[News] Fidel - Sumission to Imperial Politics

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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Reflections by the Commander in Chief

SUBMISSION TO IMPERIAL POLITICS

      Of all the presidents of the United States, and those who 
aspire to that office, I only met one who, for ethical-religious 
reasons, was not an accomplice to the brutal terrorism against 
Cuba:  James Carter.  That assumes, of course, another President who 
forbade that United States officials should be used to assassinate 
Cuban leaders.  That was the case of Gerald Ford who replaced Nixon 
after the Watergate scandal.  Given his irregular manner of ascending 
to the office, one might characterize him as a symbolic President.
      It is to the illustrious President Eisenhower, not in the least 
opposed to anti-Cuban terrorism but rather its initiator, that we owe 
thanks for at least providing a definition of the industrial-military 
complex which today, with its insatiable and incurable voracity, 
makes up the motor that is driving the human species to its current 
crisis.  More than three billion years have gone by since planet 
Earth saw the first forms of life springing up.
      One day, Che [Guevara] and I went to play golf.  He had been a 
caddie once to earn some money in his spare time; I, on the other 
hand, knew absolutely nothing about this expensive sport.  The United 
States government had already decreed the suspension and the 
redistribution of Cuba's sugar quota, after the Revolution had passed 
the Agrarian Reform Law.  The golf game was a photo opportunity.  The 
real purpose was to make fun of Eisenhower.
      In the United States, you can have a minimum of votes and still 
become President.  That is what happened to Bush.  Having a majority 
of electoral votes and losing the Presidency is what happened to 
Gore.  For that reason, the State of Florida is the prize everyone 
aspires to, because of the presidential votes it provides.  In the 
case of Bush, an electoral fraud was also needed; for this, the first 
Cuban emigrants, who were the Batista supporters and the bourgeois, 
were best masters.
      Clinton is not excluded from all of this, neither is the 
Democratic Party's candidate.  The Helms-Burton Act was passed with 
his support, with a ready-made excuse:  the downing of Brothers to 
the Rescue planes, those which on more than one occasion had flown 
over the city of Havana and which had violated Cuban territory dozens 
of times.  The order to fend off flights over the Capital had been 
given to the Cuban Air Force just weeks earlier.
      I must tell you that, close to that episode, Congressman Bill 
Richardson had arrived on a visit to Cuba on January 19, 1996.  As 
usual, he brought with him petitions asking that several 
counter-revolutionaries be released from prison.  We explained to him 
that we were by now tired of receiving such petitions, and I talked 
to him about what was happening with the Brothers to the Rescue 
flights.  I also talked to him about the unfulfilled promises 
regarding the blockade.  Richardson returned a few days later, on the 
10th of February, and very earnestly told me, to the best of my 
recollection, the following: "That will not be happening again; the 
President has ordered those flights to be suspended".
      In those days, I believed that orders issued by the President 
of the United States would be carried out.  The planes were brought 
down on February 24, some days after the reply.  The New Yorker 
Magazine supplies details about that meeting with Richardson.
      Apparently, Clinton gave the order to suspend those flights, 
but nobody paid any attention to it.  It was an election year, and he 
took advantage of that excuse to invite the Foundation leaders over 
and to sign that criminal Act, with the approval of all.
      Following the migratory crisis of 1994, we learned that Carter 
wanted to do something to find a solution.  Clinton didn't accept it 
and he called Salinas de Gortari, the President of Mexico.  Cuba had 
been the last nation to recognize his electoral victory.  He had 
contacted him on his inauguration as the new President of Mexico.
      Salinas informed me by phone of Clinton's decision to find a 
satisfactory solution, and in turn he was asked for his cooperation 
in this effort.  That was how an agreement was reached in 
principle.  That agreement with Clinton included the idea of putting 
an end to the economic blockade.  The only witness we could count on 
was Salinas.  Clinton had thus left out Carter.  Cuba was not able to 
decide who the mediator would be.  Salinas relates this episode 
accurately.  Anyone with an interest can read about it in his books.
      Clinton was really kind when we informally crossed paths at a 
UN meeting attended by many heads of state.  Moreover, he was 
friendly, as well as intelligent, in demanding adherence to the law 
in the case of the kidnapped boy, when he was rescued by special 
federal agents sent from Washington.

      The candidates are now immersed in the Florida 
adventure:  Hillary, the Clinton successor; Obama, the popular 
African American candidate and several of the other 16 who, up until 
the present, have proposed their candidacy in both parties, with the 
exception of Republican Congressman Ronald Ernest Paul and the former 
Democratic Senator from Alaska, Maurice Robert Gravel, and the other 
three Democrats Dennis Kucinich, Christopher Dodd and Bill Richardson.
      I don't know what Carter said during his race to the White 
House.  Whatever his position was, I was right when I guessed that 
his election could avoid a holocaust for the people of Panama, and 
that is just what I said to Torrijos.  He established the U.S. 
Interests Section in Cuba and promoted an agreement about 
jurisdictional maritime limits.  The circumstances surrounding his 
term prevented him from taking things any further and, in my opinion 
he embarked on several imperial adventures.
      Today, talk is about the seemingly invincible ticket that might 
be created with Hillary for President and Obama for Vice 
President.  Both of them feel the sacred duty of demanding "a 
democratic government in Cuba".  They are not making politics: they 
are playing a game of cards on a Sunday afternoon.
      The media declares that this would be essential, unless Gore 
decides to run.  I don't think he will do so; better than anyone, he 
knows about the kind of catastrophe that awaits humanity if it 
continues along its current course.  When he was a candidate, he of 
course committed the error of yearning for "a democratic Cuba".
      Enough of tales and nostalgia.  This is written simply to 
increase the conscience of the Cuban people.

Fidel Castro Ruz
August 27, 2007.
4:56 p.m.




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