behalf of the Caribbean community, also the ambassador of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, who spoke on behalf of his country and the one from Bolivia, whose arguments related to solidarity with our people, despite a blockade that is now lasting 50 years, will be an undying stimulus for our physicians, educators and scientists.

Nicaragua spoke prior to the vote, to courageously explain why it would be voting against that treacherous measure.

Also speaking earlier was the United States representative, to explain the unexplainable. I was sorry for him. It was the role they had given him.

When the time for the vote arrived, two countries were absent: Libya and Sweden; three abstained: the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau; two voted nay: the US and Israel. Adding up those who voted nay, abstained or were absent: the United States with 313 million inhabitants; Israel with 7.4 million; Sweden with 9.5 million; Libya with 6.5 million; Marshall Islands with 67.100; Micronesia, 106.800; Palau with 20.900, the total comes to 336 million 948 thousand, equivalent to 4.8% of the world’s population which this month is at 7 billion.

Following voting, to explain their vote, Poland spoke on behalf of the European Union which, in spite of its close alliance with the United States and its forced participation in the blockade, is against that criminal measure.

Afterwards, 17 countries spoke, to resolutely and decisively explain why they voted for the Resolution against the embargo.

To be continued on Friday the 28th.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 26, 2011
9:45 p.m.


Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

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NATOS’S GENOCIDAL ROLE (PART TWO)

A little over eight months ago, on February 21st of this year, I stated with complete conviction: “The NATO plan is to occupy Libya”. With that title I dealt with the subject for the first time in a Reflection whose content seemed to be the product of a fantasy.

I include in these lines the elements for the opinion that led me to that conclusion.

“Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world.”

“Upon this energy source today’s civilization was developed. Venezuela was the nation in this hemisphere that paid the highest price. The United States became the lord and master of the huge oil fields that Mother Nature had bestowed upon that sister country.”

“At the end of the last World War, it started to extract greater amounts of oil from the oil fields of Iran, as well as those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Arab countries located around them. These became the main suppliers. World consumption progressively increased to the fabulous figure of approximately 80 million barrels a day, including those being extracted on United States territory, to which later gas, hydro and nuclear energies were added.”

“The squandering of oil and gas is associated with one of the greatest tragedies, not in the least resolved, which is suffered by humankind: climate change.”



“In December of 1951, Libya becomes the first African country to attain its independence after WW II, during which its territory was the stage for important battles between the troops of Germany and the United Kingdom…”

“Ninety-five percent of its territory is completely made up of desert. Technology permitted the discovery of vital oilfields of excellent quality light oil that today reach one million 800 thousand barrels a day along with abundant deposits of natural gas. […] Its harsh desert is located over an enormous lake of fossil waters, equivalent to more than three times the land area of Cuba; this has made it possible to construct a broad network of pipelines of fresh water that stretch from one end of the country to the other.”

“The Libyan Revolution took place in the month of September of the year 1969. Its main leader was Muammar al-Gaddafi, a soldier of Bedouin origin who, in his early years, was inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Without any doubt, many of his decisions are associated with the changes that were produced when, as in Egypt, a weak and corrupt monarchy was overthrown in Libya.”

“One can agree with Gaddafi or not. The world has been invaded with all kinds of news, especially using the mass media. One has to wait the necessary length of time in order to learn precisely what is the truth and what are lies, or a mixture of events of every kind that, in the midst of chaos, were produced in Libya. For me, what is absolutely clear is that the government of the United States is not in the least worried about peace in Libya and it will not hesitate in giving NATO the order to invade that rich country, perhaps in a matter of hours or a few short days.”

“Those who with perfidious intentions invented the lie that Gaddafi was headed for Venezuela, just as they did yesterday afternoon on Sunday the 20th of February, today received an fitting response from Foreign Affairs Minister Nicolás Maduro…”

“As for me, I cannot imagine that the Libyan leader would abandon his country; escaping the responsibilities he is charged with, whether or not they are partially or totally false.”

“An honest person shall always be against any injustice being committed against any people in the world, and the worst of all, at this moment, would be to remain silent in the face of the crime that NATO is getting ready to commit against the Libyan people.”

“The leadership of that war-mongering organization has to do it. We must condemn it!”

At that early date I had realized something that was absolutely obvious.

Tomorrow, on Tuesday October 25th, our chancellor Bruno Rodríguez will speak at UN Headquarters to denounce the criminal blockade of the United States against Cuba. We shall be closely following that battle which will once again make clear the necessity of putting an end to, not just the blockade, but the system that spawns injustice on our planet, squanders its natural resources and puts human survival at risk. We shall be paying particular attention to Cuba’s declaration.

I shall continue on Wednesday the 26th.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 24, 2011.
5:19 p.m.


Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

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NATO’S GENOCIDAL ROLE (PART ONE)

That brutal military alliance has become the most perfidious instrument of repression known in the history of humankind.

NATO took on that global repressive role as soon as the USSR, which had served the United States as an excuse for its creation, ceased to exist. Its criminal purpose became obvious in Serbia, a Slavic country, whose people had so heroically fought against Nazi troops in WW II.

When in March of 1999 the countries of this ill-fated organization, in its efforts to disintegrate Yugoslavia after the death of Josip Broz Tito, sent their troops in support of the Kosovar secessionists, they ran into strong resistance from that nation whose experienced forces were still intact.

The Yankee administration, advised by the Spanish right-wing government of José María Aznar, attacked the Serbian TV stations, the bridges over the Danube River and Belgrade, that country’s capital. The embassy of the People’s Republic of China was destroyed by Yankee bombs, several of the officials died and there could not have been any error as the authors alleged. Many Serbian patriots lost their lives. President Slobodan Miloševiс, overwhelmed by the power of the aggressors and the disappearance of the USSR, ceded to NATO demands and admitted to the presence of that alliance’s troops in Kosovo under the UN mandate; this finally led to his political downfall and subsequent trial by The Hague courts which were less than impartial. He died a strange death in prison. Had the Serbian leader resisted a few more days, NATO would have entered into a serious crisis which was on the point of exploding. The empire thus had much more time to impose its hegemony among the every more subordinated members of that organization.


Between February 21st and April 27th of this year, I published nine Reflections on the subject on the CubaDebate website; in them I amply dealt with NATO’s role in Libya and what, in my opinion, was going to happen.

Therefore I find myself obliged to synthesize the essential ideas that I put forth, and the events that have been happening as foreseen, just that now the central figure in that story, Muammar Al-Gaddafi, was seriously wounded by the most modern NATO fighter-bombers which intercepted and incapacitated his vehicle, he was captured while still alive and murdered by men that organization had armed.

