[Marxism] Fidel on the "Americas" meeting: The secret summit

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Reflections by comrade Fidel

The Secret Summit

http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/reflexiones/2009/ing/f190409i.html

Neither represented nor excommunicated, only today could I learn what
was discussed at the Summit of Port of Spain. They led us all to
entertain hopes that the meeting would not be secret, but those
running the show deprived us of such an interesting intellectual
exercise. We shall get to know the substance but not the tone of
voice, the look in the eyes or the facial look that can be a
reflection of a person's ideas, ethic and character. A Secret Summit
is worse than a silent movie. For a few minutes the television showed
some images. There was a gentleman on Obama's left whom I could not
identify clearly as he laid his hand on Obama's shoulder, like an
eight-year-old boy on a classmate in the front row. Then, another
member of his entourage standing beside him interrupted the president
of the United States for a dialogue; those coming up to address him
had the appearance of an oligarchy that never knew what hunger is and
who expect to find in Obama's powerful nation the shield that will
protect the system from the fearsome social changes.

Up to that moment, a bizarre atmosphere prevailed at the Summit.

The artistic function arranged by the host was really spectacular. I
have seldom seen something like it; perhaps never. A good announcer,
apparently a Trinitarian, had proudly said that it was unique.

It was a feast of culture and luxury. I meditated about it. I
calculated the cost of all that and suddenly I realized that no other
country in the Caribbean could afford such a display, that the venue
of the summit is very wealthy, a sort of United States surrounded by
small poor countries. Could Haiti with its exuberant culture or
Jamaica, Granada, Dominica, Guyana, Belize or any other have hosted
such a luxurious summit? Their beaches may be wonderful but they are
not surrounded by the towers that distinguish the Trinitarian
landscape and accumulate with that non-renewable raw material the
enormous resources that sustain today the riches of that country.
Almost every other island in the Caribbean community located to the
north of this is directly battered by the hurricanes of increasing
intensity that hit our sister islands of the Caribbean region every
year.

Did anyone in that meeting remember that Obama promised to invest as
much money as necessary to make the United States self-reliant in
fuel? Such a policy would directly affect many of the States taking
part in the meeting since they will not have access to the
technologies and the huge investments required to work on that area
or any other.

Something really impressed me as the summit unfolded until today,
Saturday, April 18, at 11:47 a.m. when I am writing these lines:
Daniel Ortega's remarks. I had promised myself not to publish
anything until next Monday, April 20, but rather to observe the
developments in the celebrated summit.

It was not the economist, the scientist, the intellectual or the poet
speaking; Daniel did not choose an elaborate language to impress his
audience. He spoke as the president of one of the poorest countries
in the hemisphere, as a revolutionary combatant, on behalf of a group
of Central American nations and the Dominican Republic which is a
partner of SICA (Central American Integration System).

It would suffice to be one of the hundreds of thousands of
Nicaraguans who learned how to read and write in the first stage of
the Sandinista Revolution, when the illiteracy rate was reduced from
60 to 12 percent, or again when Daniel received power in 2008 as the
illiteracy rate had increased to 35 percent.

His remarks extended for nearly 50 minutes. He spoke slowly and calm,
but the reproduction of the full text would make this Reflection too
extensive.

I shall summarize his statement using his own words for each of the
basic ideas he expressed. I will avoid the use of suspension points
and use inverted commas only when Daniel quotes other people or
institutions.

Nicaragua appealed to the International Court of Justice in The
Hague. It filed a lawsuit against the war policy, the terrorist
policy implemented by President Ronald Reagan on behalf of the United
States.

Our crime: we had freed ourselves from Anastasio Somoza's tyranny
imposed through the intervention of the Yankee troops in Nicaragua.

>From the past century, Central America has been shaken by the
expansionist policies, the war policies that brought the Central
Americans together to defeat them.

These were followed by interventions extending from the year 1912 to
1932, which resulted in the imposition of the Somozas' tyranny
equipped, funded and defended by American leaders.

I had the opportunity of meeting President Reagan during the war; we
shook hands and I asked him to stop the war against Nicaragua.

