Posts Tagged ‘Fidel Castro’

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Reflections of Fidel: Seven Daggers at the Heart of the Americas

August 11, 2009

Fidel Castro, Monthly Review, Aug 5, 2009

I read and reread data and articles written by smart personalities, some better known than others, who publish in various media outlets drawing the information from sources nobody questions.

Everywhere in the world, the people living on this planet are taking economic, environmental and war risks due to the United States policies but no other region of the world as threatened by such grave problems as that country’s neighbors, that is, the peoples of this continent south of that hegemonic power.

Continues >>

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Galeano: On Fidel Castro

July 27, 2009
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Eduardo Galeano | Havana Times, July 26, 2009

Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, photo: Mariela De MarchiUruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, photo: Mariela De Marchi

July 26 – His enemies say he was a king without a crown, and that he confused unity with unanimity.

And in that, his enemies are right.

His enemies say if Napoleon had had a newspaper like “Granma,” no Frenchman would have ever learned of the disaster at Waterloo.

And in that, his enemies are right.

His enemies say he exercised power speaking a lot and listening little, because he was more accustomed to echoes than to voices.

And in that, his enemies are right.

But his enemies do not say that he was posing for history when he exposed his chest to the bullets when the invasion came; that he confronted hurricanes on equal terms, from hurricane to hurricane; that he survived six hundred thirty-seven assassination attempts; that his contagious energy was decisive in transforming a colony into a homeland, or that it was not due to a Mandinga spell or a miracle from God that the new homeland could survive ten presidents of the United States, who had each tucked in their napkins to serve it up as lunch, with knives and forks.

And his enemies don’t say that Cuba is an odd country that doesn’t compete in the World Cup of Doormats.

And they don’t say that this revolution, having grown up under punishing conditions, is what it could be and not what it wanted to be.  Nor do they say that, to a great degree, the wall between desire and reality was being made higher and wider thanks to the imperial blockade that drowned the development of a Cuban style democracy, that forced the militarization of society and turned it over to the bureaucracy, which has a problem for each solution – the alibis it needs to justify and perpetuate itself.

And they don’t say that despite all the grief, despite the aggressions from abroad and the inconsistencies from within, that this suffering but insistently persevering island has generated the least unjust society in Latin American.

And his enemies don’t say this feat was the work of the sacrifice of his people, but it was also the work of the stubborn will and the old-fashion sense of the honor of this gentleman, who always went to bat for the losers, like that famous colleague of his from the fields of Castilla.

*From the book “Espejos, una Historia casi Universal” (Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone)

A Havana Times translation of the original published in Spanish at the website: (www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/sobre-fidel )

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Che Guevara’s daughter recalls her revolutionary father

July 23, 2009

Aleida Guevara talks about having to share her ‘Papi’ with the world – and her dislike of the commercialisation of his image

Fidel Castro with Che Guevara and his daughter AleidaA two-year-old in the arms of Fidel Castro, and her father, Che, holding a cigar. Photograph: IMAGNO/Austrian Archives/Getty Images

Aleida Guevara was four and a half when her father left Cuba. Ernesto “Che” Guevara, iconic Argentine guerrilla leader, Marxist theorist and second-in-command of the Cuban revolution, departed the island for Africa in 1965 after falling out of political favour with Fidel Castro. She saw him only once again, before his execution by the CIA-backed Bolivian government two years later.

Castro granted the visit on condition that it was clandestine. Guevara, concerned that the children’s chatter about “Papi’s” re-appearance might endanger his family, arrived back in Havana heavily disguised. He was introduced at supper as a friend of their father.

Continued >>

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Castro questions timing of Cuban spy arrests

June 8, 2009

The Associated Press

By ANITA SNOW – June 7, 2009

HAVANA (AP) — Fidel Castro called the case of two Americans accused of spying for Cuba “strange” Saturday and questioned whether the timing of their arrests was politically motivated.

In an essay read by a newscaster on state television, the former Cuban leader noted that the retired Washington couple were taken into custody just 24 hours after the Organization of American States voted to lift a decades-old suspension of Cuba’s membership in that group.

