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<a href="http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2010/enero/lun4/reflexiones-fidel-the-world-half-ing%20.html">
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<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=1><b>Reflections of Fidel<br>
</font><font face="Georgia" size=5>The world half a century later<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=3>(Taken from CubaDebate)<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Georgia" size=3>AS the Revolution celebrated its
51st anniversary two days ago, memories of that January 1st of 1959 came
to mind. The outlandish idea that, after half a century which flew by
we would remember it as if it were yesterday, never occurred to any of
us. <br><br>
During the meeting at the Oriente sugar mill on December 28, 1958, with
the commander in chief of the enemy’s forces, whose elite units were
surrounded without any way out whatsoever, he admitted defeat and
appealed to our generosity to find a dignified way out for the rest of
his forces. He knew of our humane treatment of prisoners and the injured
without any exception. He accepted the agreement that I proposed,
although I warned him that operations under way would continue. But he
traveled to the capital, and, incited by the United States embassy,
instigated a coup d’état. <br><br>
We were preparing for combat on that January 1st when, in the early hours
of the morning, the news came in of the dictator’s flight. The Rebel Army
was ordered not to permit a ceasefire and to continue battling on all
fronts. Radio Rebelde convened workers to a revolutionary general strike,
immediately followed by the entire nation. The coup attempt was defeated,
and that same afternoon, our victorious troops entered Santiago de Cuba.
<br><br>
Che and Camilo received instructions to advance rapidly by road in motor
vehicles with their battle-hardened forces toward La Cabaña and the
Columbia military camp. The enemy army, hit hard on all fronts, was
unable to resist. The people in arms themselves took over the centers of
repression and police stations. In the afternoon of January 2 at a
stadium in Bayamo, and accompanied by a small escort, I met with more
than 2,000 soldiers from the tank, artillery and motorized infantry
units, against whom we had been fighting until the day before. They were
still carrying their weapons. We had won the enemy’s respect with our
audacious but humanitarian methods of irregular warfare. This was how, in
just four days after 25 months of war that we reinitiated with a few
guns some 100,000 air, sea and ground weapons and the entire power of
the state remained in the hands of the Revolution. In just a few lines, I
am recounting everything that happened during those days 51 years ago.
<br><br>
Then the main battle began: to preserve Cuba’s independence against the
most powerful empire that has ever existed, a battle which our people
waged with great dignity. I am happy today to observe those who, in the
face of incredible obstacles, sacrifices, and risks, were able to defend
our homeland, and who today, together with their children, parents and
loved ones, are enjoying the happiness and glories of each new year.
<br><br>
Today, however, is nothing like yesterday. We experienced a new era
unlike any other in history. Before, the people fought and are fighting
still, with honor, for a better and more just world, but now they are
also having to fight, without any alternative whatsoever, for the very
survival of our species. If we ignore this, we know absolutely nothing.
Cuba is, without question, one of the most politically instructed
countries on the planet; it started out from the most shameful
illiteracy, and what is worse, our<i> yanki</i> masters and the
bourgeoisie associated with the foreign owners of land, sugar mills,
production plants for consumer goods, warehouses, businesses,
electricity, telephones, banks, mines, insurance, docks, bars, hotels,
offices, houses, theaters, print shops, magazines, newspapers, radio, the
emerging television, and everything of important value. <br><br>
After the ardent flames of our battles for freedom had been quenched, the
<i>yankis</i> had taken upon themselves the task of thinking for a people
that struggled so hard to be the masters of their independence, resources
and destiny. Absolutely nothing, not even the task of thinking
politically, belonged to us. How many of us knew how to read and write?
How many of us even made it to sixth grade? I recall that especially on a
day like today, because that was the country that was supposed to belong
to the Cuban people. I will not list anything more, because I would have
to include much more, including the best schools, the best hospitals, the
best houses, the best doctors, the best lawyers. How many of us had a
right to that? Which of us possessed, with some exceptions, the natural
and divine right to be administrators and leaders? <br><br>
Every millionaire and rich individual, without exception, was a party
leader, senator, representative or important official. That was the
representative and pure democracy that prevailed in our country, except
that the <i>yankis</i> imposed, at their whim, merciless and cruel petty
dictators whenever it was more convenient for them to better defend their
properties against landless campesinos and workers with or without jobs.