I had the opportunity of meeting President Carter and when he told me
that "now that the Nicaraguan people had got rid of the Somoza
tyranny it was time for Nicaragua to change" I said to him: No,
Nicaragua does not have to change, you have to change. Nicaragua has
never invaded the United States; Nicaragua has not planted mines in
the U.S. harbors; Nicaragua has not thrown a stone against the
American nation; Nicaragua has not imposed governments on the United
States; you are the ones who should change and not the Nicaraguans.

As the war was still going on, I had the chance to meet the then
recently inaugurated President of the United States George Bush,
senior. In the year 1989, at a gathering in Costa Rica, we sat facing
each other, President Bush and me, and he said: "The press has come
here because they want to see a fight between the president of the
United States and the president of Nicaragua, and we have made an
effort not to oblige them."

Nicaragua was still fighting the war imposed by the United States.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague decided on the
lawsuit filed by Nicaragua and passed sentence. It clearly stated
that "the United States should cease every military action, the
mining of the harbors and the funding of the war; that it should
indicate where the mines had been planted since it refused to provide
that information;" it also ordered the U.S. government to compensate
Nicaragua for the trade and economic blockade imposed on that nation.

We are waging a struggle in Nicaragua, Central America and Latin
America to eradicate illiteracy with the generous and unconditional
solidarity of the fraternal Cuban people, of Fidel who promoted such
literacy campaigns in solidarity with our peoples, and of President
Raul Castro who has continued these programs for the benefit of all
of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples.

Later, the Bolivarian people of Venezuela and its President Hugo
Chavez Frias joined in this effort with a generous spirit.

Most of the presidents and heads of government of Latin America and
the Caribbean are here today; also the President of the United States
and the Primer Minister of Canada. But there are two notable
absentees: one is Cuba, whose only crime has been to fight for the
peoples' sovereignty and independence; to give solidarity,
unconditionally, to our peoples. That's why it is sanctioned, that's
why it is punished; that's why it is excluded. That's why I do not
feel comfortable today in this Summit; I cannot feel comfortable in
this Summit. I am embarrassed to be attending this summit in the
absence of Cuba.

Another country is not present here because unlike Cuba, which is an
independent and supportive nation, that other people is still
submitted to colonialist policies: I mean the fraternal people of
Puerto Rico.

We are working to build a great alliance, a great unity of Latin
American and Caribbean peoples. The day will come when the Puerto
Rican people is also a part of that great alliance.

In the 1950s racial discrimination was institutionalized, it was part
of the American way of life, part of the American democracy: black
people could not walk into white people's restaurants or white
people's bars. The children of black families could not attend the
white children schools. In order to turn down the wall of racial
discrimination it was necessary --and this President Obama knows
better than we do-Martin Luther King, jr, said: "I have a dream." The
dream became a reality and the wall of racial discrimination
collapsed in the United States of America, thanks to the struggle of
that people.

This meeting, this gathering is opening exactly the same day that the
invasion of Cuba started in 1961. Talking with the President of Cuba
Raul Castro, he gave me some data: "Daniel, President Obama was born
on August 4, 1961; he was three and a half months when we attained
victory in Playa Giron on April that year. Obviously he is not
accountable for that historic event. The bombings on April 15; the
proclamation of socialism by Fidel during the funeral of the victims
on the 16th; the invasion on the 17th; on the 18th, the battle goes
on and victory is attained on the 19th, before 72 hours had passed.
Raul." (On his return from Cumana, Raul related to me that in a note
he wrote for Daniel he made a quick calculation and was wrong to
assert that Obama was three and a half months at the time of the Bay
of Pigs invasion, when he should have said that Obama was born three
and a half months later; that it was his [Raul's] mistake.)

That is history. In the year 2002, also in the month of April, on the
11th, a coup d'etat was dealt to murder an elected president in the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez was seized;
the order to murder him had been issued. When the puppet regime took
over, the U.S. government through its spokesman recognized the
putschers and offered them support. We are right to say that that is
not history; such violent events against the institutions of a
people, of a progressive, supportive and revolutionary nation took
place hardly seven years ago.

I think that the time I'm taking is shorter than the three hours I
had to wait at the airport inside the plane.

The freedom of expression must apply to the big ones and the little
ones: Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, El
Salvador, and the Dominican Republic as an associate. The territorial
area is 355,617.5 square miles. The population is a little more than
41.7 million.

We are asking that all immigrants in the United States receive the
TPS, but the causes of migration are the underdevelopment and poverty
of our Central American peoples.

