The following was received at Good
Works On Earth from the Cuban Mission to the United Nations on June 21,
2004.
The signature is Dr. Fidel Castro.
Subject: Cuba Press Release. Speech made by Commander in Chief Fidel
Castro Ruz,
President of the Republic of Cuba on July 26, 2004.
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 23:02:05 -0400
From: Public Relations : publicrelations@cubanmission.com
To: Good Works On Earth
Speech made by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, President
of the Republic of Cuba, at the ceremony for the 51st anniversary of the
attack on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes fortresses. Ernesto
Che Guevara Square, Santa Clara, July 26, 2004.
Dear fellow Cubans;
Distinguished guests:
On this 51st anniversary of the attack on the Moncada fortress on July
26, 1953 I shall address a sinister character that keeps threatening, insulting
and slandering us. This is not a whim or an agreeable option; it is a necessity
and a duty.
On June 21, at the Anti-imperialist Forum I read Epistle Number Two
to the president of the United States, responding to an infamous State
Department report on trafficking in human beings, one of those reports
the government of that country usually issues, as if it were the supreme
moral judge of the world. In that document Cuba is accused of being one
of the countries that promotes sexual tourism and child pornography.
Hardly two weeks went by, and instead of keeping a decent silence about
the irrefutable truth contained in the Epistle, the wire services brought
news of an election speech by Bush in Tampa, Florida containing new, more
perfidious accusations and insults, the clearly aimed at slandering Cuba
and justifying the threats of aggression and the brutal measures that they
had just taken against our people.
The French press agency AFP reported the following from Tampa on July
16:
"President George Bush launched a harsh attack on Cuba when he defined
it as 'a major destination for sex tourism' and said that the United States
has a special duty to lead a world struggle against human trafficking for
forced labour or sexual purposes."
"Cuba is one of the 10 countries cited by the State Department in a
report issued in June in which it lists the governments which tolerate
human trafficking or fail to fight this crime."
"The regime of Fidel Castro has turned Cuba into a major destination
for sex tourism replacing Southeast Asia as a destination for pedophiles
and sex tourists from the United Sates and Canada," Bush claimed.
"At a conference in Tampa, Florida, the president pointed to Cuba as
one of the worst offenders in this area."
"Sex tourism is a vital source of hard currency
to keep his corrupt government afloat," he claimed.
"Bush said that putting an end to human trafficking
will be an essential part of his foreign policy."
"The traffic in human beings brings shame
and suffering to our country and we shall lead the fight against it," he
promised.
"You are in a fight against evil, and the
American people are grateful for your dedication and service," he told
those at the conference.
"Human life is the gift of our Creator and
it should never be for sale."
A dispatch from the Spanish press agency EFE
indicated:
"We also face a problem only 90 miles off
our shores, Bush said in Florida."
"He quoted a study which found that
Cuba has "replaced Southeast Asia as a destination for pedophiles and sex
tourists."
"As restrictions on travel to Cuba were eased
during the 1990s, the study found an influx of American and Canadian tourists
contributed to a sharp increase in child prostitution in Cuba."
"My administration is working toward a comprehensive
solution of this problem: The rapid, peaceful transition to democracy in
Cuba."
"We have put a strategy in place to hasten
the day when no Cuban child is exploited to finance a failed revolution
and every Cuban citizen will live in freedom."
"Bush said that 'Human life is the gift of
our Creator and it should never be for sale."
"It takes a special kind of depravity to exploit
and hurt the most vulnerable members of society. Human traffickers rob
children of their innocence; they expose them to the worst of life before
they have seen much of life. Traffickers tear families apart. They treat
their victims as nothing more than goods and commodities for sale to the
highest bidder."
And to top off this odd news, the same press dispatch added some words
spoken by John Ashcroft in his speech introducing Bush to the National
Training Conference on Human Trafficking:
"In the 19th Century President Abraham Lincoln held firm to a vision
of freedom for all and was rightly called the great emancipator."
"In the 21st Century we have a great leader who has made us see that
liberty is not a gift from the United States to the world but a gift to
humanity from the Almighty."
Another wire report from the English news agency Reuters read:
"Friday, the US president accused the Cuban president of having turned
his Caribbean island into a sex tourism destination and of contributing
to the world problem of human trafficking".
The Italian press agency ANSA reported:
"The regime in Havana is adding to its crimes: it welcomes sex tourism",
said Bush who even repeated a supposed quote by Castro, 'Cuba has the cleanest
and most educated prostitutes in the world.'"
Later, wire services have reported that the quotation of something I
supposedly said on this subject, which the US President used in the Tampa
speech I just mentioned to back up his serious accusations, was taken from
a paper on Cuba written by Charles Turnbull a law student from Vanderbilt
University in the United States who has emphatically stated that Bush's
speech misconstrued the real meaning of a sentence included in his work,
and clarified this and other matters in the following way:
"Prostitution boomed in the Caribbean nation after the collapse of the
Soviet Union."
"Castro, who had outlawed prostitution when he took power in 1959, initially
had few resources to combat it. But beginning in 1996, Cuban authorities
began to crack down on the practice."
"Although it still exists, it is far less visible and it would
be inaccurate to say the government promotes it".
On Monday, July 19, Bush administration officials admitted they had
no other source for the quote except the paper written by the aforementioned
student.
