| Hail,
Caesar! I say, but this time I add: Those who are willing to die have no fear of your
enormous power, of your unbridled rage, nor of your dangerous and cowardly threats against
Cuba!
Speech made by Commander in Chief Fidel
Castro Ruz, President of the Republic of Cuba, at the ceremony for the 51st anniversary of
the attack on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes fortresses. Ernesto Che Guevara
Square, Santa Clara, July 26, 2004.
Dear fellow Cubans;
Distinguished guests:
On this 51st anniversary of the attack on the
Moncada fortress on July 26, 1953 I shall address a sinister character that keeps
threatening, insulting and slandering us. This is not a whim or an agreeable option; it is
a necessity and a duty.
On June 21, at the Anti-imperialist Forum I read
Epistle Number Two to the president of the United States, responding to an infamous State
Department report on trafficking in human beings, one of those reports the government of
that country usually issues, as if it were the supreme moral judge of the world. In that
document Cuba is accused of being one of the countries that promotes sexual tourism and
child pornography.
Hardly two weeks went by, and instead of keeping a
decent silence about the irrefutable truth contained in the Epistle, the wire services
brought news of an election speech by Bush in Tampa, Florida containing new, more
perfidious accusations and insults, the clearly aimed at slandering Cuba and justifying
the threats of aggression and the brutal measures that they had just taken against our
people.
The French press agency AFP reported the following
from Tampa on July 16:
"President George Bush launched a harsh
attack on Cuba when he defined it as ‘a major destination for sex tourism’ and
said that the United States has a special duty to lead a world struggle against human
trafficking for forced labour or sexual purposes."
"Cuba is one of the 10 countries cited by the
State Department in a report issued in June in which it lists the governments which
tolerate human trafficking or fail to fight this crime."
"The regime of Fidel Castro has turned Cuba
into a major destination for sex tourism replacing Southeast Asia as a destination for
pedophiles and sex tourists from the United Sates and Canada," Bush claimed.
"At a conference in Tampa, Florida, the
president pointed to Cuba as one of the worst offenders in this area."
"Sex tourism is a vital source of hard currency
to keep his corrupt government afloat," he claimed.
"Bush said that putting an end to human
trafficking will be an essential part of his foreign policy."
"The traffic in human beings brings shame and
suffering to our country and we shall lead the fight against it," he promised.
"You are in a fight against evil, and the
American people are grateful for your dedication and service," he told those at the
conference.
"Human life is the gift of our Creator and it
should never be for sale."
A dispatch from the Spanish press agency EFE
indicated:
"We also face a problem only 90 miles off
our shores, Bush said in Florida."
"He quoted a study which found that Cuba has
"replaced Southeast Asia as a destination for pedophiles and sex tourists."
"As restrictions on travel to Cuba were eased
during the 1990s, the study found an influx of American and Canadian tourists contributed
to a sharp increase in child prostitution in Cuba."
"My administration is working toward a
comprehensive solution of this problem: The rapid, peaceful transition to democracy in
Cuba."
"We have put a strategy in place to hasten the
day when no Cuban child is exploited to finance a failed revolution and every Cuban
citizen will live in freedom."
"Bush said that ‘Human life is the gift of
our Creator and it should never be for sale."
"It takes a special kind of depravity to
exploit and hurt the most vulnerable members of society. Human traffickers rob children of
their innocence; they expose them to the worst of life before they have seen much of life.
Traffickers tear families apart. They treat their victims as nothing more than goods and
commodities for sale to the highest bidder."
And to top off this odd news, the same press
dispatch added some words spoken by John Ashcroft in his speech introducing Bush to the
National Training Conference on Human Trafficking:
"In the 19th Century President Abraham
Lincoln held firm to a vision of freedom for all and was rightly called the great
emancipator."
"In the 21st Century we have a great leader who
has made us see that liberty is not a gift from the United States to the world but a gift
to humanity from the Almighty."