Though the U.S. ultimately supported the OAS vote Wednesday, the administration of President Barack Obama initially wanted to see more democratic reforms on the communist island before Cuba was readmitted.

Castro called the OAS vote “a defeat for United States diplomacy.”

Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn, were arrested Thursday in Washington after a three-year investigation that began before Myers’ retirement from the State Department in 2007.

The U.S. government says they had been spying for Havana for 30 years, recruited by Cuba after a 1978 trip there. Myers received his orders by Morse code, and he and his wife usually hand-delivered intelligence, sometimes by exchanging carts in a grocery store, according to court documents.

“Doesn’t the story of Cuban spying seem really ridiculous to everyone?” Castro asked, without commenting on its validity.

Myers had been under suspicion since 1995 and FBI investigation since 2006.

If the couple had been watched that long, “why were they not arrested before?” Castro asked.

Court documents say the two were such valued spies, they once had a four-hour meeting with Castro, whom Myers described as one of the great modern political leaders.

Castro said he doesn’t recall meeting them when he was still president.

“I met during this time with thousands of Americans for various reasons, individually or in groups, on occasion with gatherings of several hundred of them,” said the 82-year-old, who ceded power to his brother Raul when he fell ill nearly three years ago and has not been seen in public since.

“Perhaps influencing the case was not only the tremendous reverse suffered (by the U.S.), but also the news that contacts are being made between the governments of the United States and Cuba on issues of common interest,” he added.

Cuba agreed to resume talks with the Obama administration on legal immigration of Cubans to the United States and direct mail services after an overture from the U.S. last month.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Fidel Castro: Torture can never be justified

June 1, 2009

Reflections of Fidel
(Taken from CubaDebate)

Granma.cu, May 29, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continued >>


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Castro: Cuba Will Continue to Resist

April 15, 2009

By Fidel Castro | ZNet, April 15, 2009

Fidel Castro’s ZSpace Page

The U.S. administration announced through CNN that Obama would be visiting Mexico this week, in the first part of a trip that will take him to Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, where he will be within four days taking part in the Summit of the Americas. He has announced the relief of some hateful restrictions imposed by Bush to Cubans living in the United States regarding their visits to relatives in Cuba. When questions were raised on whether such prerogatives extended to other American citizens the response was that the latter were not authorized.

But not a word was said about the harshest of measures: the blockade. This is the way a truly genocidal measure is piously called, one whose damage cannot be calculated only on the basis of its economic effects, for it constantly takes human lives and brings painful suffering to our people.

Numerous diagnostic equipment and crucial medicines –made in  Europe, Japan or any other country– are not available to our patients  if they carry U.S. components or software.

The U.S. companies producing goods or offering services anywhere  in the world should apply these restrictions to Cuba, since they are extraterritorial measures.

An influential Republican Senator, Richard Lugar, and some others from his same party in Congress, as well as a significant number of his Democratic peers, favor the removal of the blockade. The conditions exist for Obama to use his talents in a constructive policy that could put an end to the one that has failed for almost half a century.

On the other hand, our country, which has resisted and is willing to resist whatever it takes, neither blames Obama for the atrocities of other U.S. administrations nor doubts his sincerity and his wishes to change the United States policy and image. We understand that he waged a very difficult battle to be elected, despite centuries-old prejudices.

Taking note of this reality, the President of the State Council of Cuba has expressed his willingness to have a dialogue with Obama  and to normalize relations with the United States, on the basis  of the strictest respect for the sovereignty of our country.

At 2:30 p.m., the head of the Interests Section of Cuba in Washington, Jorge Bolaños, was summoned to the State Department  by Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Shannon. He did not say  anything different from what had been indicated by the CNN.

At 3:15 p.m. a lengthy press conference started. The substance of what was said there is reflected in the words of Dan Restrepo, Presidential Adviser for Latin America.

He said that today President Obama had instructed to take certain measures, certain steps, to reach out to the Cuban people in  support of their wishes to live with respect for human rights and to determine their own destiny and that of the country.

