Reflections
by Comrade Fidel
ONCE
AGAIN, THE ROTTEN OAS
Yesterday the
German cable service DPA revealed that the ICHR of the OAS approved a report
pointing out that Cuba “continued to transgress” on fundamental rights by
keeping “restrictions” on the population’s political and civil rights, while at
the same time continuing to be the “only” country in the region where there is
absolutely no freedom of expression.
Is there really
an ICHR within that rotten institution? Yes, there is, I answer myself. And just what is its mission? To judge the human rights situation in the
OAS member countries. Is the
On the Internet
we obtained a copy of the agreement against
We could ask
that shameless institution: if we were expelled from the OAS for proclaiming
our convictions and we are not members of that institution, what right do they have
to pass judgment on us? Would the OAS do
likewise with the Peoples’ Republic of China,
The OAS should
know that for a while now we are not part of that church, nor do we share in
its teachings. We start from different positions. If we speak of freedom of
expression, we must remind it that in our country we do not recognize private
ownership of the media. It was always
the owners of these media who decided what was to be written and who would be
doing the writing, what would be broadcast or not, what would be shown and what would not. Illiterate and
semi-literate people cannot do it, and for hundreds of years, while colonialism
reigned and the capitalist system was developing since the invention of the
printing press, four-fifths of the population could neither read nor write and
there was no free and public education system.
The modern media
have changed all that. Today, through huge investments alone one can have centers
which broadcast the news throughout the planet and only those who direct them
decide what is broadcast and how it is broadcast, what is printed and how it is
printed.
The efforts made
by the Pentagon to monopolize information and the Internet networks are
obvious. Our own country is blocked from access to those sources. It would be better that the ICHR accounts to
the world the resources that its bureaucracy is spending on stupidities,
instead of analyzing these realities and informing Latin American countries
about the very serious dangers threatening the freedom of expression of all the
peoples of the world.
To question
Cuba’s role in this area, it would have to start with the outright recognition
that this has been the nation which has done the most for education, science
and culture among all the peoples of the planet, and that its example is
followed today by other revolutionary and progressive governments. If they have
any doubt whatsoever, let them ask the United Nations.
In this
hemisphere, the poor never had freedom of expression because they never
received quality education and knowledge was reserved solely for the privileged
and bourgeois elite. Don’t blame
Fidel Castro Ruz