Another wire report from the English news agency
Reuters read:
"Friday, the US president accused the Cuban
president of having turned his Caribbean island into a sex tourism destination and of
contributing to the world problem of human trafficking".
The Italian press agency ANSA reported:
"The regime in Havana is adding to its
crimes: it welcomes sex tourism", said Bush who even repeated a supposed quote by
Castro, ‘Cuba has the cleanest and most educated prostitutes in the
world.’"
Later, wire services have reported that the
quotation of something I supposedly said on this subject, which the US President used in
the Tampa speech I just mentioned to back up his serious accusations, was taken from a
paper on Cuba written by Charles Turnbull a law student from Vanderbilt University in the
United States who has emphatically stated that Bush’s speech misconstrued the real
meaning of a sentence included in his work, and clarified this and other matters in the
following way:
"Prostitution boomed in the Caribbean nation
after the collapse of the Soviet Union…"
"Castro, who had outlawed prostitution when he
took power in 1959, initially had few resources to combat it. But beginning in 1996, Cuban
authorities began to crack down on the practice."
"Although it still exists, it is far less
visible and it would be inaccurate to say the government promotes it".
On Monday, July 19, Bush administration officials
admitted they had no other source for the quote except the paper written by the
aforementioned student.
Given the fact that it was shown that the US
President had launched an extremely grave accusation based on a sentence found in a paper
written by an American student, who himself refuted the deliberate way Bush misconstrued
it, it’s hard to imagine a more bizarre response than that given by a Whitehouse
spokesperson when told about this refutation.
According to the news agency report, the
spokesperson simply, "…defended the inclusion [of the sentence] arguing that
it expressed an essential truth about Cuba", in other words, for the White House "the
essential truth about Cuba" is anything that the president conjures up in his
mind whether it has anything to do with reality or not.
This is exactly the kind of fundamentalist approach
that the President constantly resorts to when there are more than enough data, arguments,
truth, reasons, and facts on a particular subject but the only determining factor is the
idea he has in his mind or the idea that suits him: anything becomes the absolute and
irrefutable truth simply because Mr. Bush imagines it to be so.
Many people in the world who know very little about
the Cuban Revolution might fall victim to the lies and tricks the US government spreads
through the huge media available to it.
But there are many others, especially in poor
countries who are aware of what the Cuban revolution is about, of its marked dedication,
from the very beginning, to provide education and healthcare services to all its children
and the whole population; its spirit of solidarity that has led it to cooperate selflessly
with dozens of Third World countries; its strict adherence to the highest moral values,
its ethical principles, its lofty concept of the dignity and honour of its homeland and
its people for which Cuban revolutionaries have always been willing to give up their
lives. There is no doubt that these many friends, all over the world, will be wondering
how it is possible that such unspeakable, foul slander is hurled against Cuba.
This obliges me to give a most serious and honest
explanation of the causes, which in my view, give rise to these inconceivable,
irresponsible statements by the President of the most powerful nation on the planet, the
same who is threatening to wipe the Cuban revolution from the face of the Earth.
I shall do this as objectively as possible, making
no arbitrary statements or shamelessly misconstruing other people’s words, sentences
and concepts. I shall avoid any petty sentiment of vengeance or personal dislike.
A theme that has been widely documented in several
books by outstanding American scientific authors and other personalities is the current US
President’s alcoholism which lasted two decades when he was between 20 and 40 years
old. This feature has been rigorously and impressively dealt with, from a psychiatric
point of view and using scientific criteria, by Dr. Justin A. Frank in a now famous book
called "Bush on the Couch".