Given that nobody even talks about that anymore, I am venturing to
remember it. Our country is one of more than 150 that constitute the
Third World, which would be the first but not the only nations destined
to suffer incredible consequences if humanity does not become aware,
clearly, certainly and a lot more quickly than we thought, of the reality
and consequences of the climate change caused by human beings if it is
not prevented in time. <br><br>
Our mass media has dedicated spaces to describing the effects of climate
change. Increasingly violent hurricanes, droughts and other natural
disasters have likewise contributed to the education of our people on
this subject. One singular event, the battle over the climate issue that
took place at the Copenhagen Summit, has contributed to knowledge of the
imminent danger. It is not a matter of a distant threat for the 22nd
century, but for the 21st; nor is it just for the latter half of this
century, but for the coming decades, in which we will begin to suffer its
terrible consequences. <br><br>
It is also not just a question of simple action against the empire and
its henchmen, which in this issue, like in everything else, are trying to
impose their own stupid and egotistic interests, but a battle of world
opinion that that cannot be left to spontaneity or the whims of the
majority of their mass media. It is a situation with which, fortunately,
millions of honorable and brave people in the world are familiar, a
battle to wage with the masses and within social organizations and
scientific, cultural, humanitarian and other international institutions,
most especially in the heart of the United Nations, where the United
States government, its NATO allies and the richest countries tried to
effect a fraudulent and antidemocratic coup in Denmark against the rest
of the emerging and poor countries of the Third World. <br><br>
In Copenhagen, the Cuban delegation, which attended together with others
from the ALBA and the Third World, was forced into a fight to the finish
in the face of the incredible events that began with the speech of the
<i>yanki</i> president, Barack Obama, and of the group of the richest
states on the planet, resolved to dismantle the binding commitments of
Kyoto where the thorny problem was discussed more than 12 years ago
and to load the burden of sacrifice onto the emerging and underdeveloped
countries, which are the poorest and at the same time the principal
suppliers of the planet’s raw materials and non-renewable resources to
the most developed and opulent countries. <br><br>
In Copenhagen, Obama appeared on the last day of the conference, which
began on December 7. The worst aspect of his conduct was that, after he
had decided to dispatch 30,000 soldiers to the slaughter of Afghanistan
a country with a strong tradition of independence, which not even the
English in their better and cruellest times could dominate he went to
Oslo to receive no less than a Nobel Peace Prize. He arrived in the
Norwegian capital on December 10 and gave an empty, demagogic and
justifying speech. On the 18th, the date of the Summit’s last session, he
appeared in Copenhagen, where he planned to remain for just 8 hours. His
secretary of state and a select group of his best strategists had arrived
the previous day. <br><br>
The first thing that Obama did was to select a group of guests who were
given the honor of accompanying him as he gave a speech at the Summit.
The complacent and fawning Danish prime minister, who was presiding over
the Summit, gave the podium over to a group that numbered just 15. The
imperial chief deserved special honors. His speech was a was a
combination of sweetened words seasoned with theatrical gestures, already
boring for those of us, like me, assigned themselves the task of
listening to him in order to try and be objective in an appreciation of
his characteristics and political intentions. Obama imposed on his docile
Danish host, so that only his guests could speak, although as soon as he
had made his own comments, he "made himself scarce" through the
back door, like an imp escaping from an audience which had done him the
honor of listening with interest. <br><br>
Once the authorized list of speakers was finished, an indigenous man,
Aymara through and through, Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, who had
just been reelected with 65% of the vote, demanded the right to speak,
which was granted, to the resounding applause of those present. In just
nine minutes, he expressed profound and dignified concepts in response to
the words of the absent U.S. president. Immediately afterward, Hugo
Chávez got up to ask to speak on behalf of the Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela; the person presiding over the session had no choice but to
also give him the right to speak, and he used that to improvise one of
the most brilliant speeches that I’ve ever heard. When he finished, a
strike of the gavel ended the unusual session. <br><br>
The extremely busy Obama and his entourage however, did not have a minute
to lose. His group had put together a draft statement, full of vagueness,
which was the negation of the Kyoto Protocol. After he dashed out of the
plenary session, Obama met with other groups of guests numbering no more
than 30, negotiated in private and in groups; insisted; mentioned figures
to the tune of millions of green bills without gold backing and which are
constantly being devaluated, and even threatened to leave the meeting if
his demands were not met. Worst of all, it was a meeting of super-rich
countries, to which several of the most important emerging nations were
invited and two or three poor ones, to which he submitted the document as
if proposing, "take it or leave it!" <br><br>
The Danish prime minister tried to present that confusing, ambiguous and
contradictory statement – in the discussion of which the UN did not
participate in any way – as the Summit agreement. The Summit sessions had
already concluded, almost all of the heads of state and government and
foreign ministers had left for their respective countries and, at three
in the morning, the distinguished Danish prime minister presented it to
the plenary session, where hundreds of longsuffering officials who hadn’t
slept for three days, received the thorny document, and were given only
one hour to discuss and approve it.<br><br>
That is when the meeting became fiery; the delegates hadn’t even had time
to read it. A number of them asked to speak. The first was the delegate
from Tuvalu, whose islands would be inundated if what was proposed there
was approved; those of Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua followed
him. The dialectical confrontation at 3 a.m. on that December 19 is
worthy of going down in history, if history should continue after climate
change.<br><br>
As a large part of what happened is known in Cuba, or is on internet web
pages, I will confine myself to partially expounding on the two responses
of Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, worthy of being recorded in
order to know the last episodes of the Copenhagen soap opera, and aspects
of the final chapter, which are still to be published in our country.