Given the fact that it was shown that the US President had launched
an extremely grave accusation based on a sentence found in a paper written
by an American student, who himself refuted the deliberate way Bush misconstrued
it, it's hard to imagine a more bizarre response than that given by a Whitehouse
spokesperson when told about this refutation.
According to the news agency report, the spokesperson simply,
".defended the inclusion [of the sentence] arguing that it expressed an
essential truth about Cuba", in other words, for the White House "the essential
truth about Cuba" is anything that the president conjures up in his mind
whether it has anything to do with reality or not.
This is exactly the kind of fundamentalist approach that the President
constantly resorts to when there are more than enough data, arguments,
truth, reasons, and facts on a particular subject but the only determining
factor is the idea he has in his mind or the idea that suits him: anythin
g becomes the absolute and irrefutable truth simply because Mr. Bush imagines
it to be so.
Many people in the world who know very little about the Cuban Revolution
might fall victim to the lies and tricks the US government spreads through
the huge media available to it.
But there are many others, especially in poor countries who are aware
of what the Cuban revolution is about, of its marked dedication, from the
very beginning, to provide education and healthcare services to all its
children and the whole population; its spirit of solidarity that has led
it to cooperate selflessly with dozens of Third World countries; its strict
adherence to the highest moral values, its ethical principles, its lofty
concept of the dignity and honour of its homeland and its people for which
Cuban revolutionaries have always been willing to give up their lives.
There is no doubt that these many friends, all over the world, will be
wondering how it is possible that such unspeakable, foul slander is hurled
against Cuba.
This obliges me to give a most serious and honest explanation of the
causes, which in my view, give rise to these inconceivable, irresponsible
statements by the President of the most powerful nation on the planet,
the same who is threatening to wipe the Cuban revolution from the face
of the Earth.
I shall do this as objectively as possible, making no arbitrary statements
or shamelessly misconstruing other people's words, sentences and concepts.
I shall avoid any petty sentiment of vengeance or personal dislike.
A theme that has been widely documented in several books by outstanding
American scientific authors and other personalities is the current US President's
alcoholism which lasted two decades when he was between 20 and 40 years
old. This feature has been rigorously and impressively dealt with, from
a psychiatric point of view and using scientific criteria, by Dr. Justin
A. Frank in a now famous book called "Bush on the Couch".
Dr. Frank begins by saying that it is important to scientifically define
whether Bush was an alcoholic, or if he still is one. He has literally
said: ". the more pressing question involves the influence his years of
heavy drinking and subsequent abstinence still have on him and those around
him". (p.39)
He goes on to explain and I quote verbatim:
"Alcoholism is a potentially fatal, lifelong disease that is notoriously
difficult to arrest permanently" (p. 40)
Later, referring to the man who is now President of the United States,
he says:
"Bush has said publicly that he quit drinking without the help of AA
(an organization dedicated to helping alcoholics) or any substance abuse
programme, claiming that he stopped forever with the assistance of such
spiritual tools as bible study and conversations with the evangelist Billy
Graham".
On page 40 of the book he recounts that, according to ex-presidential
speech writer David Frum, when Bush took over the Oval office he summoned
a group of religious leaders, asked for their prayers and told them:
"There is only one reason that I am in the Oval Office and not a bar.
I found faith, I found God. I am here because of the power of prayer".
Dr. Frank thinks that this statement might be true and goes on to say
the following: ".surely all Americans would like to believe that the president
no longer drinks, even if we have no way of knowing for certain. If so,
he fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested
but not treated".
He then adds: " Former drinkers who abstain without the benefit of the
AA program are often referred to as "dry drunks", a label that has been
bandied about on the Internet and elsewhere in reference to Bush. "Dry
drunk" isn't a medical term, and not one I use in a clinical setting. But
even without labelling Bush as such, it's hard to ignore the many troubling
elements of his character among the traits that the recovery literature
associates with the condition, including grandiosity, judgmentalism, intolerance,
detachment, denial of responsibility, a tendency toward over-reaction and
an aversion to introspection." (p. 41)
Dr. Frank insists that he personally has treated alcoholics who held
their addiction in check without proper treatment but that they are generally
not very successful in learning to control the anxiety that they once tried
to suppress by drinking and he explains that:
"Their rigid attempts to manage anxiety make any psychological insight
hard-won. Some can't even face the anxiety of admitting their alcoholism.
Dr. Frank then goes on to say: "Without that admission, I have found,
even former drinkers cannot truly change, or learn from their own experience".
And then referring to Bush specifically he argues the following: "The
pattern of blame and denial, which recovering alcoholics work so hard to
break, seems to be ingrained in the alcoholic personality; it's rarely
limited to his or her drinking. The habit of placing blame and denying
responsibility is so prevalent in George W. Bush's personal history that
it is apparently triggered by even the mildest threat"
". The rigidity of Bush's behaviour is perhaps most readily apparent
in his well-documented reliance on his daily routines -the famously short
meetings, sacrosanct exercise schedule, daily Bible readings, and limited
office hours. A healthy person is able to alter his routine; a rigid one
cannot". (p.43)
"Of course" -the eminent US doctor goes on, and I quote- "we all need
rest and relaxation, time to regroup, but Bush appears to need it more
than most. And this is hardly a surprise -among other reasons, because
the anxiety of being president might pose a real risk of leading him back
to drinking." (p. 43)
"Along with rigid routines go rigid thought processes -another hallmark
of the Bush presidency. We see it in the stubborn, almost obsessive way
in which he holds on to ideas and plans after they have been discredited,
from his image of himself as a "uniter, not a divider" to his conviction
that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction (or, in absence of such weapons,
that somehow "America did the right thing in Iraq" nevertheless). Such
rigidity of thought is not motivated by simple stubbornness; the untreated
alcoholic, consumed with the task of managing the anxieties that might
make him reach for a drink, simply can't tolerate any threat to his status
quo".