Dr. Frank begins by saying that it is important to
scientifically define whether Bush was an alcoholic, or if he still is one. He has
literally said:
"… the more pressing question involves
the influence his years of heavy drinking and subsequent abstinence still have on him and
those around him". (p.39)
He goes on to explain and I quote verbatim:
"Alcoholism is a potentially fatal, lifelong
disease that is notoriously difficult to arrest permanently" (p. 40)
Later, referring to the man who is now President of
the United States, he says:
"Bush has said publicly that he quit
drinking without the help of AA (an organization dedicated to helping alcoholics) or any
substance abuse programme, claiming that he stopped forever with the assistance of such
spiritual tools as bible study and conversations with the evangelist Billy Graham".
On page 40 of the book he recounts that,
according to ex-presidential speech writer David Frum, when Bush took over the Oval office
he summoned a group of religious leaders, asked for their prayers and told them:
"There is only one reason that I am in the
Oval Office and not a bar… I found faith, I found God. I am here because of the power
of prayer".
Dr. Frank thinks that this statement might be true
and goes on to say the following:
"…surely all Americans would like to
believe that the president no longer drinks, even if we have no way of knowing for
certain. If so, he fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested
but not treated".
He then adds:
" Former drinkers who abstain without the
benefit of the AA program are often referred to as "dry drunks", a label that
has been bandied about on the Internet and elsewhere in reference to Bush. "Dry
drunk" isn’t a medical term, and not one I use in a clinical setting. But even
without labelling Bush as such, it’s hard to ignore the many troubling elements of
his character among the traits that the recovery literature associates with the condition,
including grandiosity, judgmentalism, intolerance, detachment, denial of responsibility, a
tendency toward over-reaction and an aversion to introspection." (p. 41)
Dr. Frank insists that he personally has treated
alcoholics who held their addiction in check without proper treatment but that they are
generally not very successful in learning to control the anxiety that they once tried to
suppress by drinking and he explains that:
"Their rigid attempts to manage anxiety make
any psychological insight hard-won. Some can’t even face the anxiety of admitting
their alcoholism.
Dr. Frank then goes on to say:
"Without that admission, I have found, even
former drinkers cannot truly change, or learn from their own experience".
And then referring to Bush specifically he argues
the following:
"The pattern of blame and denial, which
recovering alcoholics work so hard to break, seems to be ingrained in the alcoholic
personality; it’s rarely limited to his or her drinking. The habit of placing blame
and denying responsibility is so prevalent in George W. Bush’s personal history that
it is apparently triggered by even the mildest threat"
"… The rigidity of Bush’s behaviour
is perhaps most readily apparent in his well-documented reliance on his daily routines
-the famously short meetings, sacrosanct exercise schedule, daily Bible readings, and
limited office hours. A healthy person is able to alter his routine; a rigid one
cannot". (p.43)
"Of course" -the eminent US doctor
goes on, and I quote- "we all need rest and relaxation, time to regroup, but Bush
appears to need it more than most. And this is hardly a surprise -among other reasons,
because the anxiety of being president might pose a real risk of leading him back to
drinking." (p. 43)
"Along with rigid routines go rigid thought
processes -another hallmark of the Bush presidency. We see it in the stubborn, almost
obsessive way in which he holds on to ideas and plans after they have been discredited,
from his image of himself as a "uniter, not a divider" to his conviction that
Iraq held weapons of mass destruction (or, in absence of such weapons, that somehow
"America did the right thing in Iraq" nevertheless). Such rigidity of thought is
not motivated by simple stubbornness; the untreated alcoholic, consumed with the task of
managing the anxieties that might make him reach for a drink, simply can’t tolerate
any threat to his status quo".
And Dr. Frank adds that such intolerance generally
leads to responses that are out of proportion to the magnitude of the actual threat.
"This may help to explain the dramatic
contrast between George W’s response to Saddam Hussein and that of his father, who
carefully built a coalition, took action only after Kuwait had been invaded, and then
proceeded with prudence and caution once the fighting was underway - the behaviour of a
seasoned leader who knew he was responsible for countless others’ lives, not an
alcoholic accustomed to taking dramatic measures to protect his own."
