(Taken from the Mexican La Jornada newspaper)

HAVANA.— Although there is nothing to indicate any unease on his part, I think that Fidel is not going to like what I’m going to say to him:

"Comandante, the whole charm of the Cuban Revolution, the recognition, the solidarity from a large part of the world’s intelligentsia, the people’s tremendous achievements in the face of the blockade; in short, everything, everything went down the tubes as a result of the persecution of homosexuals in Cuba."

Fidel did not shy away from the subject. He neither denied nor rejected the statement. He only asked for time to recall, he said, how and when that prejudice broke out among the revolutionary ranks.

Five decades ago, and as a result of homophobia, homosexuals were marginalized in Cuba and many of them were sent to military-agricultural work camps, accused of being "counterrevolutionaries."

"Yes," he recalled, "those were times of tremendous injustice, tremendous injustice!" he repeated emphatically, "whoever was responsible for it. If we did it ourselves, ourselves…I’m trying to delimit my responsibility in all of that because, of course, on a personal level, I do not have that kind of prejudice."

It is known that some of his best and oldest friends are homosexuals.

"But then, how did that hatred of the "different" come about? "

Fidel believes that it was all generated as a spontaneous reaction within the revolutionary ranks, which stemmed from old customs. In pre-revolutionary Cuba, there was not only discrimination against blacks, but also against women and, of course, homosexuals.

"Yes, yes. But not in the Cuba of the ‘new’ morality, of which revolutionaries both within and outside the country were so
proud…"

"And so, who was responsible, either directly or indirectly, for not putting a stop to what was happening in Cuban society? The Party? Because this occurred during a time when the statutes of the Communist Party of Cuba did not explicitly state the prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation."

"No," said Fidel. "If anyone was responsible, then it was me.

"It is true that, at that time, I did not concern myself with that issue…I was mainly immersed in the October (Missile) Crisis, in the war, in political matters…"

"But that became a serious and grave political problem, Comandante."

"I understand, I understand…We didn’t know how to assess it…systematic acts of sabotage, armed attacks, were happening all the time; we had so many terrible problems, problems of life or death, you know, that we didn’t pay sufficient attention to it."

"After all of that, it became very difficult to defend the Revolution outside the country…Its image had been irretrievably damaged among certain sectors, particularly in Europe."

"I understand, I understand," he repeated. "That was fair…"

"The persecution of homosexuals could have been taking place with greater or lesser protest in any part of the world. But not in revolutionary Cuba," I said to him.

"I understand: it’s like when the saint sins, right? It’s not the same as the sinner sinning, eh?"

Fidel gave a hint of a smile but then became serious again:

"Look, think about how our days were during those first months of the Revolution: the war with the yankis, the missile situation and, almost simultaneously, the assassination attempts against my person…"

Fidel revealed the tremendous influence on him of the assassination threats and the actual attempts of which he was victim, and which changed his life:

"I couldn’t be anywhere; I didn’t even have anywhere to live..." Betrayal was the order of the day and he was forced to move around in a haphazard way…

He only regrets not having corrected the situation at the time.

Nowadays, however, the problem is being confronted. Under the slogan "Homosexuality is not a danger; but homophobia is," many cities throughout the country recently celebrated the 3rd Cuban Event for the International Day against Homophobia. Gerardo Arreola, La Jornada correspondent in Cuba, wrote a detailed report on the debate and the struggle underway on the island for respect for the rights of sexual minorities.

Arreola comments that it is Mariela Castro – a 47-year-old sociologist and daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro – who directs the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), an institution that, she says, has succeeded in improving Cuba’s image following the marginalization of the 1960s.

"Here we stand, Cuban women and men, in order to continue fighting for inclusion, so that this is the fight of all women and men, for the good of all women and men," stated Mariela Castro at the inauguration event, surrounded by transsexuals holding the Cuban flag and another rainbow one representing the gay pride movement.

Today in Cuba, efforts for homosexuals include initiatives such as the identity change for transsexuals and civil unions between same-sex couples.

Homosexuality on the island was decriminalized in the 1990s, although it did not immediately result in the end of police harassment. And since 2008, sex change operations have been offered free of charge.

In 1962, the United States decreed the blockade of Cuba. That was "a ferocious attempt at genocide," as Gabriel García Márquez, the writer who has best chronicled the period, described it.

"A period that has lasted up until today," Fidel informed me.

