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Fidel on the 44th anniversary of the
Bay of Pigs
Posada Carriles, the worst error of a
US administration
PRESIDENT Fidel Castro affirmed that with terrorist
Luis Posada Carriles, the US government is making
the worst error ever committed by an administration
of that country.
“They have committed an extremely serious error,
like the one they committed with Elián González,
when we fought without respite until they returned
the boy,” the Cuban leader affirmed, referring to
Cuba’s successful campaign to return the little boy
to his father after he was kidnapped in Miami in
1999.
Referring to the demand that he himself recently
made of the United States, that it should provide
information as to what is intends to do with Posada
Carriles, who is applying for asylum in that
country, Fidel commented that “we are waging another
battle, like that of the Bay of Pigs, and just as
important as that one.”
The
Cuban president gave his speech at the Karl Marx
Theater in Havana, on the occasion of the 44th
anniversary of Cuba’s victory in the Bay of Pigs
invasion (April 19), which was planned, organized
and financed by the US government.
In
explaining the implications for the U.S. of taking
in a terrorist like Posada Carriles while
proclaiming a crusade against terrorism, he stated
that “this time, they have made the greatest error
ever by a US administration.”
As
far as what Cuba is to do in that regard, he said
that in contrast to the Bay of Pigs, this will not
be a battle with weapons in hand. “This,” he
explained, “is a battle of arguments, it is a battle
of ideas, and it will doubtless be of great
significance.”
U.S.
AGGRESSION BEGAN WITH THE TRIUMPH OF THE REVOLUTION
The
Cuban president recalled the acts of aggression
against Cuba launched by Washington from the triumph
of the Revolution, and recounted the great battles
waged by the Cuban people during the past 46 years.
He
emphasized the historical importance of the Bay of
Pigs victory. He especially evoked what he called
“the dramatic days of the October [Missile] Crisis
[in 1962], when the United States threatened to wipe
the island off the face of the Earth.”
“It
was a danger that no other people had ever faced,
given that they were threatening to rain down
nuclear weapons on us,” Fidel noted.
He
explained that some of the decisions taken at the
time “were not up to us” (alluding to the role
played by the former Soviet Union), and that “some
concessions were made that appeared to us to be
humiliating and unnecessary.”
“It
was not necessary to make those concessions to avoid
a war,” he insisted, going on to state that the five
points proposed by Cuba at the time were ignored,
including a halt to the US blockade, terrorist
attacks and the US occupation of the territory of
the naval base in Guantánamo.
He
maintained that for those reasons, the blockade
continued, as did the sabotage of hotels and other
recreation centers and the attacks on embassies and
airplanes, including a civilian airliner over
Barbados with 73 people on board.
“We
were also attacked with diseases that affected
plants and animals, bacteria and viruses, some of
them like dengue, which at that time was not present
in any other country, and which took the lives of
more than 150 people, two-thirds of them children,”
he recalled.
The
Cuban leader blamed Washington for the organization
and financing of those actions, specifically
mentioning the foiled assassination attempt in 2000
planned by Luis Posada Carriles and other Cuban-born
terrorists while he was in Panama to attend the 10th
Ibero-American Summit.
Further on, he stressed that the United States is
encouraging those plans for assassinating leaders of
the Revolution, “as if the world were that jungle
imposed by the sinister empire with its laws.”
OUR
RESISTANCE TO AN ACT OF AGGRESSION WOULD BE
INVINCIBLE
Fidel affirmed that the Cuban people’s resistance to
an act of military aggression by the United States
would be invincible.
He
said that Cuba, just a few miles from the United
States – the country that has attacked it so much
and accused it of being terrorist – has never
produced anything that has cost a single life.
He
warned that using the adjective “terrorist” is
psychological preparation for launching a war of
aggression, “which, if they haven’t launched it by
now” – he said – “is because they know that the
resistance they would find here would be
invincible.”
Because they know, he added, that the number of
lives lost could be as much as or double those lost
in Viet Nam and Iraq, “if US society were to permit
a higher cost in young lives than in those lands.”
“I
think that for such a dirty and ignoble war, they
would set a much lower quota of lives, because every
day, stupidity is being eroding even more;”
ignorance and barbarity are being eroded even more,
and “the US people are not ignorant or barbarous,”
he added.
“We
have fulfilled our duty of preparing ourselves for
any effort,” in any struggle whatsoever for 10 or
100 years, he affirmed. “Because even those that are
born in the midst of that struggle will grow and
continue to fight like the millions that were not
born by January 1, 1959, or April 19, 1961, who are
working, struggling and fighting today in defense of
the homeland,” he emphasized.
That
is why they have had to think about it, he said in
reference to the US rulers, “even though there are
crazy ones who don’t think about it,” he clarified.
He
commented that what may be observed in current US
actions gives the impression that they are the
actions of crazy people, “in a country where
extremely important positions in government and
power are occupied by people who are mad, people who
are crazed.”
In
Cuba today, “an extremely important battle of ideas
is being waged, an extremely important political
battle against the same empire” that has not ceased
to attack the island throughout all these years, he
affirmed.
And
he recalled that even before the Bay of Pigs there
were many sabotage victims, aerial attacks and other
terrorist actions, because the aggression began on
the very day of January 1, 1959.
“The
crimes of today are the same as in the past 46
years, with the same tricks and the same lies, but
utilizing a more extensive and advanced technology,”
the Cuban president asserted.
CUBA CONTINUES TO OVERCOME A TIME OF ECONOMIC
DIFFICULTIES
During another point in his speech, Fidel affirmed
that Cuba is overcoming a stage of economic
difficulties, but he warned that the country will
not go back to the legacies and bad habits of
squandering that previously existed. “The wealth of
information that we have developed is enabling us to
advance toward a better future and to guarantee our
people a dignified life, like one that not even
capitalism can promise to those who live under that
system,” he affirmed.
Cuba, he stated, is even able to help other
countries, and to participate more in the struggle
to make humanity more aware of the great dangers
that it faces as a result of the exhaustion of
natural resources and the destruction of the
environment.
“We
are showing how a just human society can be
developed,” he said.
The
president called on his compatriots to wage a battle
for conservation: both of water, given the prolonged
drought affecting the island, and electricity, whose
generating system is undergoing recovery.
Guests at the evening’s event in the spacious Karl
Marx Theater in Havana included hundreds of veterans
of the battles waged by Cuba since January 1, 1959,
including 1,000 combatants in the Bay of Pigs
invasion, considered to be the first great military
defeat of the United States in the Americas.
Others included soldiers who took part in the
struggle against bandits – organized and financed by
Washington – who operated in the Cuban mountains
during the early years of the Revolution, and many
combatants in internationalist missions.
As a symbol of the continuity of those epic times,
other guests included hundreds of young people
currently taking part in revolutionary programs in
the fields of educational development, health,
culture and social projects. (PL)
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