Continuing his analysis, Dr. Frank indicates:
"Two questions that the press seems
particularly determined to ignore have hung silently in the air since before Bush took
office: Is he still drinking? And if not, is he impaired by all the years he did spend
drinking? Both questions need to be addressed in any serious assessment of his
psychological state". (p.48)
With regard to the first question, he points out the
possibility that Bush is managing his anxiety with medication to keep him off alcohol and
he makes special reference to his strange behaviour at press conferences. On this point he
says:
"In writing about Bush’s halting
appearance in a press conference just before the start of the Iraq War, Washington Post
media critic Tom Shales speculated that "the president may have been ever so slightly
medicated".
"More troubling though, are the appearances
that arouse suspicion not because of how he talks but what he says. He has repeatedly
engaged in confabulation, filling in gaps in his memory with what he believes are facts
-most notably on July 14, 2003, when he stood next to Kofi Annan and made up the idea that
America had given Saddam "a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t
let them in". (As the Washington Post noted, "Hussein had, in fact, admitted the
inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them
effective". Confabulation is a common phenomenon among drinkers, as is perseveration,
which is evident in Bush’s tendency to repeat key words and phrases, as if the
repetition helps him remain calm and stay on track." (p. 49)
And Dr. Frank concludes his analysis of these two
questions with the following words:
"Even if we assume, moreover, that George W.
Bush’s drinking days are behind him, the question remains how much lasting damage may
have been done before he stopped -beyond the considerable impact on his personality that
we can trace to his untreated abstinence. Any comprehensive psychological or
psychoanalytical study of President Bush would have to explore how much the brain and its
functions are changed by more than twenty years of heavy drinking. In a recent study out
of the University of California/San Francisco Medical Centre, researchers found that heavy
drinkers who do not call themselves alcoholics reveal that "their level of drinking
constitutes a problem that warrants treatment". The study found that the heavy
drinkers in its sample were "significantly impaired" on measures of working
memory, processing speed, attention, executive function and balance. Serious research
about long-term recovery from alcohol abuse is still underway. Science has established
that alcohol itself is toxic to the brain, both to its anatomy (as the brain gets smaller
and fissures between and around the hemisphere get larger) and to its neurophysiology. But
recovery does occur with continued sobriety, extending over a five-year period for many
alcoholics. Bush claims to have been sober for more that fifteen years, and very well may
have improved to pre-alcohol levels. However, even chronic alcoholics who recover their
compromised mental functions often suffer lingering damage to their ability to process new
information. Important neuropsychological functions are impaired: The new information is
essentially put into a file that is lost in the brain.
"Former heavy drinkers often have trouble
distinguishing between relevant and inconsequential information. They also may lose some
of their ability to maintain concentration. All one has to do to observe Bush’s
inattention is watch him listening to a speech given by someone else, watch his behaviour
at times on the campaign trail, or consider the obviously desperate effort he makes to
retain focus in every speech he gives." (p.50)
Finally, Dr. Frank points out that Bush would reduce
the fear of many Americans by submitting himself to psychological tests that could
scientifically measure the effects of alcoholism on his brain function and warns:
"Otherwise, we are left to suspect -with
reason- that our president may be impaired in his ability to make sense of complex ideas
and briefings" (p. 51)
And he ends up by saying:
"We all may be a little afraid to find out:
after all, he has already held office for three years and has led our nation into war. But
if we fail to do so, the consequences may indict every one of us". (p. 51)
Another aspect discussed in depth and in detail by
Dr. Justin A. Frank in this book, "Bush on the Couch", is that of President
Bush’s religious fundamentalism.
Dr. Frank explains how, in trying to find relief
from the internal chaos that drink sometimes appeased but eventually intensified, Bush may
have found in religion a source of peace, not totally different from that given by
alcohol, as well as a set of rules which help him to manage both the external world and
his inner spiritual world.