"The blockade is more than ever in force today, and with the aggravating factor at the present time, that it is constitutional law in the United States for the very fact that the president voted for it, the Senate did and the House of Representatives…"

The number of votes and its implementation could – or not – considerably alleviate the situation. But there it is…

"Yes, there is the interfering and pro-annexationist Helms-Burton Act…and the Torricelli Act, duly passed by the Congress of the United States.

"I very well remember Senator Helms on that day in 1996 when his initiative was passed. He was elated and repeated the aim of his plan to journalists:

"Castro has to leave Cuba. I don’t care how Castro leaves the country: whether he leaves in a vertical or horizontal position is up to them…but Castro has to leave Cuba."

"In 1962, when the United States decreed the blockade, Cuba soon found itself with the proof that it had nothing more than six million determined Cuban people on a luminous and undefended island…

Nobody, no country, could trade with Cuba; there couldn’t be any buying or selling; heaven help that country or company which did not submit to the commercial harassment decreed by the United States. What always struck me was that CIA boat patrolling territorial waters until just a few years ago, there to intercept boats carrying merchandise to the island.

The greatest problem, however, was always been that of medicines and food, which continues up until today. Even today, no food company is allowed to trade with Cuba, not even taking into account the importance of the volumes that the island would acquire or because Cuba is always obliged to pay cash in advance.

Condemned to death by starvation, the Cubans had to "invent life all over again from the beginning," as García Márquez said.

They developed a "technology of need" and an "economy of scarcity", he related: a whole "culture of solitude."

There is no sign of regret, far less of bitterness, when Fidel Castro admits that a large part of the world simply abandoned the island. On the contrary…

"The struggle, the battle that we had to fight led us to make greater efforts that perhaps we would have done without the blockade," said Fidel.

He recalled with a touch of pride, for example, the immense mass operation undertaken by five million young people, grouped together in the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs). In just one eight-hour day, they achieved a mass vaccination program throughout the country, eradicating illnesses such as polio and malaria.

Or when more than 250,000 literacy teachers – 100,000 of whom were children – took on the responsibility of teaching the majority of the adult population, who were unable to read and write.

But the "great leap" forward is, without any doubt, in medicine and biotechnology:

"They say that Fidel himself sent a team of scientists and doctors for training in Finland, who would subsequently be responsible for the production of medicines."

"The enemy used the bacteriological warfare against us. It brought the Dengue Virus 2 here. In pre-revolutionary Cuba, not even the Dengue Virus 1 was known here. The Virus 2 appeared here; it is much more dangerous because it produces a hemorrhagic dengue that attacks children above all.

"It came in via Boyeros. The counterrevolutionaries brought it, those same individuals who went around with Posada Carriles, the same ones who were pardoned by Bush, the same ones who planned the sabotage of the [Cubana] aircraft over Barbados…Those same people were given the task of introducing the virus," Fidel denounced.

"They blamed Cuba because they said that there were lots of mosquitoes on the island," I told him.

"And how were we not going to have them if the only way to get rid of them was with Abate (Temefos, an insecticide) and we couldn’t get Abate? Only the United States produced it," he revealed.

The Comandante’s face saddened:

"Our children began to die," he recalled. "We didn’t have anything with which to attack the disease. Nobody wanted to sell us medicines or the equipment to eradicate the virus. One hundred and fifty people died from that disease. Almost all of them were children…"

On "compassionate grounds," said the strong man of the Revolution. I confessed that I was confused…

Not exactly on compassionate grounds, rather in solidarity, some friends of Cuba resorted to doing precisely that. Fidel mentioned Mexico, the Echeverría family, Luis and María Esther who – although not in government at that time – were able to secure some equipment that allowed Cuba to alleviate the epidemic to a certain degree.

"We will never forget them," he said, visibly moved.

"You see," I told him, "Not all your relationships with figures from Mexico’s power elite have been negative or difficult…"

"Of course not," he said, before we drew the interview-conversation to a close and went to have lunch with his wife, Dalia Soto del Valle.

From that terraced area where he sits to reflect and analyze the world and life itself, Fidel raised a toast to "a world of the future with just one homeland."

"What does it mean that some of us are Spanish, others English, others African? And that some have more than others?

"The world of the future has to be a shared one, and the rights of human beings have to be above individual rights…And it is going to be a rich world, where rights are going to be exactly equal for everybody…"

"How is that going to be to achieved, Comandante?"