And Dr. Frank adds that such intolerance generally leads to responses
that are out of proportion to the magnitude of the actual threat.
"This may help to explain the dramatic contrast between George W's response
to Saddam Hussein and that of his father, who carefully built a coalition,
took action only after Kuwait had been invaded, and then proceeded with
prudence and caution once the fighting was underway - the behaviour of
a seasoned leader who knew he was responsible for countless others' lives,
not an alcoholic accustomed to taking dramatic measures to protect his
own."
Continuing his analysis, Dr. Frank indicates:
"Two questions that the press seems particularly determined to ignore
have hung silently in the air since before Bush took office: Is he still
drinking? And if not, is he impaired by all the years he did spend drinking?
Both questions need to be addressed in any serious assessment of his psychological
state". (p.48)
With regard to the first question, he points out the possibility that
Bush is managing his anxiety with medication to keep him off alcohol and
he makes special reference to his strange behaviour at press conferences.
On this point he says:
"In writing about Bush's halting appearance in a press conference just
before the start of the Iraq War, Washington Post media critic Tom Shales
speculated that "the president may have been ever so slightly medicated".
"More troubling though, are the appearances that arouse suspicion not
because of how he talks but what he says. He has repeatedly engaged in
confabulation, filling in gaps in his memory with what he believes are
facts -most notably on July 14, 2003, when he stood next to Kofi Annan
and made up the idea that America had given Saddam "a chance to allow the
inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in". (As the Washington Post noted,
"Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending
their work because he did not believe them effective". Confabulation is
a common phenomenon among drinkers, as is perseveration, which is evident
in Bush's tendency to repeat key words and phrases, as if the repetition
helps him remain calm and stay on track." (p. 49)
And Dr. Frank concludes his analysis of these two questions with the
following words:
"Even if we assume, moreover, that George W. Bush's drinking days are
behind him, the question remains how much lasting damage may have been
done before he stopped -beyond the considerable impact on his personality
that we can trace to his untreated abstinence. Any comprehensive psychological
or psychoanalytical study of President Bush would have to explore how much
the brain and its functions are changed by more than twenty years of heavy
drinking. In a recent study out of the University of California/San Francisco
Medical Centre, researchers found that heavy drinkers who do not call themselves
alcoholics reveal that "their level of drinking constitutes a problem that
warrants treatment". The study found that the heavy drinkers in its sample
were "significantly impaired" on measures of working memory, processing
speed, attention, executive function and balance. Serious research about
long-term recovery from alcohol abuse is still underway. Science has
established that alcohol itself is toxic to the brain, both to its anatomy
(as the brain gets smaller and fissures between and around the hemisphere
get larger) and to its neurophysiology. But recovery does occur with continued
sobriety, extending over a five-year period for many alcoholics. Bush claims
to have been sober for more that fifteen years, and very well may have
improved to pre-alcohol levels. However, even chronic alcoholics who recover
their compromised mental functions often suffer lingering damage to their
ability to process new information. Important neuropsychological functions
are impaired: The new information is essentially put into a file that is
lost in the brain.
"Former heavy drinkers often have trouble distinguishing between relevant
and inconsequential information. They also may lose some of their ability
to maintain concentration. All one has to do to observe Bush's inattention
is watch him listening to a speech given by someone else, watch his behaviour
at times on the campaign trail, or consider the obviously desperate effort
he makes to retain focus in every speech he gives." (p.50)
Finally, Dr. Frank points out that Bush would reduce the fear of many
Americans by submitting himself to psychological tests that could scientifically
measure the effects of alcoholism on his brain function and warns:
"Otherwise, we are left to suspect -with reason- that our president
may be impaired in his ability to make sense of complex ideas and briefings"
(p. 51)
And he ends up by saying:
"We all may be a little afraid to find out: after all, he has already
held office for three years and has led our nation into war. But if we
fail to do so, the consequences may indict every one of us". (p. 51)
Another aspect discussed in depth and in detail by Dr. Justin A. Frank
in this book, "Bush on the Couch", is that of President Bush's religious
fundamentalism.
Dr. Frank explains how, in trying to find relief from the internal chaos
that drink sometimes appeased but eventually intensified, Bush may have
found in religion a source of peace, not totally different from that given
by alcohol, as well as a set of rules which help him to manage both the
external world and his inner spiritual world.
He suggests that an analysis of the role of fundamentalism in Bush's
life would show that one of the many ways that Bush employs religion as
a defence mechanism is by using it as a substitute for illegal substances
and says that Bush uses religion to simplify and even replace thought so
that, to a certain extent, he does not even need to think. He adds that
Bush, by putting himself on the side of good -on God's side- places himself
above mundane discussion and debate. Religion serves as a shield to protect
him from challenges, including those that he himself would otherwise create.