He suggests that an analysis of the role of
fundamentalism in Bush’s life would show that one of the many ways that Bush employs
religion as a defence mechanism is by using it as a substitute for illegal substances and
says that Bush uses religion to simplify and even replace thought so that, to a certain
extent, he does not even need to think. He adds that Bush, by putting himself on the side
of good -on God’s side- places himself above mundane discussion and debate. Religion
serves as a shield to protect him from challenges, including those that he himself would
otherwise create.
Dr. Frank wonders how Bush reached this point and
then explains that, the Bush family tradition has long been fuelled by faith, by the
belief in a God linked closely to moral rectitude but he makes this distinction:
"Yet President Bush’s religious
orientation represents an important departure from his family. Though certain aspects of
the family tradition have been maintained -notably the formality of religious
participation- his mid-life conversion to a more fundamentalist approach stands in
dramatic contrast to the spiritual life of his father…" (p.56)
"And a review of the events leading up to
Bush’s conscious embrace of fundamentalism shows that it clearly occurred at a moment
when he was reaching for solutions, in a time of almost desperate need."
Dr Frank goes on to explain that fundamentalist
religions narrow the universe of opportunities and divide the world into good and bad, in
absolute terms that leave no space for questioning and on this point he argues:
"The view of the self is similarly
simplified. Just as fundamentalist creationist teachings deny history, the fundamentalist
notion of conversion or rebirth encourages the believer to see himself as disconnected
from history. George W. Bush’s evasive, self-serving defence of his life before he
was born again displays just this tendency. "It doesn’t do any good to inventory
the mistakes I made when I was young", he has insisted. "I think the way …
to answer questions about specific behaviour is to remind people that when I was young and
irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible. I changed…" To the believer, the
power of spiritual absolution not only erases the sins of the past, but divorces the
current self from the historical sinner". (p.60)
Dr. Frank makes it clear that there is nothing
inherently unnatural in the fact that Bush seeks protection from his faith and that, even
when this makes him stronger, the rigidity of his thought and speech patterns and of his
agenda point to a considerable fragility. He explains that Bush’s fear of everything
-from disagreement to terrorist attacks- are sometimes painfully visible, even (or
especially) through his denials and that he is a man desperately seeking protection. Dr.
Frank wonders: "But what is George W. Bush so eager to protect himself
against?" and he answers the question with the following analysis:
"His tightly held belief system shields him
from challenges to his ideas -from critics and opponents, but, more important, from
himself. Just beneath the surface, it’s hard not to believe that he suffers from an
innate fear of falling apart, a fear too terrifying for him to confront." (p.64)
"For someone so desperate not to lose his way,
clinging to a belief (or even a few key phrases), and sticking to them, is yet another way
to protect against falling apart. President Bush’s press conferences have offered
disturbing evidence of this ongoing anxiety -evidence so unmistakable that it’s
little wonder that the White House has proven so hesitant to schedule such events at all.
After one particularly disastrous performance in July 2003, the Slate political columnist
Timothy Noah noted that: "Bush seemed jangled"; in a damning editorial the
following day, the New York Times noted that the president’s answers were "vague
and sometimes nearly incoherent" -suggesting, perceptively, that Bush was
"bedazzled by his administration’s own mythmaking"
He gives some examples of phrases Bush used
repeatedly during that press conference:
"And so we’re making progress.
It’s slowly but surely making progress of bringing the -those who terrorize
their fellow citizens to justice, and making progress about convincing the Iraqi
people that freedom is real. And as they become more convinced that freedom is real,
they’ll begin to assume more responsibilities that are required in a free
society…
"And the threat is a real threat.
It’s a threat that where -we obviously don’t have specific data, we
don’t know when, where, what. But we do know a couple of things…obviously,
we’re talking to foreign governments and foreign airlines to indicate to them the
reality of the threat…
"I don’t know how close we are to
getting Saddam Hussein. You know -it’s closer that we were yesterday, I guess.
