Reflections by Comrade Fidel

THE SUMMIT OF THE GUAYABERAS

Obama, the first black president of the United States –who is, without any doubt, and intelligent, well educated and eloquent person-, made quite a few people believe that he was an emulator of Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King.

Five years ago, a Papal Bull, applying concepts that prevailed at those times, allocated approximately 40 million square kilometers of land, inland waters and coastline to two small and belligerent kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula.

The English, the French, the Dutch and other important feudal States were excluded from the share out. Endless wars were soon to erupt; millions of Africans were turned into slaves throughout four centuries and the autochthones cultures, some of them more advanced than those of Europe, were destroyed.

Sixty four years ago, the execrable OAS was founded. It is impossible to overlook the hideous role played by that institution. A great number of people, who could perhaps be counted by the thousands, were kidnapped, tortured and disappeared as a result of the decisions it adopted to justify the coup against the reforms introduced by Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, which was organized by the Yankee Central Intelligence Agency. Central America and the Caribbean, including the small island of Grenada, were victims of the interventionist fury of the United States through the OAS.

Much worse still was the role it played in South America.

Neoliberalism, the official doctrine of imperialism, gained unusual strength in the 1970’s when the Richard Nixon administration decided to frustrate the electoral victory attained by Salvador Allende in Chile. A truly sinister period in the history of Latin America had just begun. Two high-ranking officers of the Chilean Armed Forces who remained loyal to the Constitution were murdered, and Augusto Pinochet was imposed as head of State after an unprecedented repression whereby numerous selected persons were tortured, killed and disappeared.

The Constitution of Uruguay, a country that for many years stood by its national institutional system, was wiped out.

Military coups and repression expanded to nearly all neighboring countries. The Cuban airline became the target of brutal sabotages. One Cuban airliner filled with passengers was blown up in mid-air. Reagan released the main perpetrator of that monstrous crime from a prison in Venezuela and sent him to El Salvador to organize the drugs-for-money swap to fund the dirty war against Nicaragua, which left tens of thousands dead or maimed.

Bush senior and Bush junior sheltered and pardoned those involved in these crimes. The list of misdeeds and terrorist actions perpetrated against Cuba’s economy throughout half a century will be endless.

Today, Friday 13, I listened to the courageous words expressed by several speakers at the foreign ministers meeting of the so-called Cartagena Summit. The issue of the sovereign rights of Argentina over the Malvinas Islands –whose economy is being brutally affected for being deprived of the valuable energy and maritime resources that exist in those Islands- was firmly addressed. The Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Nicolás Maduro, after concluding today’s meeting, declared with profound irony that the “Consensus of Washington” had become the “Consensus without Washington”.

Now we will have the Summit of the Guayaberas. The Yayabo River and its aboriginal name, totally vindicated, will go down in history.

Fidel Castro Ruz

April 13, 2012

9:40 p.m.