[Marxism] Fidel Castro: I hope I never have a reason to be ashammed

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis should be pleased with Fidel's latest reflection. He takes up
several important topics: the selection of Machado Ventura, and other
key leaders who've been added to the Council of State, says he's not
hovering over the new leadership team, and a dim view of the recent
"independence" declaration of by the western-backed Kosovo regime.


Walter Lippmann
============================================================================

GRANMA
February 29,2008

Reflections by Comrade Fidel

I HOPE I NEVER HAVE A REASON TO BE ASHAMED

These words will be published tomorrow, on February 29th. A great
many tasks lie immediately ahead of us. The 10th International
Gathering of Economists on Globalization and Development Problems, a
conference I have always attended and in which I have always
expressed different points of view, will begin on Monday the 3rd.
Judging from the international developments we've witnessed, this
conference will doubtless be of great importance, owing to the
presence of prestigious economists, some Nobel Prize laureates and
two eminent heads of State.

I wish to address a specific issue in this, today's reflection.

In the course of these days of voluntary rest, I have read numerous
(ables issued by the traditional press agencies or over the Internet.
Among these, I found a dispatch, issued from Cuba and published on
the BBC World web site, whose blatant personal attack is indeed
repugnant. Published on February 25th, one day following the election
of the Council of State President, under the sub-headline of El Peso
de las reflexiones ("The Importance of the Reflections"), it states
that Fidel Castro appears to want to reassure the new government and
promises "to be cautious" in expressing opinions in his editorials,
which are divulged by all of the country's media, including the radio
and television. In his reflections, it adds, he essays a new gesture
of modesty, not only asking to be addressed as "comrade Fidel" but
also that his articles not appear on the front page of the official
newspaper and that the other media divulge a mere summary of these
pieces. According to the article, this is strictly formal for, even
if his reflections appear on the sports page, their significance
won't, as a result, be lessened: nationally and internationally, any
comment made by "comrade Fidel" will have immense repercussions. In a
sense, the note alleges, it is a sword of Damocles that hovers over
the heads of the country's leaders, for all of them know it would be
extremely difficult to pursue any policy that is publicly condemned
by Castro. The relationship between the Castro Brothers, we learn, is
a mystery seasoned by the most varied rumours. It is said they locked
themselves up in a room and argued for several hours, and that their
yelling could be heard outside of Fidel's office. None of this, the
article tells us, can be confirmed, for there is no proof, only
alleged witnesses. In Cuba, however, as in no other country, wherever
there's smoke, there's fire, and the "grapevine", the oral
transmission of information, is almost always in the right.

Other important US newspapers, The New York Times, The Washington
Post and The Wall Street Journal, expressed their frustration but did
not resort to such vulgar insults.

Many picture our country as a steam boiler that is about to burst.
They are thrown off balance by how it has heroically held its ground
for half a century.

The wise and serene words Raúl spoke after the 609 members of the
National Assembly in attendance unanimously elected him President of
the Council of State, his sincere arguments, disentangled the tangle
of illusions that had been woven around Cuba. Those who know me and
Raul well know that, out of a basic sense of dignity and respect, we
could never hold such a meeting. No few people still harbour hopes of
seeing the sudden collapse of a heroic revolution, which stood and
continues to stand victorious in spite of half a century of
imperialist aggression.

Now, they howl like wolves whose tails have been caught in traps. How
particularly vexed they seem by the election, as First
Vice-President, of Machadito, the Organizational Secretary of the
Communist Party of Cuba, to whom the Constitution entrusts the most
important tasks as regards leading the people towards socialism.

