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Reflections by the Commander in Chief
I will not refer to Bush's health and
education, but to that of his neighbors. It was
not an improvised declaration. The AP agency
tells us what his opening words were: "Tenemos
corazones grandes en este país" (We have big
hearts in this country); he said this in Spanish
in front of 250 representatives of private and
religious groups, foundations and NGOs who had
come to Washington with all expenses paid by his
government. Of these, some 100 came from the
United States.
“The meeting, called the White House
Conference on the Americas, is part of the ideas
outlined by Bush as he began a tour of five
Latin American countries at the beginning of
March about what his government was hoping to do
for the region in the short time still remaining
of his term in office.”
“Bush called the conference in order to
discuss several subjects, especially education
and health. ‘It’s … in the interests of the
United States that our neighborhood be healthy
and educated', he said in improvised
declarations during a chat with six of the
attendees, from Guatemala, the United States,
Brazil, Haiti and Mexico, who sat at the table
with him in a colloquium”, the press agency
added.
He said some incredible things, like “the
hard work we’re doing in the neighborhood".
Bush spoke, as did the Secretary of the
Treasury, the Under Secretary of State for
Western Hemisphere Affairs and the Under
Secretary of State for Public Affairs. Together
with them, several members of the Cabinet
chaired the working groups in which the meeting
was arranged. They all talked until they were
blue in the face.
They mentioned that Bush had created a
training center in Panama that graduated more
than 100 doctors from six Central American
countries. They very emphatically referred to
the Comfort, “one of the best medical
ships in the world that had just called on port
in Panama after visiting Guatemala”.
“Bush dedicated 55 minutes of his time to
this activity which took place in a hotel in the
city of Arlington, Virginia, on the outskirts of
Washington D.C.”
Then, as bold as you like, Secretary of
State Condolezza Rice, joined the voices to
speak about Cuba.
According to another news agency, when our
Council of State, complying with constitutional
norms, had just called the elections, she
declared that “the United States hopes that the
Cubans themselves will decide their future”, and
she added: “Washington will not tolerate the
transition from one dictator to another”.
In his opening speech, Bush addressed
really unusual concepts for the head of a
planetary global empire, very conscious of his
power and of his personal role, reported in
detail by the Spanish press agency EFE: “The
President of the United States, George W. Bush,
today urged the governments of Latin America to
be honest, transparent and open.” (…) “The
leader affirmed that societies which are open
and transparent are those which will lead to
hopeful tomorrows.”
“We expect governments to be honest and
transparent (…) We reject the notion that it’s
okay for there to be corruption in government…”
“It is also in our interest to help a
neighbor in need. It renews our soul. It lifts
our collective spirit. I believe to whom much
is given, much is required. We’ve been given a
lot as a nation, and therefore, I believe we’re
required to help,” he insisted.
Bush knows that he is lying and that his
tall tales are hard to swallow, but he doesn’t
care. He is confident that if he repeats it a
thousand times, many will finally believe him.
Why so much trickery? What essentially torments
him? When did all this rushing come up?
Bush is discovering that the economic and
political system of his empire cannot compete
with Cuba in vital services, such as healthcare
and education, although this country has been
attacked and blockaded for almost 50 years.
Everyone knows that the United States’ specialty
concerning education is the brain drain. The
International Labor Organization has indicated
that “47 percent of people born abroad that
complete their Doctorate in the United States
stay in that country.”
Yet another example of the plunder: “There
are more Ethiopian physicians in Chicago than in
all of Ethiopia.”
In Cuba, where healthcare is not a
commodity, we can do things that Bush cannot
even dream of.
Third World countries do not have the
resources to set up scientific research centers,
while Cuba has created these even if her own
professionals have often been enticed and
encouraged to defect.
Our Yes I Can method of teaching
people to read and write is today available to
all Latin American countries, free of charge,
and the countries that choose to use the program
receive support to adapt it to their own
characteristics and to produce the printed
materials and the corresponding videos.
Countries such as Bolivia are implementing
the program in Spanish, Quechua and Aymara. The
numbers of those who have learned to read and
write there in just one year exceed the number
of those who have been taught to read and write
by the empire in all of Latin America, if indeed
there is anyone. And I am not speaking about
other countries like Venezuela which has
accomplished veritable heroic deeds in education
in a very short time.