His body has been kidnapped and exhibited as a trophy of war, conduct that violates the most basic principles of the norms of Muslim and other religious beliefs in the world. It is being announced that very soon Libya shall be declared a “democratic state and defender of human rights.”

I find myself obliged to dedicate several Reflections to these important and significant events.

I shall continue tomorrow, on Monday.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 23, 2011
6:10 p.m.


Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

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THE EXPLOITS IN GUADALAJARA

I am taking a brief pause in my political analyses to dedicate this space to the exploits of our Cuban athletes at the Sixteenth Pan-American Games.

The Olympic Games and the international sports competitions revolving around them and which arouse such interest for billions of persons, have a beautiful history that should be remembered not for having been abused.

The contribution of the creator of the Olympic Games was particularly unblemished, more so than that of Nobel who, at one stage of his life, seeking to create a more efficient means of production, produced the explosive whose economic fruits he assigned to carry out his wishes for peace, awarding both scientists and brilliant writers as well as the head of an empire who orders the murder of an adversary in the presence of his family, the bombing of a tribe in central Asia or of a small independent country in northern Africa and the extermination of its commanding bodies.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin was the father of the modern Olympic Games; an aristocrat by birth, born in France, a capitalist country where peasants, workers or artisans were not given the possibility by that society to undertake that task.

Ignoring the wishes of his family who wanted him to become an army officer, he broke with the Military Academy and dedicated his life to pedagogy. In some ways, his life is reminiscent of Darwin, the discoverer of the laws of natural evolution. Coubertin becomes the disciple of an Anglican minister, founds the first magazine dedicated to sports and manages to get the French government to include it in the World Exhibition of 1889.

He begins to dream of bringing together sportsmen from every country in a sporting competition under the principle of union and fraternity, without any profits and driven by the desire to attain glory.


At first, his ideas were not understood but he persisted, travelling all over the world speaking of peace and union among peoples and all human beings.

Finally, the International Physical Education Congress being held in Paris in 1894 created the Olympic Games.

The idea met with resistance and lack of understanding in England, the principal colonial power; boycotted by Germany, the powerful rival empire; and even opposed by Athens, the city chosen for the first Olympiad.

Pierre de Coubertin was successful in committing emperors, kings and governments in Europe with his tireless efforts and diplomatic talent.

The principal factor was, in my opinion, the depth and nobility of his ideas that won the support of peoples around the world.

For the first time, on March 24, 1896, the King of Greece declared the First International Olympic Games of Athens to be inaugurated, 115 years ago.

Two destructive and shattering wars have occurred since then, both originating in Europe, costing the world tens of millions of persons dead in combat, adding to that the civilians who died in the bombings or because of the hunger and disease that followed. Peace is not guaranteed. What we know is that, in a new world war, modern weaponry could destroy humankind several times over.

It is in the light of these realities that I so admire the conduct of our sportsmen and sportswomen.

The most important thing about the Olympic movement is the conception of sport as a instrument for education, health and friendship among peoples; a real antidote for vices such as drugs, smoking, abusing alcoholic beverages and the acts of violence that so affect human society.

In the mind of the Olympic founder, the idea of salaried sports or the buying and selling of athletes never occurred. That was also the noble objective of the Cuban Revolution, involving the duty of promoting sports just as health, education, science, culture and the arts, always the undeniable principles of the Revolution.

Not only that, our country promoted the practice of sports and the training of coaches in Third World countries that were struggling for their development. The International School for Physical Education and Sports has been functioning in our Homeland for many years and it has trained many coaches who efficiently carry out their jobs in countries that at times compete in important sports with our very own athletes.

Thousands of Cuban specialists have provided their services as coaches and sports technicians in many countries of what is known as the Third World.

It is within the framework of those principles being applied during dozens of years that our people feel proud of the medals that their athletes obtain at the international competitions.

The transnationals of professional sports have left the dreams of the creator of the Olympics far behind.

Taking advantage of the prestige created by the sporting competitions, excellent athletes, many of them born in the poor nations of Africa and Latin America, are bought and sold on the international market by those companies and, only on a handful of occasions are they allowed to play on teams of their own countries where they were promoted as prestigious athletes by their personal efforts and because of their own qualities.

Our people, austere and sacrificing, has had to face up to the claws of those money-grubbing merchants of professional sports who offer fabulous amounts of money to our athletes and, at times, deprive the people of their presence with those gross acts of piracy.

As a sports fan, I have chatted many times with the most outstanding of them and that is why, on this occasion, I am really pleased to see the sports successes of our delegation on TV and their victorious return to the Homeland, back from Guadalajara where the United States, despite having approximately 27 times more inhabitants than Cuba, was only able to obtain 1.58 times more standings and the corresponding gold medals than Cuba which obtained 58.

Brazil, with more than 200 million inhabitants, got 48.

México, with more than 100, got 42.

Canada, a wealthy developed country with 34 million inhabitants, got only 29.

The total number of gold, silver and bronze medals won by Cuba was proportional to the number of standings mentioned.

Quite a few of our young athletes had truly amazing successes.

Despite the victories which fill our people with pride, we have the duty to continue excelling.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 30, 2011
10:11 p.m.

Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

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THE TWO VENEZUELAS

Yesterday I spoke about the time when Venezuela was an ally of the US empire and the country where Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch carried out their plans for the brutal in-flight bombing of a Cuban plane that caused the death and disappearance of all people aboard, including the youth fencing team that had just won all the gold medals at the Central-American and Caribbean Championships held in Venezuela. With the Pan-American Games underway in Guadalajara, we remember them with great sadness.

It was not the Venezuela of Rómulo Gallegos and Andrés Eloy Blanco but that of the scoundrel, traitor and venomous Rómulo Betancourt. A man who was jealous of the Cuban Revolution and who, as an ally of the imperialists, cooperated so much with their attacks against our homeland. At the time Venezuela was an oil property of the United States and, after Miami, represented the epicenter for counterrevolutionary actions against Cuba. History recalls how Venezuela played a significant role in the imperialist attack on Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs), the economic blockade and countless other crimes against our people. It was the beginning of the dark ages in Venezuela that came to an end when Hugo Chávez was sworn in on the “dying constitution” held in the trembling hands of former President Rafael Caldera.



Forty years had passed since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and more than a century since the Yankee plundering of Venezuela’s oil, natural resources and sweat.

Many Venezuelans died amidst the ignorance and misery imposed by US and European gunboats!

Fortunately the other Venezuela exists, the Venezuela of Bolívar and Miranda, of Sucre and of a legion of brilliant leaders and thinkers who were able to conceive that great Latin American homeland of which we feel a part of and for which we have resisted aggressions and blockades for more than half a century.