Dr. Frank wonders how Bush reached this point and then explains that,
the Bush family tradition has long been fuelled by faith, by the belief
in a God linked closely to moral rectitude but he makes this distinction:
"Yet President Bush's religious orientation represents an important
departure from his family. Though certain aspects of the family tradition
have been maintained -notably the formality of religious participation-
his mid-life conversion to a more fundamentalist approach stands in dramatic
contrast to the spiritual life of his father." (p.56)
"And a review of the events leading up to Bush's conscious embrace of
fundamentalism shows that it clearly occurred at a moment when he was reaching
for solutions, in a time of almost desperate need."
Dr Frank goes on to explain that fundamentalist religions narrow the
universe of opportunities and divide the world into good and bad, in absolute
terms that leave no space for questioning and on this point he argues:
"The view of the self is similarly simplified. Just as fundamentalist
creationist teachings deny history, the fundamentalist notion of conversion
or rebirth encourages the believer to see himself as disconnected from
history. George W. Bush's evasive, self-serving defence of his life before
he was born again displays just this tendency. "It doesn't do any good
to inventory the mistakes I made when I was young", he has insisted. "I
think the way . to answer questions about specific behaviour is to remind
people that when I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible.
I changed." To the believer, the power of spiritual absolution not only
erases the sins of the past, but divorces the current self from the historical
sinner". (p.60)
Dr. Frank makes it clear that there is nothing inherently unnatural
in the fact that Bush seeks protection from his faith and that, even when
this makes him stronger, the rigidity of his thought and speech patterns
and of his agenda point to a considerable fragility. He explains that Bush's
fear of everything -from disagreement to terrorist attacks- are sometimes
painfully visible, even (or especially) through his denials and that he
is a man desperately seeking protection. Dr. Frank wonders: "But what is
George W. Bush so eager to protect himself against?" and he answers the
question with the following analysis:
"His tightly held belief system shields him from challenges to his ideas
-from critics and opponents, but, more important, from himself. Just beneath
the surface, it's hard not to believe that he suffers from an innate fear
of falling apart, a fear too terrifying for him to confront." (p.64)
"For someone so desperate not to lose his way, clinging to a belief
(or even a few key phrases), and sticking to them, is yet another way to
protect against falling apart. President Bush's press conferences have
offered disturbing evidence of this ongoing anxiety -evidence so unmistakable
that it's little wonder that the White House has proven so hesitant to
schedule such events at all. After one particularly disastrous performance
in July 2003, the Slate political columnist Timothy Noah noted that: "Bush
seemed jangled"; in a damning editorial the following day, the New York
Times noted that the president's answers were "vague and sometimes nearly
incoherent" -suggesting, perceptively, that Bush was "bedazzled by his
administration's own mythmaking"
He gives some examples of phrases Bush used repeatedly during that press
conference:
"And so we're making progress. It's slowly but surely making progress
of bringing the -those who terrorize their fellow citizens to justice,
and making progress about convincing the Iraqi people that freedom is real.
And as they become more convinced that freedom is real, they'll begin to
assume more responsibilities that are required in a free society.
"And the threat is a real threat. It's a threat that where -we obviously
don't have specific data, we don't know when, where, what. But we do know
a couple of things.obviously, we're talking to foreign governments and
foreign airlines to indicate to them the reality of the threat.
"I don't know how close we are to getting Saddam Hussein. You know -it's
closer that we were yesterday, I guess. All I know is we're on the hunt.
It's like if you had asked me right before we got his sons how close we
were to get his sons, I'd say, I don't know, but we're on the hunt.
"Well first of all, the war on terror goes on, as I continually remind
people. The threat that you asked about, Steve, reminds us that we need
to be on the hunt, because the war on terror goes on.
"I just described to you that there is a threat to the United States.
There is no doubt in my mind, Campbell, that Saddam Hussein was a threat
to the United States' security, and a threat to peace in the region.
"Saddam Hussein was a threat. The United Nations viewed him as a threat.
That's why they passed twelve resolutions. Predecessors of mine viewed
him as a threat. We gathered a lot of intelligence. That intelligence was
good, sound intelligence on which I made a decision. (pp. 65-66)
And Dr. Frank goes on to say:
"So powerful are his fears that he can't even face them. His infamous
early advice to Americans less than two weeks after 9/11 -when he told
Americans to continue to shop and travel as before, in apparent denial
of the radical measures he was at the same time taking in response to the
nation's newfound vulnerability- suggests just how simplistically he viewed
the situation, closing himself off to worry and anxiety. Compare his response
to that of New York's mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, who faced his fears, rolled
up his sleeves and got to work -making people feel far safer than Bush's
stilted denial ever did.
"Bush has continued to cite divine instruction to explain his actions
since assuming office. As reported in Israel's Haaretz News, Bush said,
"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed
me to strike at Saddam, which I did".
Finally, Dr. Frank offers these thoughts:
"The Biblical struggle of good and evil has resonated throughout his
discourse since 9/11, from his repeated use of the term "crusade" to his
characterisation of the terrorists as "evildoers" and grouping of Iraq,
Iran and North Korea as the "Axis of Evil". At the same time, he presents
the United States as nothing more that a nation of wholly innocent victims.
"In externalizing evil in this way, while absolving America of responsibility,
Bush has transformed his unintegrated infantile worldview into a starkly
combative (and primitive) foreign policy.
"Bush's rhetoric" -Dr. Frank concludes- "highlights how he identifies
the concepts of himself as president with both God and America: for him
these three appear to have become somewhat interchangeable. Unable to mourn
the dead of 9/11 enough to allow for a full investigation of how it happened
-and what responsibility we might have had- he blindly attacks the "enemy"
he perceives to be everywhere, a terrorist suddenly hiding under rock".