<br>
"Mr. President (Prime Minister of Denmark)… The document that you
affirmed on various occasions did not exist, has now appeared. We have
all seen versions circulating surreptitiously and being discussed in
small and secret meetings outside the conference halls in which the
international community, via its representatives, is negotiating in a
transparent manner."<br><br>
"I add my voice to those of the representatives of Tuvalu, Venezuela
and Bolivia. Cuba considers the text of this apocryphal draft as
extremely insufficient and inadmissible…"<br><br>
"The document which you are presenting, lamentably, does not contain
any commitment whatsoever to reducing greenhouse gas
emissions."<br><br>
"I am aware of prior versions which, in questionable and clandestine
procedures, were also being negotiated behind closed doors and which
talked of a reduction of at least 50% by the year 2050…"<br><br>
"The document that you have presented now, precisely omits the
already meager and insufficient key phrases that that version contained.
This document does not guarantee, in any way, the adoption of minimal
measures that would make it possible to avert an extremely grave disaster
for the planet and the human species."<br><br>
"This shameful document that you have brought is likewise omissive
and ambiguous in relation to the specific commitment to emission
reductions on the part of the developed countries, those responsible for
global warming given the historic and current level of their emissions,
and on whom it falls to implement substantial reductions immediately.
This paper does not contain one single word of commitment on the part of
the developed countries."<br><br>
"…Your role, Mr. President, is the death certificate of the Kyoto
Protocol, which my delegation does not accept."<br><br>
"The Cuban delegation wishes to emphasize the preeminence of the
principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities’ as the
central concept of the future negotiation process. Your paper does not
say one word about that."<br><br>
"The Cuban delegation reiterates its protest at the grave violations
of procedure that have been produced in the anti-democratic management of
the process of this conference, via the utilization of arbitrary,
exclusive and discriminatory forms of debate and
negotiation…"<br><br>
"Mr. President, I am formally asking for this statement to be placed
in the final report on the workings of this lamentable and shameful 15th
Conference of the Parties."<br><br>
What nobody could have imagined is that, after another lengthy recess and
when everybody thought that only the formalities remained before the
conclusion of the Summit, the prime minister of the host country, at the
instigation of the <i>yankis</i>, would make another attempt to pass off
the document as a consensus of the Summit, when not even foreign
ministers were left in the plenary. The delegates from Venezuela,
Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba, who remained vigilant and unsleeping until
the last minute, frustrated the latter maneuver in Copenhagen.<br><br>
However, the problem was not concluded. The powerful are not accustomed
to brooking resistance. On December 30, the Danish Permanent Mission to
the United Nations, in New York, courteously informed our mission in that
city that it had taken note of the Copenhagen Agreement of December 18,
2009, and attached an advance copy of that decision. It affirmed
textually: "…the government of Denmark, in its capacity of president
of COP15, invites the Parties to the Convention to inform the secretariat
of the UNFCCC in writing, and as soon as possible, of your willingness to
commit to the Copenhagen Agreement."<br><br>
"This surprise communication motivated a response from the Cuban
Permanent Mission to the United Nations, in which it "… flatly
rejects the intention to gain indirect approval of a text that was the
object of repudiation by various delegations, not only on account of its
insufficiency in the face of the grave effects of climate change, but
also for exclusively responding to the interests of a reduced group of
states."<br><br>
At the same time it prompted a letter from Dr. Fernando González
Bermúdez, first deputy minister of the Ministry of Science, Technology
and the Environment of the Republic of Cuba to Mr. Yvo de Boer, executive
secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, some of whose
paragraphs are transcribed below: <br>
"We have received with surprise and concern the note that the
government of Denmark is circulating to the Permanent Missions of the
member states of the United Nations in New York. Of which you are surely
aware, via which the party states of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change to inform the executive secretary, in
writing, of you wish to be associated with the so-called Copenhagen
Agreement."<br><br>
"We have observed, with additional concern, that the government of