Yes I Can is of benefit to other
societies outside the Western Hemisphere.
Suffice it to say that New Zealand is using the
program to eradicate illiteracy in their Maori
population.
Instead of having one training center for
medical professionals in Central America, which
has trained about 100 –and we’re glad for this--
our country today has tens of thousands of
students from Latin America and the Caribbean on
full scholarships who spend six years training
as doctors in Cuba, free of charge. Of course,
we do not exclude any American youth who take
their education very seriously.
We cooperate with Venezuela in the
education of more than 20,000 youths, who study
medicine and train in clinics in the poor
neighborhoods, tutored by Cuban specialists, so
that they can get acquainted with their future
and difficult job.
The Comfort, with over 800 people on
board, that is, medical staff and crew, will not
be able to look after great numbers of people.
It is impossible to carry out medical programs
episodically. Physical therapy, for example, in
many cases requires months of work. Cuba
provides permanent services to people in
polyclinics and well-equipped hospitals, and the
patients can be cared for any time of day or
night. We have also trained the necessary
physical therapy specialists.
The eye surgery also requires special
skills. In our country ophthalmologic centers
perform more than 50,000 eye surgeries on Cubans
each year and look after 27 kinds of diseases.
There are no waiting lists for cornea
transplants which need special arrangements.
Let an active investigation be done in the
United States and you will see how many people
really need to be operated on there; since they
have never been examined by an ophthalmologist
they will attribute their eye problems to other
causes and run the risk of becoming blind or of
having their vision seriously impaired. You
would find out that there are millions.
In the abovementioned figure I did not
include the hundreds of thousands of Latin
Americans and Caribbean people some of whom are
operated on in Cuba, but most in their
respective countries, by Cuban
ophthalmologists. In Bolivia alone, they are
more than 100,000 each year. In this instance,
Bolivian doctors educated in the Latin American
School of Medicine (ELAM) take part in the
surgeries alongside our Cuban specialists.
Let’s just see how the Comfort will
make out in Haiti, providing health services for
a week. There, in 123 of the country’s 134
communes there are Cuban doctors working
alongside ELAM graduates, or Haitian students in
the last year of medical school, fighting AIDS
and various tropical diseases.
The problem is that the United States
cannot do what Cuba is doing. On the contrary,
it brutally pressures the manufacturing
companies of the excellent medical equipment
that is supplied to our country to prevent them
from replacing certain computer programs or some
spare parts that are under United States
patents. I could cite concrete cases and the
names of the companies. It is disgusting, even
though we have solutions that make us more
invulnerable in this field.
Less than six months ago Bush had not yet
invented the idea of making fuel production
universal, from foodstuff inside and outside the
United States. Those of us who are aware of the
value of fats and protein foods for human
nutrition know what the consequences are for
pregnant women, children, teenagers, adults and
the elderly if they lack these. The brunt of
the scarcity will fall on the shoulders of the
least developed countries, in other words, on
the largest part of humanity. It will surprise
no one that this will be accompanied by
increased prices for basic foodstuffs and social
instability. Yesterday, Friday 13, the price of
oil was 79.18 US dollars a barrel; another
consequence of the money rush and the war in
Iraq.
Barely 48 hours ago, the United States
Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff,
said that “he had the gut feeling that a
terrorist attack could happen in the country
during the summer”. The Secretary of State, and
subsequently the President of the United States
himself, said something similar. But while they
were giving information about a potential risk,
they were also taking great pains to calm public
opinion.
The government of the United States sees
and hears all, with or without legal authority.
Furthermore, it possesses numerous intelligence
and counterintelligence services that are
provided with copious economic resources for
espionage. It can obtain all the security
information it needs without kidnapping,
torturing or murdering persons in secret
prisons. Everybody knows the real economic
purposes pursued through world violence and
force. They can prevent any attack on their
people, unless there is some imperial need to
deliver a bang so that they can carry on with
and justify the brutal war which has been
declared against the culture, religion, economy
and independence of other peoples.
I must conclude.
Tomorrow, Sunday, is Children’s Day. I
think of them as I write this reflection. I
dedicate it to them.
Fidel Castro Ruz
July 14, 2007
5:35 pm
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