In the world of nebulous speculation and protocol, what counts is the
State leadership and the party organization is considered a
meddlesome intruder, an internal principle. In the specific case of
Cuba, thus, it should suffice to know that Raul has all of the legal
and constitutional faculties and prerogatives he needs to govern our
country. As he himself explained, I was consulted during the process
of putting together a list of candidates for the position of First
Vice-President that he held, and of which no one was stripped. I did
not demand to be consulted. It was Raúl and the country's top leaders
who decided to consult me. Similarly, it was my decision to ask the
Candidacy Commission to include Leopoldo Cintra Frías and Álvaro
López Miera, who joined the Rebel Army combatants when they were only
15, on the list of Council of State candidates. The two are much
younger than McCain and have more experience as military leaders, as
demonstrated by their victorious internationalist feats.

Polito led the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, to the southeast, and the
counteroffensive, southwest, with over 40 thousand Cuban volunteer
combatants and more than 30 thousand Angolan soldiers under his
command, troops that drove the last Apartheid army invaders out of
Angola.

The US government created conditions such that racist South Africa,
if the circumstances allowed it, would be able to use a nuclear
weapon against those troops.

López Miera once bombed his own troops when, near Luanda, he ordered
the multiple launch artillery to fire at his own positions, under
attack and nearly occupied by the South African forces that invaded
Angola for the first time in 1975.

These were the moves the chess board itself decided. They were not
the fruit of Raúl's alleged militaristic tendencies, nor was it a
question of different generations or factions rabidly fighting over a
mundane slice of power. With respect to me, I say again that I cling
to no position, as I expressed in my message to the people of
February 18th, 2008.

One person who was left speechless was the intellectual author of
Kosovo's "independence". In my reflection of February 21st, I
described him as "an illustrious Spanish personality, once an
impeccable socialist and minister of Culture, who for some time now
and even today has been advocating for the war and the use of
weapons" (In addition to this, at various points in time, he was a
government spokesman, Minister of Education and Science and Minister
of Foreign Affairs).

What did he say? That yesterday's news could have been more open and
better. That what he is not certain of was whether a transition had
begun from the political point of view, and that everything that
could point to a political transition towards democracy is welcome.

He spoke as though we lived in Franco's Spain, a close ally of the
United States, and not in Cuba, where they have invested over a
hundred billion dollars, much more valuable than today's dollars, to
blockade and destroy the country.

What a man! There's no way to shut him up! What is his name? The
Round Table program already mentioned the sin and the sinner two or
three days ago: Javier Solana.

What party is he affiliated with? Spain's Socialist Worker's Party.
He would not travel to our country because Cuba, in connection with
the invasion of Serbia, urged the world to try him as a war criminal
at an international court. As Spain's Foreign Minister, he welcomed
me at the Madrid airport when the 2nd Latin American Summit was held
in the Spanish capital. He seemed like an angel back then!

Even Aznar, who advised Clinton to bomb Serbian television, an action
which caused the deaths of dozens of people, understands that, right
now, on the eve of elections, one cannot play with the issue of
nationalities, as everyone realizes that, with such precedents, the
Basque Country and Catalonia could invoke such a principle within the
European Community, and we are talking about two of Spain's most
industrialized nations. The Scottish and the Irish could proceed in
similar fashion.

With the fate of human species in such hands, it is as if we danced
happily at the edge of a precipice, where the vanity of no few
leaders of the globalized capitalist world reigns, putting all
countries at risk. The humanitarian, educational and artistic values
that the Cuban revolution they seek to destroy has created with its
own resources means nothing to them, for they do not submit to the
tyranny of the free market. The latter and its blind laws are miring
the human species in an unsustainable economic crisis and bringing
about changes to natural living conditions that could prove
irreversible.

I write reflections to fight against these things. Had I unlimited
time, I would perhaps be willing to write to recall ideas that are
today dispersed across speeches, interviews, conversations,
declarations, meetings, reflections and things of this nature. 
I have invested tons of paper and tons of sound - symbolically 
speaking - but I have no reason to be ashamed of this.

Fidel Castro Ruz
February 28, 2008 
 7:15 p.m.

========================================
WALTER LIPPMANN, CubaNews
Los Angeles, California
http://www.walterlippmann.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
"Cuba - Un Paraiso bajo el bloqueo"
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