In his book "Stupid White Men", Michael Moore points out that Bush exhibits
obvious symptoms of not being able to read at an adult level and writes
the following as part of an open letter to Bush:
"1. George, are you able to read and write on an adult level?
"It appears to me and many others that, sadly, you may be a functional
illiterate. This is nothing to be ashamed of. Millions of Americans cannot
read and write above a fourth grade level.
"But let me ask you this: if you have trouble comprehending the complex
position papers you are handed as the Leader of the Mostly-Free World,
how can we entrust something like our nuclear secrets to you?
"All the signs of illiteracy area there -and apparently no one has challenged
you about them. The first clue was what you named as your favourite childhood
book, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", you said.
"Unfortunately, that book wasn't even published until a year after you
graduated from college."
"One thing is clear to everyone -you can't speak the English language
in sentences we can comprehend.
"If you are going to be Commander-in-Chief, you have to be able to communicate
your orders. What if these little slip-ups keep happening? Do you know
how easy it would be to turn a little faux pas into a national-security
nightmare?
"Your aides say that you don't (can't?) read the briefing papers they
give you, and that you ask them to read them for you or to you."
"Please , don't take any of this personally. Perhaps it's a learning
disability. Some sixty million Americans have learning disabilities".
In his book "Against All Enemies", Richard Clarke writes that when Bush
got to the White House, "Early on we were told that the president is not
a big reader".
Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War" tells that, in a National Security
Council meeting during the Afghanistan war, Bush said: "I don't read the
editorial pages. I don't --the hyperventilation that tends to take place
around those cables, every expert and every former colonel and all that,
is just background noise".
Thus far I have given a very brief summary of what has been said on
some points by outstanding Americans, things which help to explain the
strange behaviour and aggressiveness of the US President.
I do not want to elaborate now on more sensitive issues like those whose
exposure cost his life to J.H. Hatfield, author of the book "Fortunate
Son", and others of great interest analyzed by truly brilliant, brave,
eminent authors.
Mr. Bush's lies and slanders and those of his closest advisors were
fabricated in a hurry to justify the atrocious measures taken against Cuban-born
people living in the United States who have close family ties in Cuba.
This outrage, as we warned on June 21, might have adverse political
consequences in Florida which could play a decisive role in this year's
elections. The idea of a punishment vote is gaining ground among thousands
of Cuban-Americans, many of whom would normally have voted for Bush.
Hatred and blindness have lead this administration to take a stupid,
immoral action under pressure from the terrorist mob which gave Bush a
fraudulent victory when he had a million votes less than his rival nationwide,
and a narrow majority of 537 votes in Florida where thousands of black
Americans were prevented from exercising their right to vote whereas many
dead people 'exercised' theirs. Fifteen or twenty thousand voters could
sink his hopes of re-election. These brutal measures have also been criticized
all over the country.
The overwhelming majority of those who are members of or run that terrorist
mob -which decided no less a thing than the election of the President of
the United States- are former Batista supporters and their descendents;
or they are groups who for years have been involved in the terrorist actions,
pirate attacks, assassination plots against Cuban revolutionary leaders
and all kinds of armed aggressions against our country; or they were big
landowners and relatives of the upper middle classes who were affected
by revolutionary laws and who previously had all kinds of privileges and
many of whom have amassed huge fortunes and have gained influence in important
power circles in the US governments.
Over 90 percent of those who have emigrated from Cuba since the triumph
of the revolution have done so through normal channels and for economic
reasons, their leaving authorized by the Revolution that placed no obstacles.
But Cuban immigrants were forced to go under the Caudine Forks of that
powerful mafia whose influence they could not easily ignore.
Unlike many millions of Latin Americans, including Haitians and other
Caribbeans, that emigrate legally and illegally to the United States and
are called immigrants, Cubans, with no exception whatsoever, are called
exiles.
On the other hand, the absurd Cuban Adjustment Act has caused the loss
of countless Cuban lives by rewarding and encouraging illegal emigration
and giving Cubans extraordinary privileges that are not granted to citizens
of any other country in the world.
Nevertheless, years ago, even before the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the special period that ensued, and despite the risk of espionage and
terrorist plans originating in the United States which the measures entailed,
Cuba gave permits to émigrés so they could visit their relatives
and their country of origin, whereas the Bush administration is abruptly
closing the doors because of its fanatical obsession of bringing Cuba to
its knees through economic suffocation.
And, to that same end of depriving our country of any income whatsoever,
he labels the tourist industry in Cuba sex tourism and calls those who
visit our country coming from the United States "paedophiles" and "pleasure
seekers".
Mr Bush does not hesitate either in tarring Canadian tourists with the
same brush when everybody knows that the overwhelming majority of them
are pensioners and senior citizens who, in the company of their relatives,
come to enjoy the exceptional safety and calm, the politeness, culture
and hospitality that they find in our country.
What would Mr. Bush call the tens of millions of tourists who visit
the United States every year where casinos, gambling dens, areas of male
and female prostitution and many other activities related to pornography
and sex abound, none of which exist in Cuba and all of which are alien
to the revolutionary culture of our people?
What would he call the tens of millions of Europeans who visit Spain
every year where many pages in the papers are used to advertising the names,
addresses, the physical, cultural and intellectual characteristics and
the specialities and individual gifts to suit all tastes of those who exercise
the age-old profession of prostitution? Would he call the US and Spanish
tourist industries sex tourism?
