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No one requires additional proof of the growing
hatred that drives the slaughter in Iraq, a
country where 95 percent of the population is
Muslim —of these, over 60 percent are Shiites
and the remainder Sunnis—or the killings in
Afghanistan, where over 99 percent of the
population is also Muslim —80 percent Sunni and
the remainder Shiite. The two nations are also
made up of nationalities and ethnic groups of
diverse origins and locations.
In addition to U.S. soldiers, troops
from nearly all European states are based in
Afghanistan, including the French reinforcements
sent by Sarkozy.
The Russians didn’t jump onto the war's
bandwagon; far too much of their blood was spilt
there, and the invasion's political cost was
incalculable. It is likely that citizens of
Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia and the
Ukraine perished on Afghan soil fighting as
Soviet soldiers. Today, as former Soviet
republics, these states are part of or aspire to
join NATO.
Another significant detail is the fact
that the struggle against heroin traffic goes
unmentioned in a country where war has turned
poppy growers into the only people capable of
satisfying the country's medical demand of opium
and, in addition to this, of supplying countless
people with the drug.
The Russian president notes that NATO
has grown from 16 to 28 members. Bush declares
he looked into the eyes of his Russian
counterpart and read his thoughts —that’s what
he uses the teleprompter for— but he didn’t say
whether it was written in English or Russian.
Over 500 billion dollars were siphoned
out of Russia through capitalist Western
European countries, a significant part of which
was invested in highly profitable companies or
luxury homes. The rest was deposited in U.S.
banks, with the government’s consent. It was
completely illegal and immoral. Before its
collapse, the USSR was the victim of acts of
sabotage, such as the detonation of a Siberian
gas pipeline, using devices run with U.S.
software, the empire's Trojan horse. The USSR
then fell apart from within before Reagan, as
has been demonstrated.
I cannot help but recall the Monday of
April 3rd, when I laid down the
voluminous international news bulletin and
opened that day's Granma edition to distract
myself a while. I began by perusing the last
page. What a surprise! Juan Varela offered a
nearly flawless description of the differences
between the 24-hour roadside cafeteria and gas
station center of Aguada de Pasajeros, in the
province of Cienfuegos, and Nueva Paz, in the
province of La Habana. In the first, the battle,
which was and is still being fought, has for now
been won. In the second, though the battle is
being waged, victory has not yet been attained.
What does Juan Varela tell us? “The
peddlers arrive from different places; they
operate as some sort of association and employ a
clever warning system. Using signals, they
alert each other of the presence of law
enforcement or state officials. Showing feline
stealth, in a few minutes they can dismantle
their stage of operations and transport the
goods to a previously agreed to location. There,
they await the signal announcing that the coast
is clear".
Where do the goods sold by this fifth
column in Nueva Paz come from? They are stolen
from factories, means of transportation,
warehouse or distribution facilities. Those who
extol egoism and oppose all forms of
restrictions by the State, which they consider
meddlesome, will never be capable of building a
solid and lasting society, a society which,
today, thanks to the development of the
productive forces, can only be the fruit of
education and conscience, of values which must
be sown and cultivated.
Thinking is not forbidden. Neither is
dreaming. But thinking does not harm to anyone,
while dreaming can doom an entire country and
even more than that: the human species itself.
The development of productive forces by science
has been accompanied by the parallel development
of destructive forces. Can anyone dispute this?
Turning the Granma's page that same
day, I came across the section titled "Chasing
the News", written by columnist Elson Concepción
Pérez. The article, which I quote, is priceless:
“Not one article in the mainstream
press refers to the social differences, the
unemployment, the inflation and the other evils
that arrived with capitalism.
"On the Internet, however, you can see
the other side of the coin: a group of 300
Romanians —the richest in the country—, have
accumulated more than US $33 billion, which,
according to the ‘Top 300’ section of the weekly
magazine Capital, is equivalent to 27
percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
“While those living below the poverty
line are in the millions, the Eastern European
nation has one citizen with a fortune calculated
at between US $3.1 and $3.3 billion. His name is
Dinu Patriciu, and he recently sold a part of
the Rompetrol oil company to Kazakhstan’s
Kazmunaigaz group for $2.7 billion euros.”
Nearly 4 billion dollars.
“Dinu dethroned (…) Losif Constantin
Dragan, who fell to seventh place with
a fortune of between US $1.5 and $1.6 billion,
according to the publication.
“Gigi Becali, owner of the Steaua
Soccer Club, is now in second place with a
fortune of at least US $2.8 billion, accumulated
primarily in the real estate industry.
“Former tennis player and businessman Ion Tiriac,
the second richest Romanian in 2006, with
interests in banking, insurance and automobiles,
is now third with a fortune of over US $2.2
billion.”