“…so that Cuba’s independence will prevent the expansion of the United States throughout the Antilles, allowing that nation to fall, ever more powerfully, upon our American lands. Everything I have done, everything I will do, is toward this end,” wrote the apostle of our independence Jose Marti the day before he died in combat.

Included among us today is Hugo Chávez who is visiting a part of that great Latin American and Caribbean homeland envisioned by Simón Bolívar. Hugo Chávez understands better than anybody the José Martí principal that “…what Bolívar left undone, is still undone today. Bolívar has things yet to do in America.”

I spoke with him at length yesterday and today. I told him about the great passion with which I dedicate the energy I have left to the dreams of a better and more just world.

It is not difficult to share dreams with the Bolivarian leader when the empire is already showing unequivocal signs of a terminal illness.

Saving humanity from an irreversible disaster is something that today may be compromised by the stupidity of any of those mediocre presidents who in the most recent decades have led that empire or by one of those increasingly powerful leaders of the industrial military complex that rules the destiny of that country.

Friendly nations that have become increasingly important in the world economy —given their economic and technological advances and their condition as permanent members of the Security Council, such as the Popular Republic of China and the Russian Federation, along with the peoples of the so-called Third World in Asia, Africa and Latin America— could achieve this goal. The peoples of the developed and rich nations, increasingly sucked dry by their own financial oligarchies, are also starting to play a role in this battle for human survival.

Meanwhile, the Bolivarian people of Venezuela are organizing themselves and uniting to challenge and defeat the sickening oligarchy at the service of the empire that once again is attempting to take over the government of this country.

Venezuela, given its extraordinary educational, cultural and social developments, and its vast energy and natural resources, is called on to become a revolutionary model for the world.

Chávez, who came out of the ranks of the Venezuelan Army, is methodical and tireless. I have observed him over the course of 17 years, since his first visit to Cuba. He is an extremely humanitarian and law-abiding person; he has never taken revenge on anybody. The most humble and forgotten sectors of his country are profoundly grateful to him that for the first time in history there is a response to their dreams of social justice.

Hugo —I told him—, I clearly see that in a very short time the Bolivarian Revolution will create jobs, not only for the Venezuelan people, but also for their Colombian brothers, a hardworking people, who fought along with you for the independence of America, and of whom 40 percent live in poverty; a significant portion of them in extreme poverty.

I had the honor to speak with our distinguished visitor, the symbol of this other Venezuela, about these and many other topics.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 18, 2011
10:15 p.m.


Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

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THE WILL OF STEEL (PART TWO)

When, in 1976, the most serious terrorist acts were committed against Cuba, in particular the in-flight sabotage of a Cuban airliner which had departed from Barbados with 73 persons aboard – among them pilots, flight attendants and auxiliary personnel offering their services to the airline, the complete juvenile fencing team which had won all the gold medals contested in the Central American and Caribbean Championship, Cuban passengers and those from other countries who had confidence in that plane. The act created such indignation, that the most extraordinary crowd ever seen in the Plaza de la Revolución gathered to close the mourning period, of which there is graphic evidence. The painful scenes were and are unforgettable. Perhaps leaders in the United States and many people around the world did not have the opportunity to see them. It would be illustrative to have those images disseminated by the mass media so that others might understand the motivation of our heroic anti-terrorist fighters.

Bush Sr. was an important official within the U.S. intelligence services when these forces were given the mission of organizing the counterrevolution in Cuba. The CIA created, in Florida, the largest operations base in the Western Hemisphere, which took charge of subversive efforts in Cuba. It organized attempts to assassinate leaders of the Revolution and took responsibility for the plans and plots which, had they been successful, would have cost many lives on both sides, given the resolve of our people demonstrated in Playa Girón [Bay of Pigs], to struggle to their last drop of blood. Bush never understood that Cuba's victory saved many lives, both Cuban and U.S. ones.

The monstrous Barbados crime was committed when he was head of the CIA, with almost as much authority as President Ford.

In June of that year, he called a meeting in Bonao, in the Dominican Republic, to create the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, under the personal supervision of Vernon Walters, the CIA deputy director. Take note: "United Revolutionary Organizations."

Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles, active CIA agents, were designated leaders of this organization. Thus a new stage of terrorist acts against Cuba was initiated. October 6, 1976, Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles personally directed the sabotage which caused the Cubana plane to explode in flight.


Authorities in Barbados arrested the four persons involved and returned them to Venezuela.
When in 1976 the most serious acts of terrorism against Cuba took place, especially the destruction of a Cuban airliner in mid-flight that had taken off from Barbados with 73 persons onboard – including pilots, flight attendants and auxiliary personnel who were providing their noble services on that airline, the complete youth team that had obtained all the gold medals that were being contested at the Central American and Caribbean Fencing Championship, passengers from Cuba and other countries who were travelling full of confidence in that plane – the facts caused such great indignation that during the wake held at Revolution Square the most extraordinary and overflowing crowd ever seen came together and we have photographic records of this.

Perhaps the United States leaders and many in the world had no possibility of seeing them. It would be illustrative that those scenes were to be broadcast by the mass media in order to understand full well the motivations driving our heroic anti-terrorist combatants.
Bush Sr. was already an important official in the US intelligence services when they received the mission of organizing the counter-revolution in Cuba. In Florida the CIA created the largest base of operations in the western hemisphere. It became responsible for all the subversive actions carried out in Cuba, including the assassination attempts on leaders of the Revolution and it became responsible for plans and calculations that, had they been successful, would have meant an enormous number of casualties on both sides given the decision of our people, as demonstrated at Girón, of fighting to the last drop of blood. Bush never understood that Cuba`s victory saved many lives, both Cuban and American.

The monstrous Barbados crime was produced when he was already head of the CIA, with almost as much authority as President Ford.

In June of that year he called a meeting at Bonao in the Dominican Republic in order to create the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations with the personal supervision of Vernon Walters, then deputy director of the CIA. Take note: “United Revolutionary Organizations”.

Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles, active agents in that organization, were appointed leaders of that organization. Thus begins a new phase of terrorist activities against Cuba. On October 6th of 1976, Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles personally direct the sabotage for the blowing up of the Cuban airliner in mid-flight.

The authorities arrested the men involved and sent them to Venezuela.

The scandal was so big that the government of that country, then a US ally and accomplice to crimes inside and outside of Venezuela, had no other alternative than to place them at the disposal of the Venezuelan courts.

The Sandinista Revolution triumphed in July of 1979. The bloody dirty war promoted by the United States broke out in that country. Reagan was by then the President of the United States.