The only way to stop that flow of emigrants to the United States is
not building a fence or reinforcing military surveillance along the
border.

The United States needs the Central American labor force, as it needs
the Mexican labor force. Then, when the supply of that labor force is
higher than the demand of the U.S. economy, repressive policies come
into play, while funds should be contributed without political
strings attached, without the conditions imposed by the International
Monetary Fund.

We have the ungrateful task of protecting the U.S. borders due to
drug abuse.

Just in Nicaragua, the national police impounded over 360 tons of
cocaine last year. That, at a market price in the United States,
would certainly amount to more than 1 billion dollars.

How much does the United States provide Nicaragua for guarding its
borders? It provides 1,200,000 dollars.

It's not fair, it's not equitable, it's not ethical. It is not moral
that the G-20 continues to make the great decisions; the time has
come for the G-192, that is, for all countries in the United Nations
to make them.

Those who have had dealings with the IMF are perfectly aware of what
the Fund has meant, of the social, agricultural and productive
programs that have been cut off to obtain resources to pay back the
debt, a debt imposed by the rules established by global capitalism.
It has only been an instrument setting forth and developing
colonialist, neocolonialist and imperialist policies from the
metropolises.

Mahatma Gandhi, who waged a heroic struggle against England for the
independence of India, said that England had used one-fourth of the
resources of the planet to reach its current state of development.
So, what resources would India need to attain a similar condition?
Now, in this 21st century, and since the end of the 20th century, it
was not only England but every developed capitalist country that
established their hegemony at the expense of the destruction of the
planet and the human species, imposing the consumerist patterns of
their model.

The only way to save the planet, and the sustainable development of
mankind with it, will be to lay the foundations of a new
international economic order, a new socio-economic and political
model which is truly fair, supportive and democratic.

There is the project known as PETROCARIBE and there is ALBA -most of
the Caribbean nations are members of PETROCARIBE, but there are also
members of SICA which belong to PETROCARIBE: Belize, Guatemala,
Honduras, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Panama.

"The heads of Sate and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica,
Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela, members of ALBA, consider that the
draft Declaration of the Fifth Summit of the Americas is insufficient
and unacceptable for the following reasons:

(He goes on to read the ALBA Declaration on the document proposed for
the Summit of the Americas.)

"It does not respond to the issue of the Global Economic Crisis, even
though that is the greatest challenge faced by mankind in decades.

"It unjustifiably excludes Cuba without mentioning the general
consensus in the region to condemn the blockade and the attempts to
constantly isolate its people and government in a criminal fashion.

"What we are experiencing is a structural and systemic global
economic crisis and not just another cyclic crisis.

"The environmental crisis has been caused by capitalism which had
subordinated the necessary conditions for life on the planet to the
predominance of markets and profits.

To avoid this outcome it is necessary to develop an alternative model
to the capitalist system. A system in harmony with our Mother Earth
and not one that plunders its natural resources; a system of cultural
diversity and not of crushing cultures and imposing cultural values
and life styles that have nothing to do with the realities of our
countries; a system of peace based on social justice and not on
imperialist wars and policies; a system that does not reduce them to
simple consumers or merchandise.

Regarding the U.S. blockade on Cuba and the exclusion of this country
from the Summit of the Americas, the member countries of the
Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA)
reiterate the Declaration adopted last December 16, 2008, by all of
the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on the necessity to
put an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed
on Cuba by the United States of America, including the implementation
of the so-called Helms-Burton Act, widely known to all.

In my country, Nicaragua, the governments that preceded me strictly
enforced the neoliberal policies, that is, from 1990, when the
Sandinista Front left the government, until January 10, 2007, when
the Sandinista Front returned to government; they enforced them for
16 years.

As the Nicaraguan Revolution triumphed in 1979, it found that the
tyrannies and governments that had been imposed and sustained in
Nicaragua by the U.S. administrations, the self-defined democratic
governments, had left Nicaragua with 60 percent illiteracy.

Our first big battle was to eradicate illiteracy. We undertook that
battle and reduced illiteracy to 11.5 or 12 percent. We couldn't go
further because we were imposed a war policy by the Reagan
administration.

We left the government in 1990 with 12.5 percent illiteracy in the
country and on January 2007 we received back the country with 35
percent illiteracy.

