Cuba's Biological Weapons: The World Needs More of Them

[Mike Friedman <mikedf@xxxxxxxx>]

For those who don't know him, Dick Levins is an ecologist at Harvard
University, who has advised the Cuban government on ecological and
agricultural matters for the most of the past three decades. He also
co-authored "The Dialectical Biologist," together with well-known
Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin (also one of us). He is also on
the board of directors of the New York Marxist School/Brecht Forum.

Mike
----------------
CounterPunch



February 28, 2003

Cuba's Biological Weapons

The World Needs More of Them

By RICHARD LEVINS

Every once in a while, stories appear about "Castro's" biological
weapons, as in "Castro Weaponizes West Nile Virus"(by Martin
Arostegui, Insightmag posted September 16, 2002. The term "Castro" is
used in this literature interchangeably with "Cuba". It is apparently
the indigenous name for the largest of the Antilles, and like
"Borinquen" for "Puerto Rico" or "Quisqueya" for "Hispaniola", it
seems to have great sentimental value especially for the exile
community.

The stories usually originate in publications linked to the right
wing of Miami exiles. They quote each other, and sometimes they make
it to Washington, where they are eventually qualified by a cooler
head or are allowed to fade away.

But all these tales miss the point. Cuba's real biological weapons
programs are hidden in the way the Purloined Letter was hidden, right
in the open where everyone can see it and no one recognizes it for
what it is.

It seems that while a student in the Jesuit Seminary of his youth,
Fidel read Edgar Allen Poe's famous mystery story and remembered it
for the rest of his life. Or maybe he didn't. Or it is possible that
on some dark and stormy night in the Sierra Maestra, when Batista's
soldiers were all tucked in their beds and there was nobody to
ambush, and when he was finally bored with thinking up new ways of
tormenting the Cuban people, Fidel borrowed the book from Che. In any
case we suspect that he was familiar with Poe's story and that he
used the stratagem made famous by that American author to confound
the world. Anyway, everyone is free to make things up about Fidel.

The fact of the case is, I am now able to confess (without guarantee
of book or movie rights) that for more than 35 years I have been an
active participant and observer of three of Cuba's major biological
weapons programs and can testify to their deceptive locations and
advanced status of development.

The three major programs are: Universal, free, and quality health
care; Ecological agriculture; Preservation of sustainable
biodiversity.

Cuba's health program is now recognized as one of the most effective
in the world. Infant mortality, at 6.5/1000 live births, is tied with
Canada for the best record in the western hemisphere. Life expectancy
is up among the industrialized high income countries. Cuba has the
highest number of physicians per capita in the world, the most
complete coverage of infant immunizations, the most equitable access
to medical care. Cuban health education includes an active pushing of
increased vegetable use, while urban gardens provide 3 million tons
of fresh produce per year for 11 million people. An outbreak of
dengue fever, now a major scourge in the world tropics, was contained
by mass mobilizations to eliminate breeding sites for mosquitoes.

Cuban vaccines such as the one against meningitis are widely used in
Latin America. Cuba has been able to send public health teams abroad,
to Central America and Africa, and receives patients from all over
the world in their specialized hospitals and clinics including some
11,000 Ukrainian children injured by the Chernobyl meltdown.

After a period of trying out high-tech industrialized approaches to
agriculture, Cuba is rapidly advancing toward ecologically sound
organic production. Chemical fertilizers are being replaced by the
use of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, fungi that mobilize soil minerals,
earthworms, compost, animal manure and recycling the residues from
processing of the harvests. Pesticides are being replaced by
polyculture (the mixed plantings that confuse or obstruct
herbivores), natural enemies (predatory ants, mites, ladybugs,
lacewings and others), parasites of insect pests (mostly wasps and
flies), fungus infections of the pests, and the application of
natural products such as neem or mineral oil. In increasingly
diversified farms, goats and horses contribute to weed control.

Almost all the urban vegetable and about half the total food
production is organic.

Cuba leads the world in active compliance with the environmental
agendas of Rio and Kyoto. Freon is being replaced in Cuban
refrigerators by a Cuban coolant derived from sugar cane in order to
protect the ozone layer. Special programs aim at the protection of
the fragile mangroves along the coast, resistance to desertification,
and integrated development of the mountains. Forests covered some 14%
of Cuba's land at the time of the revolution. It has now increased to
some 21% and the target is around 27%. The press often reports the
completion of local reforestation and clean-up programs.

These three programs are the cores of Cuba's biological weapons
program. The policy question is, how can the international community
respond? The United States, on its own, as the one world super-power,
can warn Cuba that if they persist with their public health strategy
the US will provide universal health care for all residents and offer
women 11 prenatal clinic visits free. If they do not dismantle their
national parks and reserves we will forbid oil drilling in the
Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. If they continue to push organic agriculture
we will progressively ban the most toxic pesticides and fund an
organic research program comparable to the Human Genome Project.

The Cuban scheme to reduce primary school class size to 20 students
per teacher is a dual-use program aimed at educating all children in
the sciences and humanities, and is capable of producing scientists
capable of producing more weapons. With 2 % of the population of
Latin America they already have 11% of the scientists, and if this
trend continues for 400 years almost every scientist south of the
border will be a Cuban! The United States cannot wait indefinitely.
We must respond by cutting primary school classes to 18 children per
teacher!

Together with our allies we should call an International Conference
where we will introduce and offer to fund a Biological Weapons
Proliferation Treaty which obliges all countries, in a multilateral
Coalition of the Reluctant, to catch up with Cuba. Only then will the
danger to our freedoms disappear.

Richard Levins
--
Michael Friedman
Ph.D. Candidate in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior
City University of New York

Molecular Laboratory
Department of Invertebrate Zoology
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th Street
New York, NY  10024
(212) 313-7646



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