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Fidel heads giant march in Havana
PRESIDENT Fidel Castro affirmed
that Mr. W. Bush has no morals or moral right to
talk of terrorism, human rights or freedom and
democracy, at the beginning of this Friday’s giant
march of one million Cubans along the Havana Malecón
to the U.S. Interests Section.
Fidel described the march as an
act of indignant protest and a repudiation of the
brutal and heartless measures proposed by the Bush
administration.
 The
leader of the revolution emphasized that Cubans have
not come together in a hostile gesture toward the
U.S. people whose ethical roots are well understood.
He commented that he knew in
advance what Bush would think of those participating
in the march: “In his estimation they are the
oppressed masses desirous of freedom, but what he is
unaware of is that the dignified and active people
who have resisted the hostility and the blockade of
the strongest power on earth cannot be dragged along
like sheep by any force.”
“A statesman would say that
throughout history just ideas have demonstrated
themselves to be more powerful than force,” Fidel
noted, and reflected how every epoch has had its
good and bad ideas, which have all accumulated, but
that the stage in which we are living in a barbaric,
uncivilized and globalized world is the most shady
and uncertain.
He added that in the world that
Bush wants to impose today there is not the least
notion of ethics, credibility, standards of justice,
humanitarian sentiment or principles of solidarity
and generosity.
The Cuban president stressed that
everything written on human rights in the world of
Bush and that of his allies is a monumental lie, and
in that context recalled that that thousands of
millions of human beings are living in subhuman
conditions, moreover, without the most minimum
knowledge to comprehend the tragedy in which they
are living.
He also spoke of the millions of
people who die every year of hunger and disease “in
this idyllic Eden of dreams that is Earth,” and the
accelerated rate at which hydrocarbons are being
squandered.
The president stated that the
objective of his words was not to offend Bush, but
as it is he who has come up with the idea of
intimidating and terrorizing Cuba, of destroying its
economic and social system, its independence and its
very physical existence, he considered it his duty
to remind him of certain truths.
“You have neither the morals or
the moral right to speak of freedom, democracy and
human rights when you boast sufficient power to
destroy humanity, when you have ignored the United
Nations, when you violate the rights of any country
and engage in wars of conquest in order to seize
resources.”
The head of state emphasized that
neither can Bush mention the word democracy because
his ascent to the presidency was fraudulent; nor can
he talk of freedom because he does not conceive of
any other world than one ruled by terror.
Fidel stated that Bush has
branded a dictatorship the economic and political
system that has led the people of Cuba to the
highest levels of literacy, knowledge and culture;
that has an infant mortality rate that is inferior
to that of the United States and receives free of
charge educational, health and other services of
great social and human significance.
The president observed that it is
laughable to listen to Bush speaking of human rights
in Cuba, a country where in 45 years of Revolution
there has not been one act of torture, one
disappeared person, death squads, extra-judicial
executions or governors who have become
millionaires.
He reiterated that Bush lacks the
moral authority to speak of Cuba and affirmed that
he is attacking this country for ignoble political
reasons in search of electoral support from a group
of renegades, mercenaries, former Batista supporters
and their descendents.
“Nor does he have the morals to
talk of terrorism,” he continued, “because he is
surrounded by a group of murderers who have caused
the death of thousands of Cubans with acts of
terrorism.”
He charged Bush with not
concealing his scorn for human life because he has
ordered the extra-judicial death of a secret number
of persons in the world.
Fidel stated that Bush only has
the right of brute force to intervene in Cuba’s
affairs and proclaim a transition from one system to
another.
He warned that the Cuban people
could be wiped off the face of the earth, but not
subjugated if subjected to the humiliating condition
of being a U.S. neocolony.
He affirmed that human beings do
not and cannot understand freedom within a regime of
inequality like the U.S. one and recalled that the
only equality in the Black ghettoes and the American
Indian reservations is that of poverty and social
exclusion.
Fidel charged that Bush “has
decided that our die is cast,” and made his farewell
like the Roman gladiators who were to fight in the
circus: “Ave Caesar, we who are about to die salute
you.” “But,” he assured, “in that case Bush will be
thousands of kilometers away and I will be in the
front line to die fighting in defense of the
homeland.”
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