COMRADE FIDEL: "Who Wants to be in the Garbage Dump?"

[magbana]

REFLECTIONS BY COMRADE FIDEL

http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2008/ing/f220208i.html

WHO WANTS TO BE IN THE GARBAGE DUMP?

Today, by mere chance, I remembered that the OAS still exists, when
I read a cable posted on the Internet which contained an article by
Georgina Saldierna, published in La Jornada, titled “Insulza rules
out the possibility of re-admitting Cuba into the OAS”. No one even
remembered the OAS. Note how retrograde this line of reasoning is.

Yesterday, the Secretary General of the Organization of American
States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza, dismissed the possibility of
immediately re-admitting Cuba into this multilateral organization
because there is no consensus on the matter among its members, among
other reasons.

In this connection, Insulza remarked that, for full re-admission into
the OAS, one of the requisites Cuba would have to meet is adhering to
the norms of the organization, including the Inter-American
Democratic Charter and the Convention on Human Rights.

If this isn’t comical enough, read Antonio Caño’s article, published
in El Pais on February 21, 2008, titled “Cuba’s Isolation only Serves
the Purpose of Perpetuating the Agony of the System.”

“One of the most respected voices among Cuban exiles, businessman
Carlos Saladrigas (Cuba 1948) hopes that Fidel Castro’s resignation
could represent “the open door for permanent changes” and asks the
Cuban community in Miami and the Government of the U.S. to act
“cautiously” and with a “spirit of reconciliation”, to avoid losing
this opportunity.”

“Saladrigas, who is President of a small organization known as the
Cuba Study Group, which is composed by other political associations
and human rights organizations known as Consenso Cubano, has spent
millions of his private funds in the last few years in order to plant
the seeds for a modern and centrist alternative to the radical
leadership that used to dominate the Cuban exile community in the
U.S. In the leadership vacuum in which Miami found itself after the
death of Jorge Mas Canosa, Saladrigas is a respected voice in
intellectual circles and listened by the media and foreign
diplomats.”

“During a phone conversation from the Dominican Republic, Saladrigas
expressed his belief that (…) Cuba’s isolation only serves the
purpose of perpetuating the agony which the regimen represents”.

“In his opinion this is the time for great hope, both for Cuban
exiles, as well as for dissidents inside the island”.

“The exile community must help by stimulating the steps that will
begin to take place in Cuba and by not rejecting them. Transitions
are made one step at a time”.

“It is important”, says Saladrigas, “that the regimen loose its fear
of the exile community, because the lesser the fear, the faster
things will move along”. Change, in his opinion, is unstoppable (…)”

“There are a million Cubans in Florida with sufficient resources to
revitalize the economy of the Island in very little time, given
adequate conditions, which must be created both by the U.S. and in
Cuba: by the U.S. lifting restrictions to U.S. citizens wishing to
invest in Cuba, and by Cuba, legalizing private property and foreign
economic activity.”

“Once these conditions have been achieved, according to Saladrigas,
political reforms will follow automatically. The most urgent measures
should be the release of all political prisoners. Once this has been
done, and the door has been opened to investments, the exile
community could become the biggest support fund that any political
transition has ever known throughout history.”

The name Carlos Saladrigas rings a bell; it is a name I heard many
times when, at 18 years old I was concluding my fifth and last year
of high school. He was the candidate Batista had chosen at the close
of the last year of his constitutional term. Before, he had been his
Prime Minister. The Second World War was coming to an end.

The new Carlos Saladrigas now wants to buy us for peanuts! With the
money in Miami, “the biggest support fund that any political
transition has ever known throughout history.” This is something the
United States has never achieved, not even with all of the money in
the world.

The facts are quite different and they are evident to those who
follow events in Cuba objectively.

An article by David Brooks, published less than 12 hours ago by
Mexico’s La Jornada, titled “The United States relegated to mere
spectator of Cuba’s political transition” employs arguments which
ought to be emphasized.

