AS the Revolution celebrated its 51st anniversary
two days ago, memories of that January 1st of 1959
came to mind. The outlandish idea that, after half a
century — which flew by — we would remember it as if
it were yesterday, never occurred to any of us.
During the meeting at the Oriente sugar mill on
December 28, 1958, with the commander in chief of
the enemy’s forces, whose elite units were
surrounded without any way out whatsoever, he
admitted defeat and appealed to our generosity to
find a dignified way out for the rest of his forces.
He knew of our humane treatment of prisoners and the
injured without any exception. He accepted the
agreement that I proposed, although I warned him
that operations under way would continue. But he
traveled to the capital, and, incited by the United
States embassy, instigated a coup d’état.
We were preparing for combat on that January 1st
when, in the early hours of the morning, the news
came in of the dictator’s flight. The Rebel Army was
ordered not to permit a ceasefire and to continue
battling on all fronts. Radio Rebelde convened
workers to a revolutionary general strike,
immediately followed by the entire nation. The coup
attempt was defeated, and that same afternoon, our
victorious troops entered Santiago de Cuba.
Che and Camilo received instructions to advance
rapidly by road in motor vehicles with their battle-hardened
forces toward La Cabaña and the Columbia military
camp. The enemy army, hit hard on all fronts, was
unable to resist. The people in arms themselves took
over the centers of repression and police stations.
In the afternoon of January 2 at a stadium in Bayamo,
and accompanied by a small escort, I met with more
than 2,000 soldiers from the tank, artillery and
motorized infantry units, against whom we had been
fighting until the day before. They were still
carrying their weapons. We had won the enemy’s
respect with our audacious but humanitarian methods
of irregular warfare. This was how, in just four
days — after 25 months of war that we reinitiated
with a few guns — some 100,000 air, sea and ground
weapons and the entire power of the state remained
in the hands of the Revolution. In just a few lines,
I am recounting everything that happened during
those days 51 years ago.
Then the main battle began: to preserve Cuba’s
independence against the most powerful empire that
has ever existed, a battle which our people waged
with great dignity. I am happy today to observe
those who, in the face of incredible obstacles,
sacrifices, and risks, were able to defend our
homeland, and who today, together with their
children, parents and loved ones, are enjoying the
happiness and glories of each new year.
Today, however, is nothing like yesterday. We
experienced a new era unlike any other in history.
Before, the people fought and are fighting still,
with honor, for a better and more just world, but
now they are also having to fight, without any
alternative whatsoever, for the very survival of our
species. If we ignore this, we know absolutely
nothing. Cuba is, without question, one of the most
politically instructed countries on the planet; it
started out from the most shameful illiteracy, and
what is worse, our yanki masters and the
bourgeoisie associated with the foreign owners of
land, sugar mills, production plants for consumer
goods, warehouses, businesses, electricity,
telephones, banks, mines, insurance, docks, bars,
hotels, offices, houses, theaters, print shops,
magazines, newspapers, radio, the emerging
television, and everything of important value.
After the ardent flames of our battles for
freedom had been quenched, the yankis had
taken upon themselves the task of thinking for a
people that struggled so hard to be the masters of
their independence, resources and destiny.
Absolutely nothing, not even the task of thinking
politically, belonged to us. How many of us knew how
to read and write? How many of us even made it to
sixth grade? I recall that especially on a day like
today, because that was the country that was
supposed to belong to the Cuban people. I will not
list anything more, because I would have to include
much more, including the best schools, the best
hospitals, the best houses, the best doctors, the
best lawyers. How many of us had a right to that?
Which of us possessed, with some exceptions, the
natural and divine right to be administrators and
leaders?
Every millionaire and rich individual, without
exception, was a party leader, senator,
representative or important official. That was the
representative and pure democracy that prevailed in
our country, except that the yankis imposed,
at their whim, merciless and cruel petty dictators
whenever it was more convenient for them to better
defend their properties against landless campesinos
and workers with or without jobs. Given that nobody
even talks about that anymore, I am venturing to
remember it. Our country is one of more than 150
that constitute the Third World, which would be the
first but not the only nations destined to suffer
incredible consequences if humanity does not become
aware, clearly, certainly and a lot more quickly
than we thought, of the reality and consequences of
the climate change caused by human beings if it is
not prevented in time.