All I know is we’re on the hunt. It’s like if you had asked me right before we
got his sons how close we were to get his sons, I’d say, I don’t know, but we’re
on the hunt.
"Well first of all, the war on terror goes on,
as I continually remind people… The threat that you asked about, Steve,
reminds us that we need to be on the hunt, because the war on terror goes on…
"I just described to you that there is a threat
to the United States. There is no doubt in my mind, Campbell, that Saddam Hussein was a threat
to the United States’ security, and a threat to peace in the region…
"Saddam Hussein was a threat. The United
Nations viewed him as a threat. That’s why they passed twelve resolutions.
Predecessors of mine viewed him as a threat. We gathered a lot of intelligence.
That intelligence was good, sound intelligence on which I made a decision… (pp.
65-66)
And Dr. Frank goes on to say:
"So powerful are his fears that he
can’t even face them. His infamous early advice to Americans less than two weeks
after 9/11 -when he told Americans to continue to shop and travel as before, in apparent
denial of the radical measures he was at the same time taking in response to the
nation’s newfound vulnerability- suggests just how simplistically he viewed the
situation, closing himself off to worry and anxiety. Compare his response to that of New
York’s mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, who faced his fears, rolled up his sleeves and got to
work -making people feel far safer than Bush’s stilted denial ever did.
"Bush has continued to cite divine instruction
to explain his actions since assuming office. As reported in Israel’s Haaretz News,
Bush said, "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he
instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did".
Finally, Dr. Frank offers these thoughts:
"The Biblical struggle of good and evil has
resonated throughout his discourse since 9/11, from his repeated use of the term
"crusade" to his characterisation of the terrorists as "evildoers" and
grouping of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the "Axis of Evil". At the same time,
he presents the United States as nothing more that a nation of wholly innocent victims.
"In externalizing evil in this way, while
absolving America of responsibility, Bush has transformed his unintegrated infantile
worldview into a starkly combative (and primitive) foreign policy.
"Bush’s rhetoric" -Dr. Frank
concludes- "highlights how he identifies the concepts of himself as president with
both God and America: for him these three appear to have become somewhat interchangeable.
Unable to mourn the dead of 9/11 enough to allow for a full investigation of how it
happened -and what responsibility we might have had- he blindly attacks the
"enemy" he perceives to be everywhere, a terrorist suddenly hiding under
rock".
In his book "Stupid White Men", Michael
Moore points out that Bush exhibits obvious symptoms of not being able to read at an adult
level and writes the following as part of an open letter to Bush:
"1. George, are you able to read and write
on an adult level?
"It appears to me and many others that, sadly,
you may be a functional illiterate. This is nothing to be ashamed of… Millions of
Americans cannot read and write above a fourth grade level.
"But let me ask you this: if you have trouble
comprehending the complex position papers you are handed as the Leader of the Mostly-Free
World, how can we entrust something like our nuclear secrets to you?
"All the signs of illiteracy area there -and
apparently no one has challenged you about them. The first clue was what you named as your
favourite childhood book, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", you said.
"Unfortunately, that book wasn’t even
published until a year after you graduated from college."
"One thing is clear to everyone -you can’t
speak the English language in sentences we can comprehend.
"If you are going to be Commander-in-Chief, you
have to be able to communicate your orders. What if these little slip-ups keep happening?
Do you know how easy it would be to turn a little faux pas into a national-security
nightmare?
"Your aides say that you don’t
(can’t?) read the briefing papers they give you, and that you ask them to read them
for you or to you."
"Please , don’t take any of this
personally. Perhaps it’s a learning disability. Some sixty million Americans have
learning disabilities".
In his book "Against All Enemies", Richard
Clarke writes that when Bush got to the White House, "Early on we were told that
the president is not a big reader".
Bob Woodward’s book "Bush at War"
tells that, in a National Security Council meeting during the Afghanistan war, Bush said:
"I don’t read the editorial pages. I don’t --the hyperventilation that
tends to take place around those cables, every expert and every former colonel and all
that, is just background noise".
