FIDEL: "Truth and Diatribes"

[magbana]

Reflections by comrade Fidel

TRUTH AND DIATRIBES

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 destine 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.

In the reflection I wrote three days ago, I stated: "Our country has
demonstrated that it can stand up to all pressures and help other
peoples”. Could Europe affirm the same thing?

A UNESCO report published yesterday, June 20, states that a 2-year
study conducted with over 200 thousand children from 16 countries
places Cuba as Latin America's number one country in terms of third
grade mathematics and reading and sixth grade mathematics and
science, with over 100 points above the regional average. This is the
second time Cuba is thus recognized by UNESCO.

It is reasonable to assume that no country where human rights are
systematically violated can reach such high educational levels.

Why has Cuba been blockaded for 50 years?

Why is it the object of slander?

Why is it barred from all access to technical and scientific
information?

Why do they seek to take it back to an unsustainable economic and
social system which offers no answers whatsoever to humanity's
problems?

There is a reason millions of Bolivian, Ecuadorian, Uruguayan,
Argentinean, Brazilian, Central American and other Latin American
citizens have migrated to Europe, whence now they can be brutally
returned to their countries of origin if they fail to meet the
requirements set down by the new anti-immigrant laws.

What's worse: figures several times larger of Mexican, Central and
South American citizens have emigrated to the United States, crossing
borders, walls and seas, without any kind of documentation or any
Adjustment Act that privileges them or encourages them to emigrate.
Of them, 500 die each year. In addition to this, thousands perish
every year in Mexico and Central America, victims of organized crime,
in the struggle to control the drugs market in the United States,
where its highest authorities are unable and unwilling to combat drug
use.

Assistant attorney José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos declared that human
trafficking is the second most profitable illegal activity in the
world. In the case of Cubans, profits are comparable to those of
drug-trafficking: "They charge as much as 10,000 dollars per person.”

The money comes from the United States. I don't believe Mexico can
become a haven for the trafficking of immigrants, as even US coast
guards intercept and return those who are captured at sea.

Mexico is not obliged to accept having a version of the dry-foot
wet-foot policy imposed on it.

There is no organized crime in Cuba or any kind of impunity for
drug-trafficking. It has combated both efficiently, without resorting
to a blood bath. Only hypocrisy explains why the United States hasn't
acknowledged this fact.

I did not write an anti-Europe diatribe, I simply wrote the truth.
It is not my fault if the truth proves offensive.

To keep yesterday's reflection short, I did not even mention weapons
exports, military spending and NATO's military adventures, let alone
the secret flights and Europe's complicity in the acts of torture
perpetrated by the United States.

I have no knowledge of anyone having been arrested anywhere in the
country for breaking the law. That has nothing to do with the
reflection which I asked be published exclusively on Cubadebate.
Any connection is totally arbitrary. I will make use of this
Internet site as I deem appropriate. I shan't try anyone's
patience. I don't make a cent doing this, I work for free.

I am not, nor will ever be, the leader of a faction or splinter
group. No one has any reason to assume, therefore, that there are
inner struggles in the Party. If I write, it is because I continue to
struggle, in the name of the convictions I have defended all of my
life.

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 21, 2008
1:34 p.m.

http://www.granma.cu/espanol/2008/junio/sabado21/laverdad.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. They have every right to be proud of their educational achievements. Fantastic

findings from UNESCO!

Just THINK what they could have accomplished if they hadn't been fighting the crushing effects of the embargo, and the constant waves of terrorism from Florida for around 50 years.

They managed this level of excellence under economic warfare, and constant bombardment, real and constant from the U.S. through direct violence, destruction of crops, livestock, biological warfare (as testified in a murder trial in New York City by Eduardo Arocena) in constant destabilization efforts, international isolation through Helms-Burton, massive disinformation and propaganda campaigns from the U.S. government at the hands of specialists like Otto Reich.

And STILL they forge ahead of countries like Colombia, which is pleased to receive the THIRD LARGEST FOREIGN AID PACKAGE IN THE WORLD, with the U.S. taxpayers popping for it.

Congratulations, bravo, well done to Cuba.