Our mass media has dedicated spaces to describing
the effects of climate change. Increasingly violent
hurricanes, droughts and other natural disasters
have likewise contributed to the education of our
people on this subject. One singular event, the
battle over the climate issue that took place at the
Copenhagen Summit, has contributed to knowledge of
the imminent danger. It is not a matter of a distant
threat for the 22nd century, but for the 21st; nor
is it just for the latter half of this century, but
for the coming decades, in which we will begin to
suffer its terrible consequences.
It is also not just a question of simple action
against the empire and its henchmen, which in this
issue, like in everything else, are trying to impose
their own stupid and egotistic interests, but a
battle of world opinion that that cannot be left to
spontaneity or the whims of the majority of their
mass media. It is a situation with which,
fortunately, millions of honorable and brave people
in the world are familiar, a battle to wage with the
masses and within social organizations and
scientific, cultural, humanitarian and other
international institutions, most especially in the
heart of the United Nations, where the United States
government, its NATO allies and the richest
countries tried to effect a fraudulent and
antidemocratic coup in Denmark against the rest of
the emerging and poor countries of the Third World.
In Copenhagen, the Cuban delegation, which
attended together with others from the ALBA and the
Third World, was forced into a fight to the finish
in the face of the incredible events that began with
the speech of the yanki president, Barack
Obama, and of the group of the richest states on the
planet, resolved to dismantle the binding
commitments of Kyoto — where the thorny problem was
discussed more than 12 years ago — and to load the
burden of sacrifice onto the emerging and
underdeveloped countries, which are the poorest and
at the same time the principal suppliers of the
planet’s raw materials and non-renewable resources
to the most developed and opulent countries.
In Copenhagen, Obama appeared on the last day of
the conference, which began on December 7. The worst
aspect of his conduct was that, after he had decided
to dispatch 30,000 soldiers to the slaughter of
Afghanistan — a country with a strong tradition of
independence, which not even the English in their
better and cruellest times could dominate — he went
to Oslo to receive no less than a Nobel Peace Prize.
He arrived in the Norwegian capital on December 10
and gave an empty, demagogic and justifying speech.
On the 18th, the date of the Summit’s last session,
he appeared in Copenhagen, where he planned to
remain for just 8 hours. His secretary of state and
a select group of his best strategists had arrived
the previous day.
The first thing that Obama did was to select a
group of guests who were given the honor of
accompanying him as he gave a speech at the Summit.
The complacent and fawning Danish prime minister,
who was presiding over the Summit, gave the podium
over to a group that numbered just 15. The imperial
chief deserved special honors. His speech was a was
a combination of sweetened words seasoned with
theatrical gestures, already boring for those of us,
like me, assigned themselves the task of listening
to him in order to try and be objective in an
appreciation of his characteristics and political
intentions. Obama imposed on his docile Danish host,
so that only his guests could speak, although as
soon as he had made his own comments, he "made
himself scarce" through the back door, like an imp
escaping from an audience which had done him the
honor of listening with interest.
Once the authorized list of speakers was finished,
an indigenous man, Aymara through and through, Evo
Morales, president of Bolivia, who had just been
reelected with 65% of the vote, demanded the right
to speak, which was granted, to the resounding
applause of those present. In just nine minutes, he
expressed profound and dignified concepts in
response to the words of the absent U.S. president.
Immediately afterward, Hugo Chávez got up to ask to
speak on behalf of the Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela; the person presiding over the session had
no choice but to also give him the right to speak,
and he used that to improvise one of the most
brilliant speeches that I’ve ever heard. When he
finished, a strike of the gavel ended the unusual
session.
The extremely busy Obama and his entourage
however, did not have a minute to lose. His group
had put together a draft statement, full of
vagueness, which was the negation of the Kyoto
Protocol. After he dashed out of the plenary session,
Obama met with other groups of guests numbering no
more than 30, negotiated in private and in groups;
insisted; mentioned figures to the tune of millions
of green bills without gold backing and which are
constantly being devaluated, and even threatened to
leave the meeting if his demands were not met. Worst
of all, it was a meeting of super-rich countries, to
which several of the most important emerging nations
were invited and two or three poor ones, to which he
submitted the document as if proposing, "take it or
leave it!"