None of the aforementioned activities take place in Cuba. However, in
the fevered and fundamentalist mind of the all-powerful gentleman in the
White House and in those of his most intimate advisors, Cuba must now be
"saved" not only from "tyranny", Cuban children must now be "saved from
sexual exploitation and trafficking in persons" "the world must be freed
from this dreadful problem which takes place 90 miles away from the United
States".
Has no one told him that in Cuba before the triumph of the revolution
in 1959 about 100,000 women were directly or indirectly involved
in prostitution for reasons of poverty, discrimination and lack of work
and that the Revolution educated these women and found them jobs, and outlawed
the so-called "tolerance zones" which existed in the pseudo-republic and
the neo-colony installed by the United States?
Has no one told him that the Cuban children, whose physical, mental
and moral health is the number one priority of the Revolution, are protected
by more severe laws than those of the United States and that they all attend
school, including more than 50,000 who suffer from mental or physical disabilities
and that, without exceptions, receive specialized care in special education
centres?
Has no one told him that infant mortality is lower in Cuba than it is
in the United States and that it continues to decrease?
Has no one dared to whisper in his ear that Cuba occupies an outstanding
and internationally recognized place in education; that health and education
services are free and extend to the whole population; that today programs
are underway in education, health and culture that will place Cuba far
above all the other countries in the world?
The historic session of the National Assembly of People's Power held
on July 1 and 2, exposed them and showed how ridiculous is the grotesque
over 400-page-long-report which gives an ample account and full details
of the neo-colonial and annexationist programs the fascist group which
begot this disgusting project propose to implement to the detriment of
the Cuban people and their sovereignty. This report has done nothing if
not unite our people even more and give a boost to their fighting spirit.
They must be absolutely mad to talk of such things as implementing literacy
and vaccination programs in Cuba where illiteracy was eradicated a long
time ago, where minimum school attendance is up to grade nine and where
children are vaccinated against 13 diseases. Actually, such programs should
be applied to tens of millions of Americans who are left out, who do not
enjoy the benefits of social security and who have not been to school or
are completely illiterate or functionally illiterate.
The US administration has not even dared to say a single word about
the generous offer that our country made of saving, in a short 5 year period,
a life for every life lost in the Twin Towers, by providing free health
care to 3000 US citizens who have no access to healthcare services that
are indispensable for preserving life. Neither have they replied to the
question of whether or not those who may decide to come to Cuba to take
advantage of this opportunity would be punished.
It is really revealing that on the very same day that Mr. Bush spouted
such outrageous slanders and threats, a prestigious American scientific
institution from California signed an agreement with the Cuban Molecular
Immunology Centre for transferring technology developed in our country
for the clinical trials and later manufacture of three promising vaccines
in the battle against cancer, which, as you know, kills more than half
a million Americans every year.
It is only fair to acknowledge that in this case the US authorities
did not set any obstacle.
This fact shows how the fruits of everything I have talked about before
are beginning to sprout all over our country, despite 45 years of a harsh
blockade and of aggressions by US governments.
And these are not biological weapons, nor chemical weapons, nor nuclear
weapons; these are scientific discoveries which could help all humanity.
Let's hope that, in Cuba's case, God does not 'instruct' Mr. Bush to
attack our country but that he rather inspires him to avoid this colossal
mistake! He had better check on any divine belligerent order by consulting
the Pope and other prestigious dignitaries and theologians from the Christian
churches, asking them for their opinion
Excuse me, Mr. President of the United States of America, for not writing
a third epistle to you this time but it would have been difficult to analyze
this subject in that way. It might have been taken for a personal insult
and I rather adhere to common courtesy.
Hail, Caesar! I say, but this time I add: Those who are willing to die
have no fear of your enormous power, of your unbridled rage, nor of your
dangerous and cowardly threats against Cuba!
Long live the truth!
Long live human dignity!
July 26, 2004
SECOND EPISTLE
Dear fellow Cubans:
Two new infamies by the US government - that of including Cuba on another
of those high-handed lists drawn up by the self proclaimed masters of the
world and introduced in a State Department report published on June 14
accusing our country of involvement in the trafficking of persons to which
they have added the disgusting slander that we promote sexual prostitution
and the announcement on the 16th of additional, cruel blockade measures
to asphyxiate the economy that is our people's life support - oblige me
to send a second message to the president of the United States.
Mr. Bush:
I must be calm but sincere. I have absolutely no intent to insult you
or to launch personal attacks. But, it is cynical to include Cuba in a
list of countries involved in the illegal trafficking of persons.
And what is even more outrageous and abhorrent in this arrogant report
that the State Department feels obliged to issue every year is the claim
that Cuba promotes sex tourism, even with children.
You are in a position to be informed that Cuba has signed two immigration
agreements with the United States in the interest of family
reunification. The US Administration failed to honor the first of these
signed in 1984. Ten years later, instead of the 20,000 visas promised,
only about 1,000, that is, 5 percent were issued every year. Following
the immigration crisis that broke out in 1994, our country signed with
the US government a new agreement which was expanded the following year
and is still in force. In spite of this, and although its provisions have
been basically met as regards the number of visas, they have not been met
as regards the fundamental, inescapable obligation to avoid all encouragement
to illegal emigration.