He added that the president had instructed the secretaries of State, Commerce and Treasury to undertake the necessary actions to  remove all restrictions preventing persons to visit their relatives in the Island and sending remittances. He also said that the president had issued instructions for steps to be taken allowing the free flow of information in Cuba, and between those living in Cuba and the  rest of the world, and to facilitate delivering humanitarian resources directly to the Cuban people.

He also said that with these measures, aimed at closing the gap between divided Cuban families and promoting the free flow of information and humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people, President Obama was making an effort to fulfill the objectives  he set out during his campaign and after taking on his position.

Finally, he indicated that all those who believe in the basic democratic values hope for a Cuba where the human, political, economic and basic rights of the entire people are respected.  And he added that President Obama feels that these measures  will help to make this objective a reality. The president, he said,  encourages everyone who shares these wishes to continue to  decidedly support the Cuban people.

At the end of the press conference, the adviser candidly confessed that ?all of this is for Cuba?s freedom.?

Cuba does not applaud the ill-named Summits of the Americas, where our nations do not debate on equal footing. If they were of any use, it would be to make critical analyses of policies that divide our peoples, plunder our resources and hinder our development.

Now, the only thing left is for Obama to try to persuade all of the Latin American presidents attending the conference that the  blockade is harmless.

Cuba has resisted and it will continue to resist; it will never beg for alms. It will go on forward holding its head up high and cooperating with the fraternal peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean; with or without Summits of the Americas; whether or not the president of the United States is Obama, a man or a woman, a black or a white citizen.

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Obama opens up on Cuba

April 14, 2009
Al Jazeera, April 14, 2009
By Rob Reynolds, senior Washington correspondent
Travel restrictions to Cuba will be eased under the new rules [Reuters]

The US easing of travel restrictions to Cuba is a small step – but considering that US-Cuban relations have been frozen in hostility for decades, any step is significant.

The new policy allows Cuban-Americans unlimited visits to family members on the island and permits them to send money and gifts such as clothing and personal items.

It also gives US telecommunications companies permission to apply for Cuban government permits.

Cubans will be able to receive more goods from  relatives abroad [Reuters]

Until now, Cuban-Americas have been restricted to one visit every three years and an annual limit of $300 in remittances.”It sends a signal that the US is ready to engage diplomatically, where there has been virtually no engagement with Cuba for 50 years,” says Johanna Mendelson Forman, a Latin American policy specialist at the Centre for International and Strategic Studies in Washington.

When Barack Obama began his campaign for the White House he promised to take the steps outlined on Monday.

The White House says Obama’s aim is to “help bridge the gap among divided Cuban families and promote the freer flow of information and humanitarian items to the Cuban people”.

The “people-based” approach to improving ties with Cuba won praise from Vicki Huddleston, a former US envoy to Cuba.

“It’s a great thing to allow for human contact,” she says.

“I think you’ve seen all over the world that you get change through contact, not isolation.”

Cuban-American support

The new policy is likely to be broadly popular among the Cuban-American community where many felt harsh restrictions imposed by the administration of George Bush, Obama’s predecessor, nearly five years ago were hurting ordinary Cuban citizens.

Cuban-Americans in Florida remain an
important electoral bloc [GALLO/GETTY]

There about 1.5 million Americans with relatives in Cuba.Many of those families provide vital financial assistance to relatives, benefiting the Cuban economy as a whole.

Legislation now before the US congress would lift all travel restrictions on all American citizens, not just Cuban-Americans.

A flood of curious, free-spending American tourists would have an enormous impact on Cuba’s economy and society.

After 47 years, the US economic embargo on Cuba has been condemned by some as one of the worst foreign policy failures in US history.

Fidel Castro, the former president, remained firmly in control during all those years, thumbing his nose at “Yanqui” power and 10 US presidents, until ill health forced him to transfer power to his brother, Raul, in February last year.

Almost every country in the world except the US has normal relations with Cuba.

A steady supply of oil and money from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has helped the Castro government survive and continue suppressing freedom of speech and political activity.

The constant state of siege brought on by the embargo gives the Castro brothers an important emotional prop and exposes the US to charges of bullying behaviour towards its smaller neighbour.

It could have died years ago had it not been for the political clout of the conservative Cuban-American exile community, concentrated in the key electoral state of Florida.