When Gerald Ford replaced Nixon, such was the scandal caused by the assassination attempts on foreign leaders that he prohibited the participation of US officials in such actions. Congress denied funding for the dirty war in Nicaragua. They needed Posada Carriles. The CIA, through the so-called Cuban-American National Foundation, bribed the jailers involved with copious sums and the terrorist got out of jail as just another visitor. Urgently moved to Llopango in El Salvador, not only did he direct arms supplies that caused thousands of dead and wounded among the Nicaraguan patriots, but also, with CIA cooperation, he acquired drugs in Central America, brought them into the United States and bought American weapons for the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries.

In the interest of brevity, I am omitting numerous facts in the brutal story.

It is not possible to understand why the illustrious Nobel Prize laureate who presides over the government of the United States is pleased to reiterate the stupid idea that Cuba is a terrorist country, keeping four Cuban anti-terrorists isolated in prisons and in inhumane conditions, a punishment that nowadays is not applied to any US enemy country, much less if no US military force admits to having being put at risk by them and prohibits René from returning to his homeland and to the heart of his family.

The same Sunday October 9th that René sent his valiant message to the people of Cuba, he taped another fraternal “Message to Fidel and Raúl”. Under advice of Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly, neither of the two messages was made public until the Probation Official of the Federal Court of Florida should formally communicate the conditions being imposed on him for the three years of “supervised liberty”.

Now that this requisite has been fulfilled, I am pleased to inform our people about the textual content of that message that so much honours our heroes and expresses their exemplary conduct and will of steel:

Dear Commander:

First of all, an embrace, my thanks, the feeling of appreciation not only for the support with which you have showered us, for the way in which you have mobilized an entire people and mobilized international solidarity in favour of our cause but, in the first place, for having served as our inspiration, for having been the example we have followed during these 13 years and for having been for us a flag behind which we were never going to stop marching.

For us this mission has been nothing other than the continuation of everything you have done, what your generation did for the Cuban people and for the rest of humankind.

For me it is an enormous pleasure to send this message to you, to send you a temporary embrace, that goes to you by this channel because I know that we shall embrace at the end; no matter how much our adversaries try to prevent it, I know that we are going to be able to have that embrace. I know that we, the Five, shall return because you promised and because you have mobilized the energy, the best of humankind, the will of the entire world so that it may happen.

For us it is an honour to serve the cause that you have inspired in the people of Cuba, to be your followers, followers on the road that you and Raúl opened up, and we shall never stop being worthy of that trust you have deposited in us.

To the two of you, to you Fidel, to Raúl who is now guiding us in this new difficult stage, a complicated but glorious stage in which we are embroiled to break the economic dependency that ties us down still and which prevents us from building the society we want, I send you an embrace on behalf of the Five, I tell you that we always had trust in you. When we were alone in The Hole, when we were put in solitary confinement, when we weren`t getting any news, when my four brothers knew nothing about their families because they couldn`t be told, we always trusted you, we always knew that you would not abandon your sons because we always knew that the Revolution never abandons those who defend it. That is why it deserves to be defended and that is why we are always going to do that.

And even though I am not sure we deserve all the honours we have been receiving, I can say that the rest of our lives shall be dedicated to deserving it, because you two inspire us, because you are the flag that taught us how to conduct ourselves and until the end of our days we shall try to deserve the trust you have deposited in us.

For me now this is a trench in which I shall continue in the same battle for which you have called me and I shall be there until the end, until justice is done, following your orders, doing whatever needs to be done.

And I say to Fidel and to Raúl: Commanders, both of you, at your orders!

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 17, 2011
10:35 p.m.


Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

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THE WILL OF STEEL (PART ONE)

Two days ago on Friday October 14th, Granma and Juventud Rebelde, the Communist Party and Youth League newspapers, published a brave and energetic message from René González, Hero of the Republic, to the people of Cuba, after the odious and unfair 13-year punishment had finished, separately, like the other four heroes who are serving longer sentences in prisons that are hundreds of miles away from each other. Not for one instant did the unshakeable steadfastness of each one of them falter, even when they were repeatedly thrown into punishment cells, veritable sepulchres, without any space to move, just as “Yankee justice” decreed, with no crime or any kind of evidence. If there was anything in which such “justice” didn’t make a mistake, it was in the selection of the type of men it was punishing.

René was additionally prohibited from returning to his Homeland to be with his family and his people for three years. He will have to remain in the territory of the country that had imposed such unfair punishment on him.

For everyone, and especially for those of us who have lived through critical years in the history of our Homeland, René’s words profoundly sized it up.

“The fact that I am now out of prison – he stated – only means that one avenue of abuse to which I was subjected has been closed, […] we still have four brothers whom we have to rescue and whom we need with us with their families, to be among you giving the best of themselves…”

“For me, this is only a trench, a new place in which I am going to continue fighting for justice so that the Five of us can return together to you.”

“…to all the people who have accompanied us over the years, who have been thousands, and through whom we have been able, little by little, to break through this information blockade, to break through the wall of silence that the corporate media have built around the case, I extend to you, on behalf of the Five, my most profound gratitude, my commitment to continue representing you as you deserve, which is definitely what we Five are doing, because we are not only Five, we are a whole people who have resisted for 50 years, and it is thanks to that that we are still resisting, […] and will never fail you and will always rise to the heights that you deserve

René’s sincere, steadfast and energetic words, the unmistakable tone of voice of a fighter who has withstood 13 infinite years of brutal and unfair punishment without faltering for one second, are really impressive.


Imperial tyranny will not be able to sustain its gross lies about the injustice committed against the Five Cuban Anti-terrorist Heroes. It doesn’t matter how treacherously the information media in its control does its best to present them as agents and spies that placed United States security at risk. The President of the National Assembly and the prestigious lawyer José Pertierra have been in charge of pulverizing the gross Yankee lies about the heroic Cuban anti-terrorists.

The memory of the victorious battle our people waged for the return of the boy Elián González to his family and homeland crossed my mind. In the face of the monstrous behaviour of the Cuban counter-revolutionary mafia of Miami and its contempt of the country’s authorities, the very president of the United States at that time, Bill Clinton, was forced to send security forces in order to impose American law and order on the fascist groups who were being contemptuous and setting symbols and flags of that country on fire, headed by the “ferocious she-wolf” Ileana Ros, among others, who today is nothing less than the Chairperson of the Foreign Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives and dictates rules on that country’s foreign policy.

René González’ message to the people of Cuba, at his own initiative and bravely taking on any risk, reinforces our profound conviction that the position of the US government in terms of the Five Cuban heroes is by now unsustainable, just as its justification of the criminal economic blockade against our homeland and the punitive measures it applies on foreign enterprises that do business with our country.

Such a policy, brutal and unusual, has been transformed by the powerful empire into an international norm, despite the practically unanimous opinion of all the members of the United Nations, with the exception of the US and Israel.