With no justification whatsoever, the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act
is still in place, implacable, and indeed, new incentives were added to
it. This absurd and immoral Act has cost an incalculable number of lives,
including the lives of many Cuban children. And it was as a result of this
same law that the loathsome traffic in emigrants emerged using speedboats
that come from Florida to points anywhere on our coastline. Cuba punishes
these acts severely, whereas US administrations, for very well known political
reasons connected with the state of Florida, have just crossed their arms.
No country in the world has given as much physical and moral protection,
as much health and education to its children as Cuba has. You should know
that a higher proportion of children die in their first year of life in
the United States than in Cuba. One hundred percent of children and adolescents
in our country, including those afflicted by some kind of physical or mental
disability, attend the appropriate schools and study.
How can you claim to not know that, while in the United States there
are, on average, 30 students to a classroom in Cuba the ratio is less than
20 and our educational results are better than those in any developed country?
Our healthcare services have raised the life expectancy of each child
from about 60 years in 1959, according to estimates, to 76.13 years today.
In spite of the US blockade and the collapse of the socialist bloc,
unemployment in Cuba is only 2.3 percent, which is several times lower
than in your own country, the richest and most industrialized in the world.
You should be ashamed of trying to economically asphyxiate the Cuban
people, which blockaded and subjected to more than four decades of economic
warfare, armed aggressions and terrorist actions, has achieved such feats.
You can show us nothing like this in your own country.
You are trying to strangle our economy and are threatening war against
a country that has shown itself capable of having 20,000 doctors currently
offering their services in 64 countries of the Third World. Your administration,
in spite of possessing the resources of the richest power on earth, has
not sent a single doctor to the most distant corners of these countries,
as Cuba does.
On your conscience, and on those of the leaders of the world's richest
states, lies the genocide which is implicit in the death, every year, of
more than 10 million children and tens of millions more people who could
be saved. These deaths are the result of a vast assortment of pillage and
robbery practiced against Third World countries through the unjust and
no longer sustainable world economic order that the rich countries have
imposed to the detriment of 80 percent of this planet's population.
Someone should let you know about these problems and these facts, instead
of constantly spreading intrigues and lies.
As for Cuba, you allow yourself to be driven by the fanatical belief
that your re-election in November depends on the support of a mob of well-known
old terrorist émigrés and their descendents, a large section
of whom were Batista's embezzlers and war criminals who sought refuge in
the United States with their booty on their backs and their crimes unpunished.
Others have grown rich through many years of service in acts of terrorism
and aggressions that have cost our people much blood. These groups are
increasingly discredited and their influence diminishes. Everyone remembers
what happened in Florida, where they committed all kinds of electoral frauds
-in which they are truly experts-- still you carried the state by only
518 votes. I do not wish to humiliate you by digging up this sordid and
unpleasant subject. I will rather limit myself to telling you, with all
sincerity, that the mistakes into which your commitments to this mob lead
you may decisively backfire in the next elections.
The American people are already bored with the embarrassing influence
that these groups exercise over the foreign and domestic policy of such
an important country. Your dependence on these groups will end up losing
you a lot of votes, and not only in Florida, but all over the country.
When you forbid Americans to travel to Cuba under the threat of brutal
repression, you are violating a constitutional principle and a right of
which your country's citizens have always been proud. Moreover, it shows
political fear.
As Cuba, with no hesitation or fear and with very few exceptions, opened
its doors to masses of emigrants so they could visit their country of origin
and, recently, authorized them to do so as many times as they wish through
the simple procedure of renewing their passports every two years, you implement
ruthless and inhuman measures against Cuban families that deeply offend
their ancestral culture and traditions. It is indescribably cruel to forbid
resident Cubans, nationalized or not, to visit their closest relatives
for a period of no less than three years, even if these relatives are at
death's door. Quite a few Cuban-Americans are already thinking of encouraging
a punishment vote.
For purely electoral reasons, and ignoring the Resolutions passed by
almost all members of the United Nations, you have just adopted new, harsher
economic measures against the Cuban people that the world public opinion
and the immense majority of the US public find disgusting.
The worst thing about your ridiculous, clumsy anti-Cuban policy is that
you and your closest advisors have brazenly proclaimed your goal of forcibly
imposing what you call 'political transition' on Cuba, if I die in office,
a transition which you do not, of course, hesitate to confess you will
try to hasten as much as possible. You are very well aware of what that
means in the language of the mob.
However, perhaps the most shameful thing you did was to announce that
the first hours will be decisive, since the idea is to go to any lengths,
under any circumstances, to prevent a new political and administrative
leadership from taking charge of our country. This you would do completely
ignoring the Cuban Constitution, the powers of the National Assembly and
of our Party's leadership and the powers that the Constitution and the
highest institutions of the people have bestowed -as it is the case all
over the world- on those whose responsibility it is to assume this task
immediately.
Since this you can only do by sending troops to occupy key positions
in the country, you are announcing your intention of launching a military
intervention of our homeland. This is why, on May 14, I "hailed" you in
advance for the role of Caesar you are playing; I took this from the gladiators
who were forced to fight to death in the circus of ancient Rome.
Today, I think it is only right to add a few more things.
You should know that your march against Cuba will be anything but easy.
Our people will stand up to your economic measures, whatever they may be.
Forty five years of heroic struggle against the blockade and economic war,
against threats, aggressions, plots to assassinate its leaders, sabotage
and terrorism have not weakened but rather strengthened the Revolution.
Forty three years ago the treacherous invasion by the Bay of Pigs was
routed in less than 66 hours of relentless combat, against the estimates
of brilliant experts.