By well-organised public relations efforts and bloc voting, emphatically anti-communist, anti-Castro Cuban-Americans were able to dictate US foreign policy.

No president dared oppose them, for fear of losing Florida and the White House on election day.

Liberalisation hope

But while many of the older generation of exiles and expatriates still harbour a fierce hatred for Castro, a younger generation has softer views.

A new poll shows a majority of Cuban Americans now oppose continuing the embargo.

Fidel Castro outlasted 10 US presidents as
Cuban leader [EPA]

And among all Americans, 71 per cent want a positive change in Cuban-American relations.Because of the embargo, the US has very little diplomatic or economic leverage on Cuba.

The Obama administration hopes its travel gesture will encourage Havana to allow more human rights and economic freedom.

Raul Castro’s government has taken some tentative steps towards liberalising its tight control over society, allowing Cubans to own mobile phones, computers and foreign currency.

Obama has repeatedly said he would consider holding talks with Cuban leaders.

But while the US president is more inclined to break the old standoff with Havana, he says he is not about to do away with the embargo until Cuba institutes more human rights and democratic reforms

Obama will attend a hemispheric summit meeting in Trinidad this week, where he is likely to be pressed by Latin American leaders to move more boldly towards normalising relations with Cuba.

He can at least offer this small but significant measure as evidence he is committed to change.

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UN pays tribute to Fidel Castro and Julius Nyerere

February 13, 2009

Granma, February 11, 2009

NICARAGUAN Miguel D’Escoto, president of the UN General Assembly, today paid tribute to the late Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania, and to leader of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro.

On the World Day of Social Justice, D’Escoto stated that one great hero with respect to social justice was Julius Nyerere who, he said, helped the whole of Africa to free itself from colonialism and establish a social and economic system in which human beings are at the center of any economic venture.

The Nicaraguan priest said that with respect to Fidel Castro, he is more than a hero, and is the closest thing we have to a saint in our anguished world, according to a report by the Prensa Latina agency.

During an event organized by the UN Social and Economic Council’s Commission for Social Development, D’Escoto emphasized that he is indebted to Fidel Castro, as is all of humanity, as a man who has devoted his life to tirelessly practicing and promoting solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the world.

D’Escoto, who was Nicaragua’s foreign minister during the first Sandinista administration, also referred to the emergence of new leaders such as Bolivian President Evo Morales.

In overcoming all manner of difficulties, Morales is guiding the indigenous peoples of Bolivia and the rest of the world towards the central role that rightly corresponds to them in our societies, he underlined.

D’Escoto maintained that it is impossible to achieve development, integration and social justice without peace, justice and respect for all human rights.

Translated by Granma International

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Fidel Castro: Rahm Emanuel

February 12, 2009

Reflections of Fidel

Granma, February 9, 2009

WHAT a strange surname! It appears Spanish, easy to pronounce, but it’s not. Never in my life have I heard or read about any student or compatriot with that name, among tens of thousands.

Where does it come from? I wondered. Over and over, the name came to mind of the brilliant German thinker, Immanuel Kant, who together with Aristotle and Plato, formed a trio of philosophers that have most influenced human thinking. Doubtless he was not very far, as I discovered later, from the philosophy of the man closest to the current president of the United States, Barack Obama.

Another recent possibility led me to reflect on the strange surname, the book of Germán Sánchez, the Cuban ambassador in Bolivarian Venezuela: The transparence of Enmanuel, this time without the “I” with which the German philosopher’s name begins.

Enmanuel is the name of the child conceived and born in the dense guerrilla jungle, where his extremely honorable mother, Colombian vice presidential candidate Clara Rojas González, was taken prisoner on February 23, 2002, together with Ingrid Betancourt, who was a presidential candidate in that sister country’s elections that year.

I read with much interest the abovementioned book by Germán Sánchez, our ambassador in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela who, in 2008, had the privilege of participating in the liberation of Clara Rojas and Consuelo González, former National Assembly deputy, from the FARC, the revolutionary army of Colombia, which had taken them prisoner.

Clara had remained in the hands of the guerrilla forces out of solidarity with Ingrid and was with her throughout six years of difficult captivity.