Facts irrefutably show that in the globalized world of today, under the aegis of the Yankee empire, no security guarantee exists for any other country. In the UN one can repeat time and time again the unanimous rejection of the economic blockade on Cuba, or any other measure such as the right of the Palestinian people to their constitution as a state, but unless such a right, or any other, fits in with the empire’s interests, it has no validity whatsoever.

Without it being a deliberate purpose of the Revolution, our country has become an example of what a small state can achieve if it steadfastly sustains a policy of principles even when scientific and technological advances, its patents and the distribution of the planet’s wealth is in the hands of the most developed and richest nations, that in times past were the colonial powers, disseminators of looting and poverty in our countries.

In its long struggle against the empire, our country’s combatants have been at the point of being the target for nuclear weapons at the service of that power: the first time in October of 1962; and the second time in mid-1988. On neither of these two occasions did our Homeland succumb to Yankee blackmail: in 1962, it permitted no inspection of any sort on its territory, and in 1988, after the battle of Cuito Cuanavale and the advance of 50,000 Cuban and Angolan soldiers over the South African forces equipped by the West and provided with nuclear missiles, they decided to negotiate the independence of Namibia and the end of Apartheid.

The peoples of the Third World recognize and are thankful for the unselfish solidarity of Cuba in areas that are so important such as health and education.

Who can believe the strange lie about Cuba supporting terrorism?

Such a dull and stupid fib on the part of the powerful country which, only 90 miles away from its shores, not only applied against it a criminal blockade but also perpetrated the most grotesque acts of terrorism. The fires set in educational, recreational and business centres; the live phosphorus in the sugar cane plantations; the use of explosives in factories; the pirate attacks against port facilities and fishing and cargo vessels; the organizing of counter-revolutionary gangs; infiltrations by agents and providing weapons to mercenary gangs began in 1959, after the First Agrarian Reform Law, leaving a trail of death and destruction in our Homeland.

The bombing of our air force bases and the landing of mercenary troops at the Bay of Pigs, escorted by American aircraft carriers and warships cost innumerable victims when our revolutionary process was barely starting. Can the United States deny these facts?

Assassination plans on the leaders of the Revolution organized by US intelligence services were innumerable; in fact their gross actions didn’t limit themselves to that. Viruses and bacteria were introduced into our country to sabotage the production of plants and animals; even worse, diseases that didn’t even exist in this hemisphere were introduced into Cuba against the population. Haemorrhagic dengue affected hundreds of thousands of persons and around 150 of them, mainly children, died. That disease still creates havoc in this hemisphere.

The tale of what the United States has committed against our people would be endless.

To be continued tomorrow.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 16, 2011
9:05 p.m.


Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

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OBAMA’S SUPERVISED SHAME

Not because it was brutal or clumsy or anticipated was there any less indignation about the Yankee judge from the South Florida District denying René González, the Cuban anti-terrorist hero, the right to return to the heart of his family in Cuba after having served the unfair sentence imposed on him.

After a cruel and undeserved 13-year prison sentence, the United States government – that gave birth to monsters such as Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch who, as CIA agents had a hand in the exploding of a Cuban airliner full of passengers in mid-flight – forces René to remain in that nation, where he shall be at the mercy of unpunished murderers for three long years, under a regime described as supervised “freedom”. Still unfairly and vengefully imprisoned for long terms of confinement, are another three Cuban heroes, and another one sentenced to two life terms. That is how the empire responds to the growing world clamour for the freedom of these men.

If that were not the case, then the empire would cease to be an empire; and Obama would cease to be a fool.

Of course the Cuban heroes shall not be there forever. On the foundations of the unequalled example of dignity and steadfastness, solidarity in the world and in the very heart of the American people shall grow, and it shall put an end to the stupid and unsustainable injustice.

The uncouth decision was made when the UN General Assembly was in the midst of developing a profound debate on the necessity of re-founding that institution. Never have we heard such solid and energetic criticisms.

The Bolivarian leader Hugo Chávez opened it up with his first message to the General Assembly published on the evening of September 21st. Chávez’ second letter, transmitted in an energetic and vibrant tone by Chancellor Nicolás Maduro, was lapidary. In that message, he also denounced the criminal imperialist blockade against our Homeland and the scandalous and cruel vengeance against the 5 Cuban anti-terrorist Heroes.

Such circumstances have forced me to write a third Reflection. I shall transmit the essential ideas of that forceful message, using the very words of the author:

“[…] We do not look for the peace of the cemetery, as said Kant ironically, but a peace based on the most zealous respect for international law. Unfortunately, the UN, through all its history, instead of adding and multiplying efforts in favor of peace among nations, ends up supporting, sometimes through its actions and other times by omission, the most ruthless injustices.”

“From 1945 on, wars have done nothing but inexorably increase and multiply themselves.”

“I want to call on the governments of the world to reflect: since September 11th, 2001, a new and unprecedented imperialist war began, a permanent war, in perpetuity.

“We have to look directly at the terrifying reality of the world we live in. […] Why is the United States the only country that scatters the planet with military bases? What is it afraid of to allocate such a staggering budget for increasing its military power? Why has it unleashed so many wars, violating the sovereignty of other nations which have the same rights on their own fates? How can international law be enforced against its insensible aspiration to militarily hegemonizing the world in order to ensure energy sources to sustain their predatory and consumer model? Why does the UN do nothing to stop Washington? […] the empire has awarded itself the role of judge of the world, without being granted this responsibility […] therefore, imperialist war threatens us all.

“Washington knows that a multi-polar world is already an irreversible reality. Its strategy consists of stopping, at any price, the sustained rise of a group of emerging countries […] the goal is to reconfigure the world so it is based on Yankee military hegemony.”

“What is behind this new Armageddon?: the absolute power of the military-financial leadership which is destroying the world in order to accumulate ever more profits; the military-financial leadership which is subordinated, de facto, to an increasingly larger group of States. Keep in mind that war is capital’s modus operandi: the war that ruins the majority and makes richer, up to the unthinkable, a few people.

“Right now, there is a very serious threat to global peace: a new cycle of colonial wars, which started in Libya, with the sinister objective of refreshing the capitalist global system, within a structural crisis today, but without any limit to its consumerist and destructive voracity.”



“Humanity is on the brink of an unimaginable catastrophe: the world is marching inexorably toward the most devastating ecocide; global warming and its frightening consequences are announcing it, but their perspective on the ecosystem, which resembles the ideology of the conquistadors Cortés and Pizarro , as the influential French thinker Edgar Morin rightly pointed out […] The energy and food crises are sharpening, but capitalism continues to trespass all the limits with impunity.

