Posts Tagged ‘Fidel Castro’

Fidel Castro: “Al-Qaeda terrorists engineered in order to advance Bush administration’s agenda “

November 25, 2008
Press TV – 2008-11-24

Former Cuban president Fidel Castro says al-Qaeda terrorists have been engineered in order to advance the Bush administration’s agenda.

In an essay published on Sunday, Castro said the terrorist group “was born from the empire’s own entrails”, using the term “empire” to refer to the United States.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration vowed to capture al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who has reportedly taken responsibility for the deadly attacks on US soils.

“[Al-Qaeda] is a typical example of an enemy that the hegemonic power dangles in a place of its choosing where it needs to justify its actions, as it has done throughout its history, fabricating enemies and attacks destined to strengthen its plans of domination,” the former Cuban leader argued.

According to Castro, the American public has been misled by the US government about the real extent of the terrorist attacks in 2001. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has also suggested that Washington could have been somehow involved in the planning of the attacks.

In the aftermath of the attacks, the White House launched the ‘War on Terror’ in a bid to disband al-Qaeda. While many civilians have been killed since the 2001 invasions of Afghanistan, followed by the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US has failed to achieve its objectives in the region.

A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program called “Operation Cyclone” is reportedly responsible for the creation of the terrorist group, when the CIA funded native Afghan militants in the conflict with the Soviet Union.

The al-Qaeda leader is reportedly planning a new terror attack against the US as President-elect Barack Obama takes office from the incumbent president, George W. Bush.

Earlier this month, a source close to the group claimed that Bin Laden is supervising preparations for another attack which will be far greater than those of 9/11.

US Vice President-elect Joe Biden had warned in October that Obama would face an international crisis early in his presidency.

The Washington meeting

November 16, 2008

Reflections by Comrade Fidel

Granma, Nov 15, 2008

According to recent statements, some supportive governments do not cease to say they want to facilitate transition in Cuba. What kind of transition? Transition to capitalism, the only system they have absolute faith in. They do not say a word about the merits of our people, which for almost half a century of harsh economic sanctions and aggressions, has defended a revolutionary cause that together with its morale and patriotism, has given it the strength to put up a resistance.

They seem to forget that after laying down lives and making sacrifices in defense of sovereignty and justice, Cuba cannot be expected to end up on the side of capitalism.

They ingratiate themselves with the United States hoping that it will help them face their own economic problems injecting huge amounts of paper money to their shaky economies which maintain unequal and abusive terms of trade with the emerging nations.

This is the only way they can ensure the multimillion profits of Wall Street and the US banks. The non renewable natural resources of the planet and its ecology are not even mentioned. There is no claim for the end of the arms race and the banning of the potential and probable use of weapons of mass destruction.

None of the participants in the conclave hurriedly convened by the sitting President of the United States has said a word about the absence of over 150 nations facing the same problems or even worse. These will not have the right to speak on the international financial order as the pro tempore President of the UN General Assembly Miguel D’Escoto had proposed, even when they include most of the countries from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

The G-20 meeting will open in Washington tomorrow. Bush is delighted. He has stated that a new international financial order will result from the meeting and that the institutions set up at Bretton Woods should be more transparent, accountable and effective. It’s as much as he would admit. Referring to Cuba’s prosperity in the past, he said that it had once been full of sugarcane fields. By the way, he failed to mention that it was manually cut and that, for over half a century, the empire has deprived us from our quota. Also that this action was taken when the word socialism had yet to be spoken in our country, although we had certainly proclaimed: Homeland or Death!

Many seem to dream that after a simple change of leadership in the empire, this would be more tolerant and less hostile. Apparently, contempt for the incumbent ruler makes some entertain illusions about a probable change in the system.

The innermost ideas of the citizen who will take over the issue are yet unknown. It would be extremely naïve to believe that the good will of a smart person could change what is the result of centuries of selfishness and vested interests.