Germán’s book is titled The Transparency of Enmanuel, almost exactly the same name as the German philosopher. It didn’t seem strange to me; in thinking about how his mother was a brilliant and very cultured lawyer; maybe that was the reason she gave her child that name. It simply led me to remember the years of isolation in prison that I experienced after my almost-successful attempt to take over Cuba’s second-largest military fortress on July 26, 1953 and to seize thousands of weapons with a select group of 120 combatants willing to fight against the Batista dictatorship imposed on Cuba by the United States.

Of course, it was not the only objective or the only inspiring idea, but what is certain is that after the triumph of the revolution in our homeland on January 1, 1959, I still recalled some of the German philosopher’s aphorisms:

“A wise man can change his mind. A stubborn one, never.”

“Do not use others as a means to your end.”

“Only through education can a man finally be a man.”

This great idea was one of the principles proclaimed from the initial days following the revolutionary triumph, on January 1, 1959. Obama and his advisor had not been born or even conceived. Rahm Emanuel was born in Chicago on November 29, 1959, the son of a Russian immigrant. His mother was a human rights advocate named Martha Smulevitz; she was sent to prison three times for her activities.

Rahm Emanuel joined the Israeli army in 1991 as a civilian volunteer during the first Gulf War waged by Bush Sr., which used missiles containing uranium that caused serious illnesses in the U.S. soldiers who participated in the offensive against the Iraqi Republican Guard in retreat, and in a countless number of civilians.

Since that war, the peoples of the Near and Middle East have consumed a fabulous amount of weapons, which the U.S. military-industrial complex launches onto the market.

The racists of the extreme right might be able to satisfy their thirst for ethnic superiority and assassinate Obama like they did Martin Luther King, the great human rights leader which, while theoretically possible, does not appear probable at this time, given the protection surrounding the president after his election, every minute, day and night.

Obama, Emanuel and all of the brilliant politicians and economists who have come together would not suffice to solve the growing problems of U.S. capitalist society.

Even if Kant, Plato and Aristotle were to resuscitate together the late and brilliant economist John Kenneth Galbraight, neither would they be capable of solving the increasingly more frequent and profound antagonistic contradictions of the system. They would have been happy in the times of Abraham Lincoln —so admired, and rightfully so, by the new president — an era left far behind.

All of the other peoples will have to pay for the colossal waste and guarantee, above anything else on this increasingly more contaminated planet, U.S. jobs and the profits of that country’s large transnationals.

Fidel Castro Ruz

Febrero 8, 2009

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Fidel Castro attacks Obama over Gaza

February 2, 2009
Al Jazeera, Jan 31, 2009

Castro says the US should return the naval base at Guantanamo Bay to Cuba [AFP]

Fidel Castro, the former Cuban president, has attacked Barack Obama, the US president, accusing him of supporting “Israeli genocide” against the  Palestinians.

Castro, who had recently praised Obama as “honest” and “noble”, said in a column posted on a government website that Obama was continuing the policies of George Bush, his predecessor, by supporting Israel.

The former Cuban leader, who was succeeded by his brother Raul as president in February, accused the US of having enabled Israel to become an “important nuclear power”.

He also accused the US of giving Israel military aid with which it “threatens extreme violence against the population of all the Muslim countries”.

Castro highlighted statements made by the Obama administration that reiterated its strong support for Israel, which recently carried out a 22-day assault on Gaza in which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed.

Obama has repeatedly reiterated his strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks by Palestinian fighters.

Guantanamo claim

Fidel Castro also criticised Obama for suggesting Cuba would have to make concessions before it considers returning the territory of the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

“Maintaining a military base in Cuba against the will of the people violates the most elemental principles of international law,” Castro said.

“Not respecting Cuba’s will is an arrogant act and an abuse of immense power against a little country,” he added.

Cuba indefinitely leased Guantanamo to the US in 1903 after the US occupied the country during the 1898 Spanish-American War.

Castro has claimed that the base at the south-eastern tip of Cuba was taken over illegally.

Obama said during his election campaign he was willing to consider holding talks with nations with poor relations with the US, such as Cuba and Iran.

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