This data have not been made up by the government; they have been
released by agencies specialized in education and culture.

That is the result of the neoliberalism applied in Nicaragua; the
result of privatizations in Nicaragua where healthcare and education
were privatized and the poor were left out. For others it was a good
change because they amassed fortunes; the model has proven successful
to concentrate riches and extend poverty. It is a great concentrator
of riches and a great multiplier of poverty and destitution.

It is an ethical problem, a moral problem, and the future lies on it;
not only the future of the most impoverished countries --as the five
countries of Latin America and the Caribbean I have mentioned-that
have little else to lose other than our shackles, if there is not a
change of ethics, a change of moral, a change of values that will
enable us to be really sustainable.

It is no longer a matter of ideology, it's not a political issue;
it's a matter of survival. And this applies to all, from the G-20 to
the G-5 who are the most impoverished in Latin America and the
Caribbean.

I think that this crisis that is affecting the world today and that
is leading to discussions, debates, and to a search for solutions we
should approach it bearing in mind that the current development model
is no longer possible, no longer sustainable.

The only way to save us all is to change the model.

Thank you, very much.

Daniel's phrases at the opening session of the Summit were like a
bell tolling for a centuries-old policy that until a few months ago
was applied to the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

It is 19:58 hours. I have just listened to the words of President
Hugo Chavez. Apparently, Venezolana de Television introduced a camera
in the "Secret Summit" and carried some of his words. Yesterday we
saw him graciously return Obama's gesture as he walked up to greet
him, unquestionably a clever gesture of the United States president.

This time Chavez stood up from his chair, walked to Obama's seat at
the head of a rectangular hall near Michelle Bachelet, and presented
him with the well known book by Galeano, Las venas abiertas de
America Latina, systematically updated by the author. I simply
mentioned the time it was when I listened to him.

It is announced that the Summit will be closed tomorrow at noon.

The United States president has been very active. According to press
reports he has not only taken part in the plenary session of the
Summit but also met with every regional subgroup.

His predecessor went to bed early and slept for many hours.
Seemingly, Obama works hard and sleeps little.

Today, the 19th , at 11:57 hours, I don't see anything new. The CNN
news channel has no fresh news. The clock struck 12 when the Prime
Minister of Trinidad and Tobago stood on the rostrum. I prepare to
listen to him, and then I perceive some strange signals. Manning's
face looks tense. Later, Obama speaks and takes some questions from
the press; I find him gruff although calm. I was surprised that a
press conference was organized with several leaders without the
participation of any of those who disagreed with the document.

Manning had said before that the document had been elaborated two
years back when there was not a deep economic crisis; therefore, the
current issues had not been properly examined. Of course, I thought,
McCain was not there; surely the OAS, Leonel and the Dominican
Republic remembered the name of the military commander of the
invaders in 1965 and the 50 thousand troops that occupied the country
to prevent the return of Juan Bosch who was not a Marxist-Leninist.

The leaders in the press conference were the Prime Minister of
Canada, certainly a rightist and the only one who had been rude to
Cuba; Mexican President Felipe Calderon; Martin Torrijos from Panama
and, naturally, Patrick Manning. The Caribbean and the two Latin
American leaders were respectful to Cuba; none of them attacked it,
and they had expressed their opposition to the blockade.

Obama spoke of the United States military power, which could be of
assistance in the fight on organized crime, and of the significance
of the U.S. market. He also admitted that the programs carried
forward by the government of Cuba, such as sending groups of doctors
to countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, could be more
effective than Washington's military power to gain influence in the
region.

We, the Cubans do not do it to gain influence; it's a tradition that
was born in Algeria in 1963, when that country was fighting French
colonialism, and we have later done likewise in scores of Third World
countries.

He was gruff and elusive with regards to the blockade in his
interview with the press; but he is already born and he will be 48
years next August 4.

Nine days later, that same month, I will be 83, almost twice his age,
but now I have much more time to think. I wish to remind him of a
basic ethical principle with respect to Cuba: there is no excuse for
any injustice, any crime to last, regardless of time; the cruel
blockade on the Cuban people takes lives and causes suffering; it
also affects the economy of the nation and limits its possibilities
to cooperate with healthcare, education and sports services, with
energy saving and with the protection of the environment in many poor
countries of the world.

Fidel Castro Ruz

April 19, 2009

2:32 p.m.






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