“…the great U.S. scientist Linus Pauling, awarded the Nobel Prize on two occasions, continues enlightening our path: “I believe that there is a greater power in the world than the evil power of military force, of nuclear bombs — there is the power of good, of morality, of humanitarianism. I believe in the power of the human spirit”. Let us mobilize all the power of the human spirit: it is time now. It is imperative that we unleash a great political counter-offensive in order to prevent the powers of darkness from finding justifications for going to war, from unleashing a widespread global war through which they attempt to save the western capital.”

“The warmongers, and especially the military-financial leadership that sponsors and leads them, must be defeated.

“Let’s build the balance of the universe foreseen by the Liberator, Simón Bolívar – the balance that, according to his words, cannot be found within war; the balance that is born out of peace.”

“…Venezuela, alongside the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), was actively advocating for a peaceful and negotiated solution to the Libyan conflict. That is also what the African Union did. However, in the end, the logic of war decreed by the UN Security Council and put into practice by NATO, the armed wing of the Yankee empire, was imposed. […] the “Libyan Case” was brought before the Security Council on the basis of an intense propaganda by the western mass media, who lied about the alleged bombing of innocent civilians by the Libyan Air Force, not to mention the grotesque media setting of the Green Square of Tripoli. This premeditated bunch of lies was used to justify irresponsible and hasty decisions by the Security Council, which paved the way for NATO’s military regime change policy in Libya.”

“… What has the no-fly zone established by Security Council resolution 1973 become? How could NATO perform more than 20,000 missions against the Libyan people if there was a no-fly zone? After the Libyan Air Force was completely annihilated, the continued “humanitarian” bombing shows that the West, through NATO, intends to impose their interests in North Africa, turning Libya into a colonial protectorate.”

“What is the real reason for this military intervention?: Recolonizing Libya in order to capture its wealth. Everything else is related to this goal.

“…the Residence of the Venezuelan Ambassador in Tripoli was invaded and looted, and the UN kept it to itself, remaining ignominiously silent.”

“…Why is the Libyan seat in the UN granted to the “national transitional council,” while the admission of Palestine is blocked by ignoring, not only its lawful aspiration, but also the existing will of the majority of the General Assembly? Venezuela hereby ratifies its unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian people and its total support for the Palestinian national cause, which naturally includes the immediate admission of Palestine as a full member state within the United Nations.

“And the same imperialist pattern is being repeated regarding Syria.”

“It is intolerable that the powerful of this world intend to claim for themselves the right to order legitimate and sovereign governments rulers to step down. This was the case in Libya, and they want to do the same in Syria. Such are the existing asymmetries in the international setting and such are the abuses against the weakest nations.”

“If we direct our eyes to the Horn of Africa we will witness a heartbreaking example of the UN’s historical failure: most serious news agencies report that 20-29,000 children under the age of 5 have died in the last three months.”

“What is needed to face this situation is $400 million, not to solve the problem, but just to address the emergency that Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia are going through. According to all sources, the next two months will be crucial to prevent more than 12 million people from dying, and the worst situation is that of Somalia.

“This reality could not be more atrocious, especially if, at the same time, we ask ourselves how much is being spent to destroy Libya. This is the answer of U.S. congressman Dennis Kucinich, who said: “This new War will cost us $500 million during its first week alone. Obviously, we do not have financial resources for that and we will end up cutting off other important domestic programs’ funding.” According to Kucinich himself, with the amount spent during the first three weeks in Northern Africa to massacre the Libyan people, much could have been done to help the entire region of the Horn of Africa, saving tens of thousands of lives.”

“…it is frankly regrettable that in the opening address of the 66th General Assembly of the UN, an immediate appeal to solve humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa was not made, while instead we were assured that “the time has come to act” on Syria.”

“We are also crying out for the end to the shameful and criminal blockade of our sister Republic of Cuba: a blockade that, for more than fifty years, is being exercised by the empire with cruelty and brutality, against the heroic peoples of José Martí.

“As of 2010, 19 UN General Assembly votes confirm the universal will demanding that the United States stop the economic and trade blockade against Cuba. Since all sensible international arguments have been exhausted, we have no choice but to believe that such cruel actions against the Cuban Revolution result from imperial arrogance in view of the dignity and courage shown by the unsubmissive Cuban people in their sovereign decision to determine their own fate and fight for their happiness.

“From Venezuela, we believe it is time to demand of the U.S. not only an immediate and unconditional end to the criminal blockade imposed against the Cuban people, but also the release of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters held hostage in the prisons of the American Empire for the sole reason of seeking to prevent the illegal actions of terrorist groups against Cuba, under the shelter of the U.S. government.”

“For us, it is obvious that the UN is not improving, nor will it improve from the inside. If the Secretary General, along with the President of the International Criminal Court, take part in an act of war, as in the case of Libya, nothing can be expected from the current structure of this organization and there is no longer time for reform.”

“It is unbearable that there is a Security Council that turns its back, whenever it wants to, on the clamor of the majority of nations by deliberately failing to acknowledge the will of the General Assembly. If the Security Council is some sort of club with privileged members, what can the General Assembly do? Where is its room for maneuver, when Security Council members violate international law?

“Paraphrasing Bolívar when he spoke of nascent Yankee imperialism in 1818, we have had enough of the weak following the law while the strong commit abuses. It cannot be us, the peoples of the South, who respect international law while the North violates it, destroying and plundering us.

“If we do not make a commitment, once and for all, to rebuilding the United Nations, this organization will lose its remaining credibility. Its crisis of legitimacy will be accelerated until it finally implodes. In fact, that is what happened to its immediate predecessor: the League of Nations.”

“The future of a multi-polar world in peace lies with us. In the articulation of the majority peoples on the planet to defend ourselves from the new colonialism and to attain balance in the universe that neutralizes imperialism and arrogance.

“This broad, generous, respectful call with no exclusions is addressed to all the peoples of the world, but especially to the emerging powers of The South that must take on with courage the role they are being called upon to play in the immediate future.

“From Latin America and the Caribbean, powerful and dynamic regional alliances have arisen, seeking to configure a democratic regional space, respectful of special characteristics and wishing to accentuate solidarity and complementariness, fostering what unites us and politically resolving whatever divides us. And this new regionalism admits diversity and respects the rhythms of all. […] the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) moves forward as an experiment of the vanguard of progressive and anti-imperialist governments, seeking formulas to break with the governing international order and strengthening the capacity of the peoples to collectively face the factual powers. But this does not impede our members from making a decisive and enthusiastic thrust for the strengthening of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a political bloc confederating the 12 sovereign states of South America with the aim of grouping them in what The Liberator Simón Bolívar called “a Nation of Republics”. And further along down the road, we the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are getting ready to take that historic step and found a great regional entity that will group us all together, with no exclusions, where we may jointly design the policies that must guarantee our well-being, our independence, our sovereignty, on the basis of equality, solidarity and complementariness. Caracas, capital of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is now swelling with pride to host the Summit of the Heads of State and Government next December 2nd and 3rd, an event that shall definitively found our Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).”