Let’s watch attentively what everyone says in that major financial conclave. There will be plenty of news. We shall all be a bit better informed.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 14, 2008

Fidel Castro: The November 4 elections

November 4, 2008

Reflections of Fidel | Granma, Nov 4, 2008

TOMORROW will be a very important day. World opinion will be following what happens with the elections in the United States. It is the most powerful nation on the planet. With less than five percent of the world’s population, it annually sucks up enormous quantities of oil and gas, minerals, raw materials, consumer goods and sophisticated products from other countries; many of these, especially fuel and products that are mined, are not renewable.

It is the largest producer and exporter of weapons. The military industrial complex also has an insatiable market within the same country. Its air and naval forces are concentrated on dozens of military bases in other countries. The strategic missiles of the United States, which carry nuclear warheads, can reach any point in the world with total precision.

Many of the most intelligent minds in the world are plucked out of their native countries and placed at the service of this system. It is a parasitical and rapacious empire.

As everybody knows, the black population that was brought into the United States through slavery for centuries is victim of intense racial discrimination.

Obama, the Democratic candidate, is part African, and the color black and other physical traits of that race predominate in him. He was able to study at an institution of higher learning from which he graduated with brilliant grades. He is no doubt more intelligent, educated and level-headed than his Republican rival.

I am analyzing tomorrow’s elections as the world is experiencing a serious financial crisis, the worst since the 1930s, among many others that have seriously affected the economies of many countries for more than three-quarters of a century.

The international media, analysts and political commentators are spending some of their time on the issue. Obama is considered as the best political orator in the United States in recent decades. His compatriot Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Literature Prize in 1993 —the first of her ethnicity born in the United States to win that award and an excellent writer — describes him as the future president and poet of that nation.

I have observed the struggle between the two rivals. The black candidate, who surprised everyone so much when he won the nomination against strong adversaries, has articulated his ideas well, and strikes with them over and over in the minds of voters. He does not hesitate to affirm that above all, more than Republicans and Democrats, they are the people of the United States, citizens that he describes as the most productive in the world; that he will cut taxes for the middle class, in which he includes almost everybody; he will eliminate them for the poorest and raise them for the richest. Income will not be allocated to saving banks.

He reiterates over and over that the ruinous spending on Bush’s war in Iraq should not be paid for by U.S. taxpayers. He would put an end to that and bring back the U.S. soldiers. Perhaps he took into account the fact that that country had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It has cost the blood of thousands of U.S. soldiers, dead or injured in combat, and more than one million lives in that Muslim nation. It was a war of conquest imposed by the empire in its search for oil.

Given the financial crisis that has broken out and its consequences, U.S. citizens are more concerned at this time about the economy than the war in Iraq. They are tormented by their worries over jobs; the security of their savings deposited in banks; their retirements funds; the fear of losing the purchasing power of their money and the homes in which they live with their families. They wish for the security of receiving, in any circumstances, adequate medical services, and the guarantee of their children’s right to higher education.

Obama is defiant; I think that he has run and will run increasing risks in the country in which an extremist can legally acquire a sophisticated modern weapon on any street corner, just like in the early 18th century in the West of the United States. He supports his system and will base himself on it. Concerns over the world’s pressing problems really do not occupy an important place in Obama’s mind, and even less so in the mind of the candidate who, as a war pilot, dropped dozens of tons of bombs on the city of Hanoi, more than 15,000 kilometers from Washington, without any remorse in his conscience.

Last Thursday the 30th, when I wrote to Lula, along with what I described in my reflections of October 31, I literally said to him in my letter, “Racism and discrimination have existed in U.S. society since it was born more than two centuries ago. Blacks and Latin Americans have always been discriminated against there. Its citizens were educated in consumerism. Humanity is objectively threatened by its weapons of mass destruction.

“The people of the United States are more concerned about the economy than the war in Iraq. McCain is old, bellicose, uncultured, not very intelligent and not in good health.”

Finally, I added, “If my estimates should be erroneous, all kinds of racism prevail and the Republican candidate obtains the presidency, the danger of war would grow and the opportunities of the peoples to advance would be reduced. Despite everything, we must fight and raise awareness about this, no matter who wins these elections.”

When this opinion of mine is published tomorrow, nobody will have any time to say that I wrote something that could be utilized by one of the candidates for their campaign. I had to be, and have been, neutral in the electoral battle. It is not “interference in the internal affairs of the United States,” as the State Department would say, with all that respect it has for the sovereignty of other countries.


