YESTERDAY Carmen Nordelo Tejera died, the selfless mother of Hero of the Republic of Cuba Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, unjustly sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment plus 15 years.

What is strange is that just 12 days ago, the yanki justice system freed Santiago Álvarez Fernández-Magriñá, from whom they confiscated military weapons, explosives and other materials meant for terrorist attacks on our people.

These were weapons seized from that CIA agent, who, working for the U.S. government, devoted a large part of his life to anti-Cuba terrorism.

It would be worthwhile for Barack Obama’s advisors, who broadcast his speeches so much on television, to ask for and show him a copy of a video of the Cuban television program "Round Table" that addressed the ridiculous sentence of four years in a minimum-security prison that was given to Santiago Álvarez for the weapons seized from him. And the worst thing was that they reduced his sentence after another cache of weapons, larger than the first one, was handed over to the U.S. authorities. This individual, moreover, sent a group to secretly enter Cuba, and among other things, they were supposed to set off an explosive device in the Tropicana nightclub, always full of spectators. Documented proof of those instructions exists.

From another Cuban-born terrorist, Roberto Ferro, allied with the terrorist mafia of Posada Carriles and Santiago Álvarez, they seized 300 firearms, detonators and plastic explosives in July 1991. He was sentenced to two years. In April 2006, they confiscated, from hidden compartments in his house, 1,571 guns and hand grenades. He was sentenced to five years.

Enough cannot be said about the cynicism of U.S. policy, which includes Cuba on its list of terrorist countries, applies the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act exclusively to our country, and blockades our country economically, forbidding even the sale of medical equipment and medicine.

Yesterday, our television’s "Round Table" listed the crimes of Santiago Álvarez and at the same time showed TV programs from Miami where a notorious U.S. agent, Antonio Veciana, recounted plans involving explosives and bullets to assassinate Cuban leaders, including Camilo and Che, who were with me at a massive rally of hundreds of thousands of people in front of the former Presidential Palace, and my assassination during a press conference in Chile while I was visiting President Salvador Allende. In the end, as the mercenary confessed, when the moment for action came, the murderers working for the CIA lost their nerve in both cases. That was just one of two of many assassination plots of that country’s government.

Such crimes may be remembered cold-bloodedly, except for the fact that in this case, the narration coincides with the news of the death, after a long illness, of an honest and courageous mother like Carmen Nordelo Tejera, whose son has been unjustly sentenced to two isolated and cruel terms of life imprisonment plus 15 years, and in a high-security prison. What crueler pain could exist for her than the unjust life imprisonment of her son for crimes he never committed?

It is impossible to lay a flower on her coffin without denouncing, once again, the repugnant cynicism of the empire.

In addition to that is further atrocious news heard that same afternoon: the official signature on the agreement by virtue of which the United States is imposing seven military bases in the heart of Our America, with which it is threatening not only Venezuela, but also all of the peoples of the central and southern part of our hemisphere. It is not an act by the Bush government; it is Barack Obama who signed that agreement, violating legal, constitutional and ethical norms, when the fruits of the disastrous yanki military base in Palmerola, Honduras, are still being exhibited to the world. The military coup in that Central American country was carried out under the current administration.

Never have the Latin American peoples of this hemisphere been treated with greater contempt.

A country like Cuba knows very well that after the United States imposes one of its military bases, it leaves if it likes, or it remains by force, as it has done with Guantánamo for more than 100 years. There, it set up the hateful torture center whose dungeons, with numerous prisoners, our brand-new Nobel laureate has not yet been able to eliminate. The return of Manta in Ecuador was immediately followed by making official the seven military bases imposed on the people of Colombia. As a pretext, the war on drugs was used; like the terrible scourge of paramilitarism, it emerged from the gigantic U.S. market for cocaine and other drugs. The yanki military bases in Latin America emerged long before drugs, with interventionist purposes.

Cuba demonstrated for half a century that it is possible to fight and resist. The president of the United States is wrong, and his advisors are wrong, if they follow that sordid and contemptuous course with the peoples of Latin America. Our sentiments, without any hesitation whatsoever, are inclined toward the Bolivarian people of Venezuela, their president, Hugo Chávez, and his Ministry of Foreign Affairs, denouncing the despicable military pact imposed on the Colombian people, one with expansionist clauses that its authors have not even had the courage to publish.

Cuba will continue cooperating with programs for health, education and social development in our sister nations, which, despite the obstacles, advances and setbacks, will be increasingly and irreversibly free.

As Lincoln said: "…you can’t fool all of the people all of the time."

We will not just lay flowers on the grave of Carmen Nordelo.

We will continue the fight without rest to free Gerardo, Antonio, Fernando, Ramón and René, unmasking the infinite hypocrisy and cynicism of the empire, and defending the truth!

That is the only way we can honor the memory of the legion of mothers and women like her in Cuba who have sacrificed the best and most precious in their lives for the Revolution and socialism.