With these profound ideas, thus concludes the second message of the Bolivarian President Hugo Chávez to the UN General Assembly.

According to the AFP dispatch dated today in Washington: US President Barack Obama declared this Wednesday that while he is president he shall be willing to change the policy with Cuba, as long as significant political and social changes are produced.

What a nice man! How smart he is! So much virtue has not allowed him to understand yet that 50 years of blockade and the crimes against our Homeland have not been able to bring our people to their knees. Many things shall change in Cuba, but they shall change because of our efforts and despite the United States. Perhaps that empire shall crumble first.

The unyielding resistance of the Cuban patriots is symbolized by our 5 Heroes. They shall never back down! They shall never surrender! As Martí proclaimed, and I have mentioned on other occasions: “Before continuous efforts to free and prosperous country, will join the South Sea to the North Sea and a snake will hatch from an eagle’s egg.”

It is obvious that the judge from the South Florida District has put the spotlight on “Obama’s supervised shame”.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 28, 2011
7:37 p.m.


Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

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CHÁVEZ, EVO AND OBAMA (PART TWO)

If our Nobel laureate is deluding himself, something that is still to be proven, perhaps that explains the incredible contradictions in his thinking and the confusion sown among his listeners.
There is not one shred of ethics, and not even of politics, in his attempt to justify his announced decision to veto any resolution to recognize Palestine as an independent State and member of the United Nations. Even politicians, who in no way share socialist philosophy and lead parties that were closely allied with Augusto Pinochet, are proclaiming Palestine’s right to be a member of the UN.
Barack Obama’s words on the principal matter that is being debated today in the General Assembly of that organization can only be applauded by NATO cannon, rockets and bombers.
The remainder of his speech are empty phrases, lacking any moral authority and meaning. Let us observe, for example, how these words were devoid of ideas when in the world, starved and pillaged by the transnationals and the consumerism of developed capitalist countries, Obama announces:
“To stop disease that spreads across borders, we must strengthen our system of public health. We will continue the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. We will focus on the health of mothers and of children. And we must come together to prevent, and detect, and fight every kind of biological danger — whether it’s a pandemic like H1N1, or a terrorist threat, or a […] disease.”
“We must not put off action that climate change demands. We have to tap the power of science to save those resources that are scarce. And together, we must continue our work to build on the progress made in Copenhagen and Cancun, so that all the major economies here today follow through on the commitments that were made. Together, we must work to transform the energy that powers our economies, and support others as they move down that path. That is what our commitment to the next generation demands. And to make sure our societies reach their potential, we must allow our citizens to reach theirs”
Everyone knows that the United States was not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol and that it has sabotaged all efforts to preserve humankind from the terrible consequences of climate change, in spite of being the country which consumes a considerable and disproportionate part of fuel and world resources.



Let us put on the record the idyllic words with which he would like to cajole the men of State meeting there:
“I know there’s no straight line to that progress, no single path to success. We come from different cultures, and carry with us different histories. But let us never forget that even as we gather here as heads of different governments, we represent citizens who share the same basic aspirations — to live with dignity and freedom; to get an education and pursue opportunity; to love our families, and love and worship our God; to live in the kind of peace that makes life worth living. It is the nature of our imperfect world that we are forced to learn these lessons over and over again.”
“…because those who came before us believed that peace is preferable to war, and freedom is preferable to suppression, and prosperity is preferable to poverty. That’s the message that comes not from capitals, but from citizens, from our people. And when the cornerstone of this very building was put in place, President Truman came here to New York and said, “The United Nations is essentially an expression of the moral nature of man’s aspirations.” As we live in a world that is changing at a breathtaking pace, that’s a lesson that we must never forget. Peace is hard, but we know that it is possible. So, together, let us be resolved to see that it is defined by our hopes and not by our fears. Together, let us make peace, but a peace, most importantly, that will last.”
“Thank you very much.”
Listening to them right up to the end deserves something more than gratitude; it deserves a prize.
As I have already stated, early in the afternoon, Evo Morales Ayma, president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, took to the podium; he swiftly went into the essential topics.

