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Bastion 2004
Defense exercise in the face
of U.S. hostility BY REYNOLD RASSI—Granma daily staff writer— IN the early months of the revolutionary triumph in 1959, U.S. imperialism initiated its aggressive attacks and threats of invading Cuba, with the result that the island was obliged to prepare for the defense of its territory and achievements.
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Like this one, thousands of snipers countrywide are to participate in Bastion 2004, ready to confront the enemy if
it dares to attack us.
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have the military experience or the forces it has today, was what enabled the country to defeat in around 72 hours the mercenary troops who invaded the country at Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) in April, 1961, in spite of the military power and support they received from the U.S. government and the CIA.
For more than 40 years, different U.S. administrations have maintained and increased their constant political, ideological and economic aggression against the Cuban Revolution as well as threats of direct military
intervention. For that reason the country has paid maximum attention to its defense. Since George W. Bush assumed power in 2000, and especially after the lamentable events of September 11, 2001, U.S. foreign policy
has been characterized by heightened aggression and arrogance, a neofascist extreme right-wing ideology, the use of force and military intervention (Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq are examples of this), and by total disregard for peoples, their sovereignty, norms and international institutions. To
that, can be added its plans to impose a new world order under its domination. Bush’s close ties with the U.S. anti-Cuban mafia have led to an increase in hostile measures against the Revolution, a redoubling of his
lies and tall stories in order to create internationally favorable subjective conditions for a military attack on Cuba, which has become a real possibility since his reelection this past November. WHY BASTION ? “We will never cease preparations for the defense of the country,” President Fidel Castro has stated, which is why from December 13 to 19, the Bastion 2004 Strategic Exercise is to be carried out throughout the country in response to
the reality of the international situation and the U.S. government’s constant threats against Cuba. In the early 1980’s, in the face of the aggressive policies of the then president, Ronald Reagan’s, a new Cuban military
doctrine was established based on the concept of a war of all the people, which summarizes the historic experience of the accumulated struggle of several generations of Cubans and is based on the deployment of a territorial defensive system as the means to support the military power, as well as the most
varied use of all the forces, means and resources of the society and. That resulted in the emergence of the Territorial Troop Militia (MTT) and the development of diverse forms of defense training, among them, the
Bastion Strategic Exercise, first carried out in 1980, then in 1983 (in which several million people participated) and subsequently in 1986. Through all these years, the Bastion exercises and other maneuvers have
facilitated a consistently tighter cohesion between the leadership and command bodies, the training and combat readiness of the regular troops and reserves, and the people. That has been complemented by the
outfitting of the theater of military operations and changes introduced to improve technique, armaments and their conversion into most effective means. In addition to the regular troops of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces and their reserves, Territorial Militia Troops, Production and Defense Brigades, sectors and units from the Ministry of the Interior, as well as other defense structures, the central state administration agencies, economic entities and social and mass organizations are all involved in Bastion
2004.
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