Fidel Castro Ruz

November 3, 2008

Fidel Castro: The Worst Variant

October 31, 2008

Reflections of Fidel | Granma, Oct 31, 2008

TODAY I read that the U.S. Federal Reserve had opened a new line of credit for the central banks of Mexico, Brazil, South Korea and Singapore.

The same report claimed that similar credits have been issued to the central banks of Australia, Canada, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and the European Central Bank.

Based on these agreements, the central banks will receive funds in exchange for hard currency reserves from these countries, which have sustained considerable losses due to the financial and trade crisis.

This consolidates the economic power of the U.S. currency, a privilege granted at Bretton Woods.

The International Monetary Fund, which is the same dog with a different collar, has announced the injection of large sums of money into its Eastern European clients. Hungary will be receiving the equivalent of 20 billion euros, a large part of which are dollars from the United States. Their machines keep printing bills and the IMF keeps granting its leonine loans.

For its part, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) stated in Geneva yesterday that, at the current rate of spending, by the year 2030, humanity will need the resources of two planets to maintain its lifestyle.

The WWF is a serious institution. There is no need to be a University graduate in Mathematics, Economics or Political Science to understand what this means. It is the worst variant. Developed capitalism hopes to continue plundering the world as if the world were still able to sustain it.


Fidel Castro Ruz
October 30, 2008
8:05 p.m.

Fidel Castro: The Law of the Jungle

October 14, 2008


Racism, Obama and the Fall of the American Economy

Fidel Castro | Counterpunch, Oct 13, 2008

Trade, within a society and between countries, is the exchange of goods and services produced by human beings. The owners of the means of production appropriate the profits. As a class, they are the leaders of the capitalist state and they boast of fostering development and social wellbeing through market. This they  worship as an infallible God.

In every country there is competition between the strongest and the weakest; the ones with more physical energy and better fed, those who learned how to read and write, who attended school and have more experience accumulated; the ones with more extensive social relations and more resources, and those within society who fail to have these advantages.

Now, as far as the countries is concerned, there are differences between those with a better climate and more arable land, more water and more natural resources in the area where they are located, when there are no more territories to conquer; the ones mastering technology, having greater development and handling unlimited media resources and those who, on the contrary, do not enjoy any of these prerogatives. These are the sometimes enormous differences between the rich and the poor nations.

It´s the law of the jungle.

There are no differences between ethnic groups, however, when it comes to the mental faculties of the human being. This has been thoroughly proven by science. The present society is not the natural way in which human life evolved, but rather a creation of the mentally developed man without which his life would be inconceivable. Therefore, what is at stake is whether the human being will be able to survive the privilege of having a creative mind.

The developed capitalist system, epitomized by the country with a privileged nature where the European white man brought his ideas, dreams and ambitions, is today in a crisis. But, it is not the usual crisis happening once in a number of years; not even the traumatic crisis of the 1930s but the worst of all crises since the world started to pursue this growth and development model.

The current crisis of the developed capitalist system is taking place when the empire is about to change leadership in the elections to be held in twenty-five days; it was all that was left to see.

The candidate of the two main parties that will say the last word in these elections are trying to persuade the bewildered voters –many of whom have never cared to cast a vote- that as candidates to the presidency they can secure the wellbeing and consumerism of what they describe as a people of middle class only, even though they are not planning to introduce any real changes to what they consider the most perfect economic system the world has ever known. The same world that, in their respective minds, is less important than the happiness of over three hundred million people who account for less than five percent of the world population. The fate of the remaining ninety-five percent of human beings, peace and war, the fit or unfit-for-breathing air, will highly depend on the decisions of the administrative leader of the empire, whether or not that constitutional position has any power at a time of nuclear weapons and space shields moved by computers in circumstances where every second counts and when ethical principles keep loosing their value. Still, the more or less nefarious role of the President of that country cannot be overlooked.

Racism is deeply-rooted in the United States where the mind of millions of people can hardly reconcile with the notion that a black man, with his wife and children could live in the White House, which is precisely called White.

