Archive | Reflections of Fidel

I had the privilege of talking for three hours last Thursday 15th with Hugo Chávez, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, who had the gentility to once again visit our country, this time arriving from Nicaragua. Few times in my life, perhaps never, have I met a person who has been capable of leading […]

I had the privilege of following directly the voices, images, ideas, arguments, faces, reactions and applause of the delegates taking part in the final session of the 9th Congress of the Young Communist League of Cuba held at the Convention Center last Sunday, April 4. The TV cameras show details from much better angles and […]

Barack Obama is a fanatical believer in the imperialist capitalist system imposed by the United States on the world. “God bless the United States,” he ends his speeches. Some of his acts wounded the sensibility of world opinion, which viewed with sympathy the African-American candidate’s victory over that country’s extreme right-wing candidate. Basing himself on […]

This is not an ideological issue related to the irremediable hope that a better world is and must be possible. It is known that homo sapiens has existed for approximately 200,000 years, equivalent to a minuscule space in the time that has passed since the first forms of elemental life on our planet emerged around […]

We met in Managua, on July 1980, 30 years ago, –during the commemoration of the first anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution– thanks to my contacts with the followers of the Liberation Theology, which had started in Chile when I visited President Allende there in 1971. I had heard about Lula from Friar Betto. He was […]

I liked history, as most boys do. Wars as well, a culture that society sowed in male children. All the toys offered us were weapons. In my childhood they sent me to a city where I was never taken to a movie theater. Television did not exist then, and there was no radio in the […]

In my Reflection of January 14, two days after the catastrophe in Haiti, which destroyed that neighboring sister nation, I wrote: “In the area of healthcare and others the Haitian people has received the cooperation of Cuba, even though this is a small and blockaded country. Approximately 400 doctors and healthcare workers are helping the […]

The news reported from Haiti describes a great chaos that was to be expected, given the exceptional situation created in the aftermath of the catastrophe. At first, a feeling of surprise, astonishment, and commotion set in. A desire to offer immediate assistance came up in the farthest corners of the Earth. What assistance should be […]

TWO days ago, at almost six o’clock in the evening Cuban time and when, given its geographical location, night had already fallen in Haiti, television stations began to broadcast the news that a violent earthquake – measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale – had severely struck Port-au-Prince. The seismic phenomenon originated from a tectonic fault […]

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.

Climate change is already causing considerable damage and hundreds of millions of poor people are suffering the consequences.

The youth is more interested than anyone else in the future. Until very recently, the discussion revolved around the kind of society we would have. Today, the discussion centers on whether human society will survive. These are not dramatic phrases. We must get used to the true facts. Hope is the last thing human beings can relinquish. With truthful arguments, men and women of all ages, especially young people, have waged an exemplary battle at the Summit and taught the world a great lesson.

The news from the Danish capital gives a picture of chaos. After planning a conference with about 40 thousand people in attendance, the hosts find it impossible to honor their promise. Evo, the first of the two presidents of ALBA-member countries to arrive, stated some truths derived from the millennium-old culture of his people.

Fifteen years ago to this day, on December 14, 1994 we met at the Main Hall of the University of Havana. The previous night I had waited for you at the steps of the plane that brought you to Cuba.

In the final paragraphs of a Reflection entitled “The Bells Are Tolling For the Dollar,” published two months ago, on October 9, I mentioned the climate change problem brought on humanity by imperialist capitalism. With regards to carbon emissions I said: “The United States is not making any real effort but accepting just a 4% reduction with respect to the year 1990.” At that moment, scientists were demanding a minimum of 25 to 40 percent by the year 2020.

The United States, in its struggle against the Revolution, had in the Venezuelan government its best ally: the choice specimen Mr. Romulo Betancourt Bello. We did not know it then. He had been elected President on December 7, 1958; he had not taken office yet when the Cuban Revolution triumphed on January 1st, 1959. Weeks later I had the privilege of being invited by the provisional government of Wolfgang Larrazabal to visit Bolivar’s homeland, which had been so supportive of Cuba.

I know Chavez well, and no one could be more reluctant than him to allow a showdown between the Venezuelan and Colombian peoples leading to bloodshed. These are two fraternal peoples, the same as Cubans living in the east, center and west end of our island. I find no other way to explain the close relationship between Venezuelans and Colombians.

How I regret having to criticize Obama, knowing that in that country there are other potential presidents worse than him. I understand that in the United States that office is currently a tremendous headache. Perhaps nothing could explain it better than the information in yesterday’s Granma that 237 members of the U.S. Congress; in other […]

Anyone with some information can immediately see that the sweetened ‘Complementation Agreement for Defense and Security Cooperation and Technical Assistance between the Governments of Colombia and the United States’ signed on October 30, and made public in the evening of November 2, amounts to the annexation of Colombia by the United States.

Yesterday, Carmen Nordelo Tejera passed away. She was the selfless mother of Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, a Hero of the Republic of Cuba who is unjustly serving two life-sentences plus 15 years of imprisonment.