Some of us leaders of this Revolution went through that singular experience
where a handful of men, who at first had only seven rifles,
managed, using weapons taken from the enemy in battle, to defeat Batista's
armed forces, which were equipped, trained and advised by the United States
and which numbered 85,000 troops.
In October 1962, a year and a half after the Bay of Pigs, not a single
Cuban fighter batted an eyelash at the thought of the very real threat
of anuclear strike. Not a single inspection of our country was allowed,
in spite of what the two superpowers had agreed.
Dozens of years of dirty war sabotage and terrorism, in which many of
your current friends from Miami played such an outstanding role, could
not bring Cuba to her knees.
The collapse of the European socialist bloc and of the USSR itself,
which deprived us of markets, fuel, food and raw materials, added to a
blockade made harsher by the Torricelli and Helms-Burton Acts and other
measures did not break the Cuban people and what seemed impossible came
to pass, we stood firm! This is something that is now in the blood and
traditions of patriotic Cubans, who in the last war against Spanish colonialism,
clashed with, wore down and virtually defeated 300,000 Spanish soldiers;
it is the spirit of fighting against the impossible and winning.
It is not my intent, Mr. President of the United States, to torment
you or upset you with these memories. It is simply my desire to give you
an idea of what Cuba is all about, of what a genuine and deep revolutionary
process means and of what the people you look down to condescendingly is
really like.
Today, Cuba has the most cultured and politically aware population of
all the countries in the world. Our people are not fanatics, our people
defend ideas. This is not a country of illiterate or semi-illiterate people;
it is a country where higher education is being made accessible to the
whole population and where courage and patriotism are becoming common traits.
Experience and knowledge go hand in hand with its dreams of a society where
justice and humanism can prevail, something that you with your fundamentalism
and your messianic ways will find very hard to understand.
Today, we are not just a handful of men and women determined to win
or die. We are millions of women and men with enough weapons and over two
hundred thousand well-trained officers and chiefs who know perfectly well
how to use them under conditions of modern, sophisticated warfare, and
we have a huge mass of combatants who are equally well aware of the strengths
and weaknesses of those who are threatening us, despite their enormous
military resources and the technological superiority of their weapons.
Under the present circumstances in Cuba, and in case of an invasion
of
our country if I cease to exist -either from natural causes or others -
this will not in any way hurt our capacity to fight and stand firm. Every
political and military chief at every level, and every individual soldier,
is a potential commander in chief who knows what s/he must do, and in a
given situation each person can become his or her own commander in chief.
You will not have even one day, one hour, one minute or one second to
prevent the political and military leadership of the country from taking
charge immediately for the orders on what should be done have already been
given. Every man and woman will be at his or her combat station without
wasting a second.
On May 14, in front of one million Cubans who marched past your Interests
Section, I told you very clearly what I had to do and would do. That is
my job. Today, I reiterate it and I suggest that you and your advisors
do not come up with any vicious plan for vengeance against our people.
Do not try crazy adventures such as surgical strikes or wars of attrition
using sophisticated techniques, because you could lose control of the situation.
Undesirable things could happen that are not good for the Cuban people
or for the US people. You could shatter the immigration agreement and provoke
a mass exodus that we would not be in a position to prevent and you could
bring about an all-out war between young American soldiers and the Cuban
people. That would be very sad.
Yet, I assure you that you would never win that war. You will not find
here a divided people, conflicting ethnic groups nor profound religious
differences, nor will there be traitorous generals commanding our troops.
You will find a people solidly united by culture, feelings of solidarity
and social and human achievements that are unprecedented in history. You
will not win glory with military action against Cuba.
Our people will never give up its independence nor will it ever give
up its political, social and economic ideals.
Cuba showed full solidarity with the American people after the painful
and unjustifiable attack on the Twin towers. That same day we expressed
our point of view, which today is being confirmed with almost mathematical
precision. War is not the way to put an end to terrorism and violence in
the world. That tragic event has been used as a pretext to impose on the
planet a policy of terror and force.
Your measures against the Cuban people are an atrocious and inhumane
act. Cuba can prove that you want to destroy a country whose
medical services have saved and continue to save hundreds of thousands
of lives in poor countries of the world, a country that could even save
as many lives of poor US citizens, as the three thousands who died in the
Twin Towers
You surely know that 44 million people in the United States lack medical
insurance and that at some point in a two-year period, 82 million Americans
had no insurance and could not afford the astronomical costs of essential
healthcare services in your country. A very conservative estimate indicates
that many tens of thousands of lives are lost every year in the United
States because of this, perhaps thirty or forty times the number that died
in the Twin Towers. Someone should calculate this exactly.
In a short five-year period, Cuba is prepared to save the lives of 3,000
American poor. It is perfectly possible today to forecast and prevent a
heart attack that could be fatal and alleviate illnesses that lead inevitably
to death. These three thousand Americans could come to our country accompanied
by a relative and receive medical treatment absolutely free of charge.
I wish to ask you a question, Mr. Bush, about ethics and principles.
Would you be willing to give those people permission to come to Cuba on
a program designed to save a life for every life lost in that horrendous
attack on the Twin Towers?
And, if they accepted the offer of those services and decided to come,
would they be punished?
Show the world that there is an alternative to arrogance, war, genocide,
hatred, egoism, hypocrisy and lies!
On behalf of the Cuban people,
Fidel Castro Ruz
June 21, 2004
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