Thus reports Elson, in detailed
fashion, in this section of Granma.
Let us not forget that Romania was a
socialist country with a fairly well developed
oil and petrochemical industry, blessed with a
fertile soil and a climate favorable to the
production of protein and calorie-rich foods, to
name but a few sectors.
As in Cuba, there were those with
theories about easy access to consumer goods:
imperial ears and eyes hungry for these dreams.
Another threat posed by developed
capitalism is climate change. An AFP cable
reports on the declarations of James Hansen,
NASA’s chief climate expert. Created by
Eisenhower on July 29, 1958, NASA, the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, is an
institution that has been decisive in the
consolidation of the United States’ current
level of power.
"We've already reached the dangerous level of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," James Hansen,
67, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for
Space Studies in New York, told AFP here.
"But there are ways to solve the problem" of
heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon
dioxide, which Hansen said has reached the
"tipping point" of 385 parts per million.
“(…) The major obstacle to saving the planet
from its inhabitants is not technology, insisted
Hansen, named one of the world's 100 most
influential people in 2006 by Time magazine.”
"(…) What's become clear to me in the past
several years is that both the executive branch
and the legislative branch are strongly
influenced by special fossil fuel interests," he
said
(…).
"(...) The industry is misleading the public and
policy makers about the cause of climate change.
And that is analogous to what the cigarette
manufacturers did. They knew smoking caused
cancer, but they hired scientists who said that
was not the case."
“(…) Last year Hansen testified before the U.S.
Congress that "interference with communication
of science to the public has been greater during
the current administration than at any time in
my career."
“Government public relations officials, he said,
filter the facts in science reports to reduce
'concern about the relation of climate change to
human-made greenhouse gas emissions.’"
“(….) The policy makers, 'the people who need to
know are ignorant of the actual status of the
matter, and the gravity of the matter, and most
important, the urgency of the matter,’ he
charged.”
Another important fact I want to underscore is
this: the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a
bulwark of the developed capitalist system
imposed on humanity, possesses 3,217 tons of
gold. The United States, which controls 17
percent of the votes —a privilege granted the
superpower after the conclusion of World War II—
can veto any decision, even if all other members
of the Fund have approved it. The institution,
burdened by an oversized bureaucracy, decided to
sell off 403.3 tons of gold, to function "more
efficiently". The real reason for this is that
it has lost all its customers because of the
unfair conditions it imposes on its loans. The
403.3 tons of gold, at the current price, are
equivalent to 12 billion dollars. This is a
paltry sum: the U.S. government forces the same
amount into circulation, to save its banks, in a
matter of hours.
The empire’s colossal disinformation apparatus
which, among other things, referred to my
message to intellectuals claimed that Fidel was
attacking the use of computers, portraying me as
someone detached from reality. During his
closing remarks at the UNEAC Congress, Minister
of Culture and prestigious intellectual Abel
Prieto brilliantly replied to the intrigue,
invoking the more than 600 Computer Youth Clubs
that have been opened across Cuba in the last 20
years, where over 200,000 Cubans complete
computer sciences training programs every year.
He also referred to the University of
Information Sciences, visited by Congress
participants, where over 1,600 well-trained
engineers graduate in the specialty every year,
and the investment made, during the Special
Period, to undertake the nearly impossible
project of reconstructing the Cubanacan Art
Schools.
The persuasive, realistic and cogent words of
Esteban Lazo, a black, white-haired man with a
voice that resounds with his 64 years of
experience, an exceptional witness to these
processes having been the Party's First
Secretary in Havana and other provinces before
that, gave Abel's arguments even more strength.
If the empire managed to secure control of Cuba
again, not one of these higher institutions
created by the Revolution would remain to
guarantee young people this right. It would send
most young people to the countryside, to cut
sugarcane. It is a declared policy. It would
attempt to steal the artistic and scientific
talents Cuba has nurtured, as it has done in
other countries in our hemisphere. Having more
than 70,000 specialists in general comprehensive
medicine and hundreds of thousands of other
professionals, helping others, the poorest
included, and exporting these services, is a sin
of which a Third World country cannot be
forgiven.
Ultimately, we have held our ground in spite of
the blockade, their aggressions and their brutal
acts of terrorism for nearly half a century.
I had the privilege of listening to important
speeches, delivered by invitees from Latin
America and other countries, at the 7th
Hemispheric Meeting for the Struggle against
FTAs and the Integration of Peoples. I thank
them for their words of solidarity and join in
their causes, which they defend with so much
talent and courage. Building awareness and
mobilizing the people politically is indeed a
lofty slogan!
Fidel Castro Ruz
April 10, 2008
7:06 p.m. |