“…there is a clear difference in the culture of life as opposed to the culture of death; there is a clear difference in truth as opposed to falsehood, a profound difference between peace and war.”
“…I think that it will be difficult to understand each other with economic policies that concentrate capital in just a few hands. Information shows us that 1% of the world population concentrates 50% of the wealth. If such profound differences exist, how can poverty be resolved? And if we do not abolish poverty, how can a long-lasting peace be guaranteed?”
“As a child, I remember perfectly well that earlier, whenever there was a rebellion by the people against a capitalist system, against the economic models of the permanent pillage of our natural resources, the labour union leaders, the left-leaning political leaders, were accused of being communists in order to arrest them; the social forces were under military intervention: confinement, exile, massacres, persecution, imprisonment, accusations of being communist, socialist, Maoist, Marxist-Leninist. I think this has now stopped; now they no longer accuse us of being Marxist-Leninist, now they have other instruments such as drug-trafficking and terrorism …”
“…they prepare interventions when their presidents, when their governments, when their peoples are not pro-capitalist or pro-imperialist.”
“…we speak of long-lasting peace. How can there be long-lasting peace with American military bases? How can there be long-lasting peace with military interventions?”
“What is the use of this UN when a group of countries decide on interventions, on massacres?”
“If we were to want this organization, the United Nations, to have the authority to cause resolutions to be respected, then we have to start thinking about re-founding the United Nations …”
“Every year, at the United Nations decisions are made—by almost one hundred percent of the nations, except the US and Israel— to unblock, to end the economic embargo on Cuba. And who causes that to be respected? Of course, the Security Council is never going to cause that UN resolution to be respected […] I cannot understand how in an organization made up of all the countries in the world, their resolutions are not respected. What is the UN?”
“I would like to tell you that Bolivia is not turning its back on the recognition of Palestine in the United Nations. Our position is that Bolivia welcomes Palestine to the United Nations.”
“You know, dear listeners, that I come from the Indigenous Peasant Movement, and when our families talk about a company, we think that the company has a lot of money, it deals with a lot of money, that they are millionaires, and they couldn’t understand how a company asks a State to loan them money for corresponding investment.
“Therefore I say that these international financial bodies are the ones doing business through the private companies; but who has to pay for that? It is exactly the peoples, the States.”
“…Bolivia has a historic case against Chile for the return to the sea, with sovereignty to the Pacific Ocean, with sovereignty. Therefore, Bolivia has made the decision to turn to international courts in order to sue for a useful sovereign exit to the Pacific Ocean.
“The UN General Assembly Resolution 37/10 of November 15, 1982, establishes that ‘turning to an International Court of Justice to resolve litigation between States should not be considered a non-friendly act.’
“Bolivia is protected by the right and the reason of turning to an International Court because having been cut off is the product of an unfair war, an invasion. Suing for a solution on the international stage, represents for Bolivia reparation of a historical injustice.
“Bolivia is a pacifist State that favours dialogue with neighbouring countries, and therefore it keeps the channels of bilateral negotiation with Chile open, without that meaning a renunciation of its right to turn to an International Court …”
“Peoples are not responsible for cutting off Bolivia from the coast; the causes are the oligarchies, the transnationals, who took over the natural resources as they always do.
“The 1904 Treaty brought neither peace nor friendship; it resulted in the fact that for more than a century Bolivia had no access to a sovereign port.”
“…in the region of the Americas, another movement of Latin American and Caribbean countries is being born, I should call it a new OAS without the US, to free ourselves from certain impositions, fortunately, with the bit of experience we have in UNASUR. […] we no longer need, whenever a conflict between countries arises […] for them to come down from the north and from the outside to establish order.”
“I would also like to take this opportunity on a central issue: the fight against drug trafficking. The fight against drug trafficking is being used by US imperialism for clearly political aims. In Bolivia, the United States’ DEA did not fight against drug-trafficking; it controlled drug trafficking for political purposes. If there was some trade union leader, or some anti-imperialist political leader, that’s what the DEA was for: to involve them. Many leaders, many of us politicians, saved ourselves from those dirty imperialist jobs to involve us in drug trafficking. They are still trying to do that, until the present.”
“In past weeks some of the media from the United States was saying that the presidential plane was detained in the US with traces of cocaine. What a lie! They attempt to confuse the population; they try to create a dirty campaign against the government, even against the State. Nevertheless, what does the US do? It decertifies Bolivia and Venezuela. What moral authority does the US have to certify or decertify countries in South or Latin America, when the United States is the number one consumer of drugs in the world, when the United States is one of the world marihuana producers, the number one producer of marihuana in the world […] With what authority can it certify or decertify? It is another way of frightening or intimidating countries, teaching them a lesson. However Bolivia, with great responsibility, goes on fighting against drug trafficking.
“In the same report from the United States, I mean, from the US State Department, a net decrease in the production of coca growing is acknowledged; that has improved the indictment.
“But where is the market? The market is the origin of drug trafficking and the market is here. And who decertifies the US because the market hasn’t dried up?
“This morning, President Calderón of Mexico was saying that the drug market keeps on growing and why there are no responsibilities to eradicate the market […] Let’s wage the war under a shared co-responsibility […] In Bolivia we are not afraid and we must terminate the banking secret if we want to wage frontal war against drug trafficking.”
“…One of the crisis, besides the crisis of capitalism, is the food crisis. […] we have a little experience in Bolivia: we give loans to rice, corn, wheat and soy growers, with zero percent interest, and they can even pay back their debt with their products; we are talking about food; or soft loans to encourage production. Nevertheless, international banks never take into account the small producers, they never take into account the associations, cooperatives, who can really contribute well if given the opportunity. […] We must put an end to competitive business.
“In a competition, who wins? The most powerful, the one having the most advantages, always the transnationals. And what about the small producers? And what about that family that wants to get ahead with their own efforts? […] With competition policy we are surely never going to resolve the issue of poverty.
“But finally, to conclude this speech I would like to tell you that the crisis of capitalism can no longer be paid […] The economic crisis of capitalism is not just critical, it is structural. And what do the capitalist or imperialist countries do? They look for any excuse to intervene in a country and to take over their natural resources.

“This morning the president of the United States was saying that now Iraq was liberated, they are going to govern themselves. The Iraqis may govern themselves, but in whose hands has Iraqi oil now fallen?
“They said that autocracy has ended in Libya, that now they have a democracy; it may be a democracy, but in whose hands will Libyan oil now be? […] the bombing cannot be blamed on Gaddafi, the fault of some rebels, but it is because of the search for Libyan oil.”
“…Therefore, its crisis, the crisis of capitalism, they want to get over it, they want to fix it by taking over our natural resources, on the basis of our oil, our gas, our natural resources.
“…we have a huge responsibility: to defend the rights of Mother Earth.”
“…the best way of defending human rights is now to defend the rights of Mother Earth […] herein we have our huge responsibility to pass the rights of Mother Earth. Just 60 years ago they passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Just 60 years ago they realized in the UN that the human being has rights. After political rights, economic rights, the rights of the indigenous peoples, now we have the huge responsibility of knowing how to defend the rights of Mother Earth.
“We are also convinced that the infinite growth of the planet is unsustainable and impossible, the limit for growth is the degenerative capacity of the Earth’s ecosystems […] we make a call for […] a new decalogue of social vindications: in financial systems, over natural resources, over basic services, over production, over dignity and sovereignty, and on this basis to re-found the United Nations so that the United Nations may be the supreme authority for solving the
problems of peace, poverty and the dignity and sovereignty of the peoples of the world.”
“We hope that this experience as President can be of some good for all of us, just as I am learning from many of you in order to go on working for the equality and dignity of the Bolivian people.
“Thank you very much.”
Following Evo Morales’ convincing concepts, President Mahmud Abbas of the National Palestinian Authority, who took to the podium two days later, laid out the dramatic suffering of the inhabitants of Palestine: “…the crass historical injustice perpetrated on our people, therefore it was agreed to set up the State of Palestine on just 22% of Palestine’s territory and, above all, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967. Taking that historic step, applauded by the States of the world, allowed for exceeding acquiescence in order to reach a historical compromise, that would permit peace to be achieved in the land of peace.”
“[…] Our people shall continue with their peaceful popular resistance to the Israeli occupation, their settlements and their policy of apartheid, as well as the building of the wall of racist annexation […] armed with dreams, courage, hope and slogans in the face of tanks, tear gas, bulldozers and bullets.”
“…we would like to extend our hand to the government and people of Israel for peace to be imposed, and I say to you: let us build together, in an urgent manner, a future for our children where they may enjoy freedom, security and prosperity. […] Let us build relationships of cooperation that are based on the parity, equality and friendship between two neighbour States, Palestine and Israel, instead of policies of occupation, settlements, war and the elimination of the other side.”
Almost half a century has gone by since that brutal occupation promoted and supported by the United States. However, it is barely a day since the wall was erected, monstrous mechanical machinery is destroying Palestinian homes and some young person, and even a Palestinian teenager, is wounded or killed.
What profound truths Evo’s words hold!
Fidel Castro Ruz
September 26, 2011
10:32 p.m.

Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/

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