Thus far I have given a very brief summary of what
has been said on some points by outstanding Americans, things which help to explain the
strange behaviour and aggressiveness of the US President.
I do not want to elaborate now on more sensitive
issues like those whose exposure cost his life to J.H. Hatfield, author of the book
"Fortunate Son", and others of great interest analyzed by truly brilliant,
brave, eminent authors.
Mr. Bush’s lies and slanders and those of his
closest advisors were fabricated in a hurry to justify the atrocious measures taken
against Cuban-born people living in the United States who have close family ties in Cuba.
This outrage, as we warned on June 21, might have
adverse political consequences in Florida which could play a decisive role in this
year’s elections. The idea of a punishment vote is gaining ground among thousands of
Cuban-Americans, many of whom would normally have voted for Bush.
Hatred and blindness have lead this administration
to take a stupid, immoral action under pressure from the terrorist mob which gave Bush a
fraudulent victory when he had a million votes less than his rival nationwide, and a
narrow majority of 537 votes in Florida where thousands of black Americans were prevented
from exercising their right to vote whereas many dead people ‘exercised’ theirs.
Fifteen or twenty thousand voters could sink his hopes of re-election. These brutal
measures have also been criticized all over the country.
The overwhelming majority of those who are members
of or run that terrorist mob -which decided no less a thing than the election of the
President of the United States- are former Batista supporters and their descendents; or
they are groups who for years have been involved in the terrorist actions, pirate attacks,
assassination plots against Cuban revolutionary leaders and all kinds of armed aggressions
against our country; or they were big landowners and relatives of the upper middle classes
who were affected by revolutionary laws and who previously had all kinds of privileges and
many of whom have amassed huge fortunes and have gained influence in important power
circles in the US governments.
Over 90 percent of those who have emigrated from
Cuba since the triumph of the revolution have done so through normal channels and for
economic reasons, their leaving authorized by the Revolution that placed no obstacles. But
Cuban immigrants were forced to go under the Caudine Forks of that powerful mafia whose
influence they could not easily ignore.
Unlike many millions of Latin Americans, including
Haitians and other Caribbeans, that emigrate legally and illegally to the United States
and are called immigrants, Cubans, with no exception whatsoever, are called exiles.
On the other hand, the absurd Cuban Adjustment Act
has caused the loss of countless Cuban lives by rewarding and encouraging illegal
emigration and giving Cubans extraordinary privileges that are not granted to citizens of
any other country in the world.
Nevertheless, years ago, even before the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the special period that ensued, and despite the risk of espionage and
terrorist plans originating in the United States which the measures entailed, Cuba gave
permits to émigrés so they could visit their relatives and their country of origin,
whereas the Bush administration is abruptly closing the doors because of its fanatical
obsession of bringing Cuba to its knees through economic suffocation.
And, to that same end of depriving our country of
any income whatsoever, he labels the tourist industry in Cuba sex tourism and calls those
who visit our country coming from the United States "paedophiles" and
"pleasure seekers".
Mr Bush does not hesitate either in tarring Canadian
tourists with the same brush when everybody knows that the overwhelming majority of them
are pensioners and senior citizens who, in the company of their relatives, come to enjoy
the exceptional safety and calm, the politeness, culture and hospitality that they find in
our country.
What would Mr. Bush call the tens of millions of
tourists who visit the United States every year where casinos, gambling dens, areas of
male and female prostitution and many other activities related to pornography and sex
abound, none of which exist in Cuba and all of which are alien to the revolutionary
culture of our people?
What would he call the tens of millions of Europeans
who visit Spain every year where many pages in the papers are used to advertising the
names, addresses, the physical, cultural and intellectual characteristics and the
specialities and individual gifts to suit all tastes of those who exercise the age-old
profession of prostitution? Would he call the US and Spanish tourist industries sex
tourism?