The Danish prime minister tried to present that
confusing, ambiguous and contradictory statement –
in the discussion of which the UN did not
participate in any way – as the Summit agreement.
The Summit sessions had already concluded, almost
all of the heads of state and government and foreign
ministers had left for their respective countries
and, at three in the morning, the distinguished
Danish prime minister presented it to the plenary
session, where hundreds of longsuffering officials
who hadn’t slept for three days, received the thorny
document, and were given only one hour to discuss
and approve it.
That is when the meeting became fiery; the
delegates hadn’t even had time to read it. A number
of them asked to speak. The first was the delegate
from Tuvalu, whose islands would be inundated if
what was proposed there was approved; those of
Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua followed him.
The dialectical confrontation at 3 a.m. on that
December 19 is worthy of going down in history, if
history should continue after climate change.
As a large part of what happened is known in
Cuba, or is on internet web pages, I will confine
myself to partially expounding on the two responses
of Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, worthy of
being recorded in order to know the last episodes of
the Copenhagen soap opera, and aspects of the final
chapter, which are still to be published in our
country.
"Mr. President (Prime Minister of Denmark)… The
document that you affirmed on various occasions did
not exist, has now appeared. We have all seen
versions circulating surreptitiously and being
discussed in small and secret meetings outside the
conference halls in which the international
community, via its representatives, is negotiating
in a transparent manner."
"I add my voice to those of the representatives
of Tuvalu, Venezuela and Bolivia. Cuba considers the
text of this apocryphal draft as extremely
insufficient and inadmissible…"
"The document which you are presenting,
lamentably, does not contain any commitment
whatsoever to reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
"I am aware of prior versions which, in
questionable and clandestine procedures, were also
being negotiated behind closed doors and which
talked of a reduction of at least 50% by the year
2050…"
"The document that you have presented now,
precisely omits the already meager and insufficient
key phrases that that version contained. This
document does not guarantee, in any way, the
adoption of minimal measures that would make it
possible to avert an extremely grave disaster for
the planet and the human species."
"This shameful document that you have brought is
likewise omissive and ambiguous in relation to the
specific commitment to emission reductions on the
part of the developed countries, those responsible
for global warming given the historic and current
level of their emissions, and on whom it falls to
implement substantial reductions immediately. This
paper does not contain one single word of commitment
on the part of the developed countries."
"…Your role, Mr. President, is the death
certificate of the Kyoto Protocol, which my
delegation does not accept."
"The Cuban delegation wishes to emphasize the
preeminence of the principle of "common but
differentiated responsibilities’ as the central
concept of the future negotiation process. Your
paper does not say one word about that."
"The Cuban delegation reiterates its protest at
the grave violations of procedure that have been
produced in the anti-democratic management of the
process of this conference, via the utilization of
arbitrary, exclusive and discriminatory forms of
debate and negotiation…"
"Mr. President, I am formally asking for this
statement to be placed in the final report on the
workings of this lamentable and shameful 15th
Conference of the Parties."
What nobody could have imagined is that, after
another lengthy recess and when everybody thought
that only the formalities remained before the
conclusion of the Summit, the prime minister of the
host country, at the instigation of the yankis,
would make another attempt to pass off the document
as a consensus of the Summit, when not even foreign
ministers were left in the plenary. The delegates
from Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba, who
remained vigilant and unsleeping until the last
minute, frustrated the latter maneuver in Copenhagen.
However, the problem was not concluded. The
powerful are not accustomed to brooking resistance.
On December 30, the Danish Permanent Mission to the
United Nations, in New York, courteously informed
our mission in that city that it had taken note of
the Copenhagen Agreement of December 18, 2009, and
attached an advance copy of that decision. It
affirmed textually: "…the government of Denmark, in
its capacity of president of COP15, invites the
Parties to the Convention to inform the secretariat
of the UNFCCC in writing, and as soon as possible,
of your willingness to commit to the Copenhagen
Agreement."
"This surprise communication motivated a response
from the Cuban Permanent Mission to the United
Nations, in which it "… flatly rejects the intention
to gain indirect approval of a text that was the
object of repudiation by various delegations, not
only on account of its insufficiency in the face of
the grave effects of climate change, but also for
exclusively responding to the interests of a reduced
group of states."
At the same time it prompted a letter from Dr.
