Tag Archives | The Blockade

These days, many news cables are talking about China’s economic potential.

In the game between the Japanese and Cuban teams that concluded today at close to 3:00 a.m., we were unquestionably defeated.

The response came barely a few hours later. Rahm Emmanuel, the White House chief of staff, spoke. It is of no importance that he failed to mention my modest Reflection. What is important is the response.

It could loose strength but it is already raining in most of the country. It’s raining on farming areas absolutely drenched by the recent rainfalls. The water reservoirs filled up to almost full capacity due to hurricanes Gustav and Ike will be releasing water on cultivated fields and valleys. This already happened at the end of August and early September. This hurricane has been given the misleading name of Paloma.

Three days ago, on Friday October 10, the world was shocked by the impact of the Wall Street financial crisis. There is no way to count the millions of dollars in paper money injected by the Federal Reserve into the world’s finances to keep up banking operations and to prevent depositors from losing their money.

Reading the cables will suffice.

In the reflection I wrote the day before yesterday I stated that Cuba would not accept any donation from the government that is blockading us and that, in the Verbal Note handed over to the U.S. Interests Section, we had requested authorization so that U.S. companies could sell us construction materials; that same Note made no reference whatsoever to foodstuffs. There was an additional request for trade in those materials to take place under normal conditions, including credits, something that is only logical considering that, for eight years, our country has been paying in cash for the few commodities that U.S. companies are authorized to export to Cuba.

When the U.S. government hypocritically offered $100,000 as aid in the face of the disaster brought about by Hurricane Gustav, subject to an on-site inspection to confirm the damage, the response was that Cuba is unable to accept any donations from the country that is blockading us; that the damage had already been calculated and that what we were calling for was that it not prevent the export of essential materials and credits associated with commercial operations.

I have carefully followed the Western media’s reaction to my Sunday reflections on the Olympic Games in China. Actually, rather sensitive events were overlooked while others were highlighted ad libitum by the advocates of world plunder and exploitation.

Raul was right to keep dignified silence over the statements published last Monday, July 21st, by Izvestia on the eventual installation of strategic Russian fighter-planes bases in our country. The news came up from a certain hypothesis elaborated in Russia associated with the Yankees obstinacy in setting up radars and launching pads for their nuclear shield close to the borders of that great power.

We know that people living in industrialized and wealthy countries spend, on average, 25 percent of their income on food. Those who live in nations which were condemned to economic underdevelopment by the former devote up to 80 percent of their income to this end. Many go physically hungry and endure immense social disparities. Unemployment rates are usually two to three times higher; infant mortality rates are even higher, and life expectancy is as little as two-thirds that which is reported in rich countries. This system is simply genocidal.

The discredited way in which the European Union suspended its sanctions on Cuba on June 19 has been reported in 16 international press dispatches. It has absolutely no economic effect on our country. On the contrary, the United States’ extraterritorial laws and, thus, its economic and financial blockade are still fully in effect.

It would seem there’s no topic worthy of addressing that would not bore our patient readers, after the Round Table program of June 12, which dealt with the new edition of a book published in Bolivia 15 years ago, featuring now a prologue I wrote. During this program, an introduction was also read written at a later date by Evo Morales and a message from the prestigious Argentinean writer Stella Calloni, to be included in an upcoming edition. I had carefully chosen the information I used for that prologue.

It would be dishonest of me to remain silent after hearing the speech Obama delivered on the afternoon of May 23 at the Cuban American National Foundation created by Ronald Reagan. I listened to his speech, as I did McCain’s and Bush’s. I feel no resentment towards him, for he is not responsible for the crimes perpetrated against Cuba and humanity. Were I to defend him, I would do his adversaries an enormous favor. I have therefore no reservations about criticizing him and about expressing my points of view on his words frankly.

Just a few days ago, a friend of mine sent me the text of a report from Gallup, the well-known U.S. opinion pollster. I started to leaf through the material with the natural lack of confidence given the lying and hypocritical information usually used against our nation.

It was a survey on education in which Cuba was included…

It was created in 1943 to fight Nazi submarines and protect shipping during World War II. It was deactivated as unnecessary in 1950. The Southern Command was meeting the needs of United States hegemony in our region. However, it has been reborn in recent days, after 48 years, and its interventionist purposes do not need to be demonstrated. The military officials themselves, in their statements, are making that known naturally, spontaneously and even discreetly. The problems of food prices, energy, unequal trade, an economic recession in the market most important for their products, inflation, climate change and investments required for their consumerist dreams, are weighing down and consuming the time and energy of the leaders and the led.

I have decided to write this reflection after listening to a public comment disseminated by one of the media of the Revolution, which I will not specifically mention.

We must be very careful about the assertions we make, in order not to play into our enemy’s ideology.

The secondary school students met: their 11th Congress was taking place. Listening to them, I felt a healthy pride and understandable envy. What a privilege at their fruitful age! Along with the massive nature of university study today, so is a more important activity: the battle of ideas before enrolling in university.

The knock-out took place in the capital of the Dominican Republic. We followed every second of the match on Telesur. Nearly all of the Latin American presidents from the Rio Group were there. Ecuadorian President Correa had announced it the day before. I underscored the importance of this meeting in one of my reflections.

That Tuesday, there was no fresh international news. My modest message to the people of Monday, February 18 had no problem being widely circulated. I began to receive news from 11:00 a.m. The previous night I slept like never before. My conscience was at rest and I had promised myself a vacation. The days of tension, with the proximity of February 24, left me exhausted.

Yesterday, I said that while Bush was speaking to Congress, McCain was being honored at the Versailles Restaurant of Little Havana.

It was there that most of the fiercest enemies of the Cuban Revolution and their families took up residence, Batista’s followers, the big landowners, owners of apartment buildings and millionaires who tyrannized and plundered our people. The United States government has used them at will, to organize invaders and terrorists who have shed our people’s blood through almost 50 years. Later, illegal emigrants joined that stream, along with the Cuban Adjustment Act and the brutal blockade imposed on the people of Cuba.