It´s a miracle that the Democratic candidate has not met the same destiny as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and others who only a few decades ago dreamed of justice and equality. He is in the habit of looking at his adversary with serenity and of smiling at the dialectic predicament of an opponent gazing into space.

The Republican candidate, on the other hand, who likes to enhance his reputation as a belligerent man, was one of the worst students in his class at West Point. He has confessed that he did not know any Mathematics; it can thus be assumed that he knew less of the complicated economic science.

The truth is his adversary surpasses him in cleverness and composure.

Something McCain has aplenty is age, and his health condition is not safe.

I am bringing up these data to indicate that eventually -if anything went wrong with the candidate´s health, in case he is elected- the lady of the riffle, the inexperienced former governor of Alaska could become President of the United States. It can be noticed that she does not know a thing.

Meditating on the current US public debt -$10,266 trillions- that President Bush is laying on the shoulders of the new generations in that country, I took to calculating how long it would take a man to count the debt that he has doubled in eight years.

A man working eight hours a day, without missing a second, and counting one hundred one-dollar bills per minute, during 300 days in the year, would need 710 billion years to count that amount of money.

I could not find a more graphic way to describe the volume of money that is practically mentioned every day now.

In order to avoid a general state of panic, the US administration has declared that it will secure deposits that do not exceed 250 thousand dollars. It will be managing banks and such funds as Lenin would never have thought of counting with an abacus.

We might be wondering about the contribution of Bush´s administration to Socialism. But, let´s not entertain any illusions. Once the banking operations go back to normal, the imperialists will return the banks to the private business as some other countries in this hemisphere have already done. The peoples always foot the bill.

Capitalism tends to reproduce itself under any social system because it is based on selfishness and on man´s instincts.

The only choice left to human society is to overcome this contradiction; otherwise it would not be able to survive.

At this time, the ocean of money being poured into the world finances by the central banks of the developed capitalist countries is dealing a hard blow to the Stock Exchanges of the countries which resort to these institutions in an effort to beat their economic underdevelopment.  Cuba has no Stock Exchange. We shall certainly find more rational  and more socialist ways of financing our development.

The current crisis and the brutal measures of the US administration to save itself will bring more inflation, more devaluation of the national currencies, more painful losses in the markets, lower prices for basic export commodities and more unequal exchange. But, they will also bring to the peoples a better understanding of the truth,  a greater conscience, more rebelliousness and more revolutions.

We shall see how the crisis develops and what happens in the United States in twenty-five days.

Fidel Castro: The same lie twice over

September 19, 2008

Granma, Sep 19, 2008

Reflections of Fidel

READING the cables will suffice.


In the reflection I wrote the day before yesterday I stated that Cuba would not accept any donation from the government that is blockading us and that, in the Verbal Note handed over to the U.S. Interests Section, we had requested authorization so that U.S. companies could sell us construction materials; that same Note made no reference whatsoever to foodstuffs.  There was an additional request for trade in those materials to take place under normal conditions, including credits, something that is only logical considering that, for eight years, our country has been paying in cash for the few commodities that U.S. companies are authorized to export to Cuba.

Such a request was all the more justified in the face of the emergency situation created as a result of the ravages of the hurricanes.

It was precisely George W. Bush who, after Hurricane Michelle violently lashed the island on November 4, 2001, authorized the sale of agricultural produce to Cuba, which included lumber as a product derived from silviculture, which is highly developed in that nation.  He did not insist on any in situ inspection when, as is currently the case, we responded that we had already completed such an inspection. In the main, we imported foodstuffs.  Within a few weeks we had imported $4.4 million dollars worth, once all the relevant procedures were rapidly finalized.

In 2002, we purchased $173.6 million in goods; in 2003, $327 million; in 2004, $434.1 million; in 2005, $473 million; in 2006, $483.3 million; in 2007, $515.8 million, and during the first semester of 2008, $425 million.  As can be seen, the figures have increased year by year, and this year, after the devastating impact caused by two hurricanes, it is possible that the country would have to import a much higher volume from the United States alone, especially taking into account that prices have risen significantly and the colossal blow that has been dealt to agriculture.