Brooks notes that he does not cease to be amazed by how one of the
smallest countries in the world obliges the political, business,
media and academic leaders of the world’s most powerful nation to
respond to its decisions of doing or not doing, changing or not
changing, or simply leaving everything shrouded in mystery.

In the past 24 hours, he stresses, President George W. Bush, senior
State Department and National Security Council officials, federal
legislators, the presidential pre-candidates and other top-level
political figures, political analysts and the main foreign policy
institutions, all printed and electronic media, human rights
organizations and others have responded to Fidel Castro’s
decision of not running for another term in office.

“While a political transition is underway in Cuba, no one in the
United States, according to Brooks, expects any changes to take place
in the few months that remain of term of George W. Bush, the tenth
U.S. president who promised to impose changes in Cuba only to reach
the end of his term and see Fidel Castro still defending his
country’s policy and defying the superpower.

“Once again, he adds, Washington and all of the experts were reduced
to mere spectators and had to recognize that the transition is to be
determined by Cuba and is not the result of the policy Washington has
pursued for half a century.”

“He points out that Julia Sweig, an expert on the bilateral relations
between the two countries and director of the Latin American program
for the Council on Foreign relations underscored that the embargo and
other restrictions, which have only served to limit U.S. foreign
policy at this pivotal moment, should already have been lifted.

“Ex Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson,” Brooks writes, “General Colin
Powell’s right-hand man and currently co-chair of the New America
Foundation’s U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative again remarked that this
juncture is an opportunity to change the United States’ posture,
admitting that ‘our Cuba policy is a failure’ and that no changes
were likely under the current presidency. The presidential candidates
and others should begin to analyze this policy, including obvious
things like lifting travel restrictions and some aspects of the
embargo, so that the next president can implement some changes.”

As Brooks points out, the New York Times echoes these arguments in
today’s editorial, arguing that “the administration has gone out of
its way to ensure that it has no chance of influencing events there.
In the name of tightening the failed embargo, it has made it much
harder for academics, artists and religious people to travel to Cuba
and spread the good word about democracy (…).” The Times proposes
putting Miami’s interests aside, even if it’s particularly difficult
in an electoral year, to enter into direct communication with “Mr.
Castro’s successors”.

“Following Castro’s announcement in Havana,” according to Brooks,
“the United State’s political dynamic can also change. The three main
presidential pre-candidates commented on the matter yesterday.
Republican John McCain and Democrat Hillary Clinton repeated the old
rhetoric that Cuba must show changes before Washington can consider
changing its policy.

“Democrat Barack Obama –who, as candidate for Senate in 2003, was in
favor of lifting the embargo— has now qualified his position, but he
is the only one who has supported a relaxation of restrictions on
travel and the sending of remittances to Cuba, stating, yesterday,
that if there are signs of democratization on the island “the United
States must be prepared to begin taking steps to normalize relations
and to ease the embargo (…)”

According to the Wall Street Journal, “we have had a bad policy for
nearly 50 years, for bad reasons that have nothing to do with Cuba”
federal representative Charles Rangel, chair of one of Congress’ most
influential committees, declared. Several other legislators regard
this moment as a possible opening to promote changes in bilateral
policy.

“The business sector,” he adds, “which for years has expressed its
opposition to the blockade, could also see this as an opportunity to
redouble their efforts to change U.S. policy, turning to the
bipartisan support of legislators and governors who see the Cuban
market as something more attractive than maintaining an ideological
position aligned with a president and government that are
increasingly discredited in Washington.

“Apparently, the transition in Cuba could cause a transition within
the United States, according to the article. But perhaps Washington
and Miami are more opposed to change than Havana.”

As the readers will appreciate, I have done some work as I await the
historical decision of the 24th.

Now, I will go several days without putting pen to paper.

Fidel Castro Ruz

February 22, 2008

5:56 p.m.

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