Denmark communicates that the executive secretary of the Convention is to
include in the report of the Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen, a
list of the party states which have stated their will to commit to the
quoted agreement."<br><br>
"In the judgment of the Republic of Cuba, this form of acting
constitutes a crude and reprehensible violation of what was decided in
Copenhagen, where the party states, faced with an evident lack of
consensus, confined themselves to taking note of the existence of the
said document."<br><br>
"Nothing that was agreed in COP15 authorizes the government of
Denmark to adopt this action and, far less, the executive secretary to
include a list of party states in the final report, for which he has no
mandate."<br><br>
"I must inform you that the government of the Republic of Cuba most
firmly rejects this new attempt to indirectly legitimate a spurious
document and to reiterate to you that this way of acting compromises the
result of future negotiations, sets a dangerous precedent for the
Convention’s work and, in particular, is injurious to the spirit of
goodwill in which delegations must continue the negotiation process next
year," concluded Cuba’s first deputy minister of science, technology
and the environment."<br><br>
Many know, especially the social movements and better informed people in
humanitarian, cultural and scientific movements, that the document
promoted by the United States constitutes a regression of the positions
achieved by those who are making efforts to avert a colossal disaster for
our species. There is no point in repeating here facts and figures that
are mathematically demonstrated. The data is confirmed on Internet web
pages and are within the reach of a growing number of people who are
interested in the issue.<br><br>
The theory defending adherence to the document is feeble and implies a
setback. The deceptive idea that the rich countries will contribute the
miserable sum of $30 billion over three years to the poor countries in
order to offset the costs implied by confronting climate change, a figure
which could rise to 100 billion by 2020, which in the context of this
exceedingly grave problem, is like waiting for the Greek calendars.
Specialists know that those figures are ridiculous and unacceptable given
the volume of investments required. The origin of such sums is vague and
confused, in a way that they do not commit anybody.<br><br>
What is the value of one dollar? What is the significance of $30 billion?
We all know that, from Bretton Woods in 1944 to Nixon’s presidential
order in 1971 – imparted in order to offload the cost of the genocidal
war on Vietnam onto the world economy – that the value of one dollar,
measured in gold, has gradually been reduced to the point of today, when
it is approximately 32 times less than then; $30 billion thus signifies
less than one billion, and one billion divided by 32 is equivalent to
$3.125 million, which would not even stretch to building one
middle-capacity oil refinery at the present time.<br><br>
If, at some point, the industrialized countries were to meet their
promise to contribute 0.7% of their GDP to the developing countries –
something that, barring a few exceptions, they never have – the figure
would be in excess of $250 billion every year.<br><br>
The U.S. government spent $800 billion on saving the banks. How much
would it be prepared to pay to save the nine billion people who will
inhabit the planet in 2050, if large-scale drought and sea flooding
provoked by the melting of glaciers and great masses of frozen water from
Greenland and Antarctica?<br><br>
Let us not deceive ourselves. What the United States has attempted with
its maneuvers in Copenhagen is to divide the Third World, to separate
more than 150 underdeveloped countries from China, India, Brazil, South
Africa and others with which we must fight united to defend – in Bonn,
Mexico or any other international conference, along with the social,
scientific and humanitarian organizations – genuine agreements that will
benefit all countries and preserve humanity from a disaster that could
lead to the extinction of our species.<br><br>
The world is in possession of constantly more information, but
politicians have constantly less time for thinking.<br><br>
The rich nations and their leaders, including the U.S. Congress, would
seem to be arguing which will be the last to disappear.<br><br>
When Obama has completed the 28 parties with which he proposed to
celebrate this Christmas, if Epiphany is included among them, perhaps
Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar will advise him on what he should
do.<br><br>
Please excuse this extended Reflection. I did not wish to divide it into
two parts. I apologize to my patient readers.<br><br>
Fidel Castro Ruz<br>
January 3, 2010 <br>
3:16 p.m.<br><br>
<b><i>Translated by Granma International <br><br>
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