<html>
<body>
<div align="center"><font size=3><b><i>Reflections by Comrade Fidel<br>
</i> <br>
THE ASSASSINATION OF OSAMA BIN LADEN<br>
</b></div>
<br>
<br>
Those persons who deal with these issues know that on September 11 of
2001 our people expressed its solidarity to the US people and offered the
modest cooperation that in the area of health we could have offered to
the victims of the brutal attack against the Twin Towers in New
York.<br><br>
We also immediately opened our country’s airports to the American
airplanes that were unable to land anywhere, given the chaos that came
about soon after the strike.<br><br>
The traditional stand adopted by the Cuban Revolution, which was always
opposed to any action that could jeopardize the life of civilians, is
well known.<br><br>
Although we resolutely supported the armed struggle against Batista’s
tyranny, we were, on principle, opposed to any terrorist action that
could cause the death of innocent people. Such behavior, which has
been maintained for more than half a century, gives us the right to
express our views about such a sensitive matter.<br><br>
On that day, at a public gathering that took place at <i>Ciudad
Deportiva</i>, I expressed my conviction that international terrorism
could never be eradicated through violence and war.<br><br>
By the way, Bin Laden was, for many years, a friend of the US, a country
that gave him military training; he was also an adversary of the USSR and
Socialism. But, whatever the actions attributed to him, the
assassination of an unarmed human being while surrounded by his own
relatives is something abhorrent. Apparently this is what the government
of the most powerful nation that has ever existed did.<br><br>
In the carefully drafted speech announcing Bin Laden’s death Obama
asserts as follows:<br><br>
<i>“…And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to
the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced
to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never
know the feeling of their child's embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken
from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.”<br><br>
</i>That paragraph expressed a dramatic truth, but can not prevent honest
persons from remembering the unjust wars unleashed by the United States
in Iraq and Afghanistan, the hundreds of thousands of children who were
forced to grow up without their mothers and fathers and the parents who
would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace.<br><br>
Millions of citizens were taken from their villages in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba and many other countries of the
world.<br><br>
Still engraved in the minds of hundreds of millions of persons are also
the horrible images of human beings who, in Guantánamo, a Cuban
occupied territory, walk down in silence, being submitted for
months, and even for years, to unbearable and excruciating
tortures. Those are persons who were kidnapped and transferred to
secret prisons with the hypocritical connivance of supposedly civilized
societies.<br><br>
Obama has no way to conceal that Osama was executed in front of his
children and wives, who are now under the custody of the authorities of
Pakistan, a Muslim country of almost 200 million inhabitants, whose laws
have been violated, its national dignity offended and its religious
traditions desecrated.<br><br>
How could he now prevent the women and children of the person who was
executed out of the law and without any trial from explaining what
happened? How could he prevent those images from being broadcast to the
world?<br><br>
On January 28 of 2002 the CBS journalist Dan Rather reported through that
TV network that on September 10 of 2001, one day before the attacks
against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Osama Bin Laden
underwent a hemodialysis at a military hospital in Pakistan. He was
physically unfit to hide and take shelter inside deep caves.<br><br>
Having assassinated him and plunging his corpse into the bottom of the
sea are an expression of fear and insecurity which turn him into a far
more dangerous person.<br><br>
The US public opinion itself, after the initial euphoria, will end up by
criticizing the methods that, far from protecting its citizen, will
multiply the feelings of hatred and revenge against them.<br><br>
Fidel Castro Ruz<br><br>
May 4, 2011<br><br>
8:34 p.m.<br><br>
<br>
<br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>