The government of that country informed world public opinion that it had authorized the sale of foodstuffs and lumber, as if this was a new decision related to the two hurricanes, Gustav and Ike. A total and complete joke.
What did the State Department spokesperson say?

On Sunday, September 14 he declared that, as soon as Hurricane Gustav reached Cuba, the United States authorized $250 million in agricultural sales to the island, including lumber.  Prior to that, the U.S. secretary of commerce had ruled out any commercial credits.

Again on September 16, the State Department announced that the United States had authorized some licenses for food aid after the disaster caused by the two hurricanes, and that those agricultural licenses included “lumber, an important material for reconstruction.”

In addition to the lies, what were the arguments with which they tried to justify the prohibition on U.S. companies facilitating normal trade credits to Cuba? “The government of the United States has to respect Congress laws.” One would suppose that the blockade is a congressional law by virtue of a perfidious Platt Amendment-type provision.  The president of the United States can declare war without consulting Congress – something unheard of in the history of that country – but cannot, however, authorize a U.S. company to trade with Cuba under normal conditions.

In the message sent to Hugo Chávez, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which described some of the experiences of our Revolution, I wrote that, due to the “ruthless and absolute economic blockade, it is not possible to purchase one single kilogram of food.  This changed slightly 30 years later, due to pressure exerted by farmers, but this policy was accompanied by leonine financial and monetary obstacles.”  The Venezuelan revolutionary leader partially disclosed that message himself.

Everything is obvious and clear.

In resorting to the same lie twice over, the State Department has had no qualms over deceiving world public opinion, and it is doing so in a cynical manner.

Fidel Castro Ruz
September 18, 2008
12:20 p.m.

The financial Ike
Reflections oF Fidel

Fidel Castro and the FARC

July 9, 2008

Eight Mistaken Thesis of Fidel Castro

By James Petras

08/07/08 “ICH” — – I have been a supporter of the Cuban Revolution for exactly fifty years and recognize Fidel Castro as one of the great revolutionary leaders of our time. But I have never been an uncritical apologist: On several crucial occasions I have expressed my disagreements in print, in public and in discussions with Cuban leaders, writers and militants. Fidel Castro’s articles and commentaries on the recent events in Colombia, namely his discussion of the Colombian regime’s freeing of several FARC prisoners (including three CIA operatives and Ingrid Betancourt) and his critical comments on the politics, structure, practices, tactics and strategy of the FARC and its world-renowned leader, Manuel Marulanda, merit serious consideration.

Castro’s remarks demand analysis and refutation, not only because his opinions are widely read and influence millions of militants and admirers in the world, especially in Cuba and Latin America, but because he purports to provide a ‘moral’ basis for opposition to imperialism today. Equally important Castro’s unfortunate diatribe and critique against the FARC, Marulanda and the entire peasant-based guerrilla movement, has been welcomed, published and broadcast by the entire pro-imperialist mass media on five continents. Fidel Castro, with few caveats, has uncritically joined the chorus condemning the FARC and, as I will demonstrate, without reason or logic.

Eight Erroneous Theses of Fidel Castro

1. Castro claims that the ‘liberation’ of the FARC political prisoners “opens a chapter for peace in Colombia, a process which Cuba has been supporting for 20 years as the most appropriate for the unity and liberation of the peoples of our America, utilizing new approaches in the complex and special present day circumstances after the collapse of the USSR…” (Reflections of Fidel Castro, July 4, 2008).

What is astonishing about this thesis (and the entire essay) is Castro’s total omission of any discussion of the mass terror unleashed by Colombia’s President Uribe against trade unionists, political critics, peasant communities and documented by every human rights group in and out of Colombia in both of his recent essays. In fact, Castro exculpates the current Uribe regime, the most murderous regime, and puts the entire blame on ‘US Imperialism’. Since the “collapse of the Soviet Union”, and under the US-led military offensive, a multitude of armed revolutionary movements have emerged in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal, and other pre-existing armed groups in Colombia and the Philippines, have continued to engage in struggle. In Latin America, the “new approaches” to revolution were anything but peaceful – massive popular uprisings overthrowing corrupt electoral politicians in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela…costing many hundreds of lives.

Continued . . .