Fernando González Bermúdez, first deputy minister of
the Ministry of Science, Technology and the
Environment of the Republic of Cuba to Mr. Yvo de
Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, some of whose
paragraphs are transcribed below:
"We have received with surprise and concern the note
that the government of Denmark is circulating to the
Permanent Missions of the member states of the
United Nations in New York. Of which you are surely
aware, via which the party states of the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to
inform the executive secretary, in writing, of you
wish to be associated with the so-called Copenhagen
Agreement."
"We have observed, with additional concern, that
the government of Denmark communicates that the
executive secretary of the Convention is to include
in the report of the Conference of the Parties in
Copenhagen, a list of the party states which have
stated their will to commit to the quoted agreement."
"In the judgment of the Republic of Cuba, this
form of acting constitutes a crude and reprehensible
violation of what was decided in Copenhagen, where
the party states, faced with an evident lack of
consensus, confined themselves to taking note of the
existence of the said document."
"Nothing that was agreed in COP15 authorizes the
government of Denmark to adopt this action and, far
less, the executive secretary to include a list of
party states in the final report, for which he has
no mandate."
"I must inform you that the government of the
Republic of Cuba most firmly rejects this new
attempt to indirectly legitimate a spurious document
and to reiterate to you that this way of acting
compromises the result of future negotiations, sets
a dangerous precedent for the Convention’s work and,
in particular, is injurious to the spirit of
goodwill in which delegations must continue the
negotiation process next year," concluded Cuba’s
first deputy minister of science, technology and the
environment."
Many know, especially the social movements and
better informed people in humanitarian, cultural and
scientific movements, that the document promoted by
the United States constitutes a regression of the
positions achieved by those who are making efforts
to avert a colossal disaster for our species. There
is no point in repeating here facts and figures that
are mathematically demonstrated. The data is
confirmed on Internet web pages and are within the
reach of a growing number of people who are
interested in the issue.
The theory defending adherence to the document is
feeble and implies a setback. The deceptive idea
that the rich countries will contribute the
miserable sum of $30 billion over three years to the
poor countries in order to offset the costs implied
by confronting climate change, a figure which could
rise to 100 billion by 2020, which in the context of
this exceedingly grave problem, is like waiting for
the Greek calendars. Specialists know that those
figures are ridiculous and unacceptable given the
volume of investments required. The origin of such
sums is vague and confused, in a way that they do
not commit anybody.
What is the value of one dollar? What is the
significance of $30 billion? We all know that, from
Bretton Woods in 1944 to Nixon’s presidential order
in 1971 – imparted in order to offload the cost of
the genocidal war on Vietnam onto the world economy
– that the value of one dollar, measured in gold,
has gradually been reduced to the point of today,
when it is approximately 32 times less than then;
$30 billion thus signifies less than one billion,
and one billion divided by 32 is equivalent to
$3.125 million, which would not even stretch to
building one middle-capacity oil refinery at the
present time.
If, at some point, the industrialized countries
were to meet their promise to contribute 0.7% of
their GDP to the developing countries – something
that, barring a few exceptions, they never have –
the figure would be in excess of $250 billion every
year.
The U.S. government spent $800 billion on saving
the banks. How much would it be prepared to pay to
save the nine billion people who will inhabit the
planet in 2050, if large-scale drought and sea
flooding provoked by the melting of glaciers and
great masses of frozen water from Greenland and
Antarctica?
Let us not deceive ourselves. What the United
States has attempted with its maneuvers in
Copenhagen is to divide the Third World, to separate
more than 150 underdeveloped countries from China,
India, Brazil, South Africa and others with which we
must fight united to defend – in Bonn, Mexico or any
other international conference, along with the
social, scientific and humanitarian organizations –
genuine agreements that will benefit all countries
and preserve humanity from a disaster that could
lead to the extinction of our species.
The world is in possession of constantly more
information, but politicians have constantly less
time for thinking.
The rich nations and their leaders, including the
U.S. Congress, would seem to be arguing which will
be the last to disappear.
When Obama has completed the 28 parties with
which he proposed to celebrate this Christmas, if
Epiphany is included among them, perhaps Caspar,
Melchior and Balthasar will advise him on what he
should do.
Please excuse this extended Reflection. I did not
wish to divide it into two parts. I apologize to my
patient readers.
Fidel Castro Ruz
January 3, 2010
3:16 p.m.