None of the aforementioned activities take place in
Cuba. However, in the fevered and fundamentalist mind of the all-powerful gentleman in the
White House and in those of his most intimate advisors, Cuba must now be "saved"
not only from "tyranny", Cuban children must now be "saved from sexual
exploitation and trafficking in persons" "the world must be freed from this
dreadful problem which takes place 90 miles away from the United States".
Has no one told him that in Cuba before the triumph
of the revolution in 1959 about 100,000 women were directly or indirectly involved in
prostitution for reasons of poverty, discrimination and lack of work and that the
Revolution educated these women and found them jobs, and outlawed the so-called
"tolerance zones" which existed in the pseudo-republic and the neo-colony
installed by the United States?
Has no one told him that the Cuban children, whose
physical, mental and moral health is the number one priority of the Revolution, are
protected by more severe laws than those of the United States and that they all attend
school, including more than 50,000 who suffer from mental or physical disabilities and
that, without exceptions, receive specialized care in special education centres?
Has no one told him that infant mortality is lower
in Cuba than it is in the United States and that it continues to decrease?
Has no one dared to whisper in his ear that Cuba
occupies an outstanding and internationally recognized place in education; that health and
education services are free and extend to the whole population; that today programs are
underway in education, health and culture that will place Cuba far above all the other
countries in the world?
The historic session of the National Assembly of
People’s Power held on July 1 and 2, exposed them and showed how ridiculous is the
grotesque over 400-page-long-report which gives an ample account and full details of the
neo-colonial and annexationist programs the fascist group which begot this disgusting
project propose to implement to the detriment of the Cuban people and their sovereignty.
This report has done nothing if not unite our people even more and give a boost to their
fighting spirit.
They must be absolutely mad to talk of such things
as implementing literacy and vaccination programs in Cuba where illiteracy was eradicated
a long time ago, where minimum school attendance is up to grade nine and where children
are vaccinated against 13 diseases. Actually, such programs should be applied to tens of
millions of Americans who are left out, who do not enjoy the benefits of social security
and who have not been to school or are completely illiterate or functionally illiterate.
The US administration has not even dared to say a
single word about the generous offer that our country made of saving, in a short 5 year
period, a life for every life lost in the Twin Towers, by providing free health care to
3000 US citizens who have no access to healthcare services that are indispensable for
preserving life. Neither have they replied to the question of whether or not those who may
decide to come to Cuba to take advantage of this opportunity would be punished.
It is really revealing that on the very same day
that Mr. Bush spouted such outrageous slanders and threats, a prestigious American
scientific institution from California signed an agreement with the Cuban Molecular
Immunology Centre for transferring technology developed in our country for the clinical
trials and later manufacture of three promising vaccines in the battle against cancer,
which, as you know, kills more than half a million Americans every year.
It is only fair to acknowledge that in this case the
US authorities did not set any obstacle.
This fact shows how the fruits of everything I have
talked about before are beginning to sprout all over our country, despite 45 years of a
harsh blockade and of aggressions by US governments.
And these are not biological weapons, nor chemical
weapons, nor nuclear weapons; these are scientific discoveries which could help all
humanity.
Let’s hope that, in Cuba’s case, God does
not ‘instruct’ Mr. Bush to attack our country but that he rather inspires him to
avoid this colossal mistake! He had better check on any divine belligerent order by
consulting the Pope and other prestigious dignitaries and theologians from the Christian
churches, asking them for their opinion
Excuse me, Mr. President of the United States of
America, for not writing a third epistle to you this time but it would have been difficult
to analyze this subject in that way. It might have been taken for a personal insult and I
rather adhere to common courtesy.
Hail, Cesar! I say, but this time I add: Those who
are willing to die have no fear of your enormous power, of your unbridled rage, nor of
your dangerous and cowardly threats against Cuba!
Long live the truth!
Long live human dignity!
July 26, 2004
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