Cuba willing to save 3,000 U.S. lives
WHO
11, 2001
cuba is willing to save the lives of 3,000 poor people in the United
States in a brief period of five years, announced President Fidel
Castro, reading out a message addressed to U.S. President George W.
Bush.
Fidel made the proposal during a rally of more than 200,000 Cubans at
the José Martí Anti-imperialist Tribunal to reject the anti-Cuban
measures approved by the U.S. president.
Those 3,000 people from the United States could come to Cuba with an
accompanying relative and receive medical treatment absolutely free,
Fidel added.
"Would you be willing to concede permission to those citizens to
travel to Cuba for a program aimed at saving one life for each of
those lost during the atrocious attack on the Twin Towers?" he asked
Bush. And, he asked, if people accepted the offer and decided to come,
would they be punished?
"Show the world that there is an alternative to arrogance, war,
genocide, hate, selfishness, hypocrisy and lies," Fidel exclaimed.
After listing the advances achieved by Cuba in health care, education,
culture and other fields, the Cuban president stated that Bush should
be ashamed of trying to asphyxiate a people that – blockaded and
subjected to more than four decades of economic warfare, armed
aggression and terrorist action – has been capable of carrying out
such heroic feats.
"Are you trying to strangle the economy and threaten with war the
country that has already been able to attain the figure of 20,000
doctors currently offering their services in 64 Third World
countries?" Fidel asked. In spite of its possessing the resources of
the richest power on earth, the U.S. administration has not sent a
single doctor to the remotest parts of those countries, the way that
Cuba does, he added.
He also mentioned that the genocide represented by the deaths of more
than 10 million children every year and those of tens of millions of
people who could otherwise be saved, and die as a consequence of the
most diverse forms of plunder and robbery that Third World countries
are subjected to lies upon the conscience of the U.S. president and
those of the leaders of the richest countries.
In reference to Cuba, Fidel emphasized that Bush has allowed himself
to be carried away by the fanatical belief that his reelection in
November depends on the support of a well-known terrorist mafia of old
émigrés and their descendants, an significant percentage of whom
originate from the group of embezzlers and war criminals associated
with the Batista dictatorship who took refuge in the U.S., with their
overflowing booty and impunity from crime.
Others grew rich from the services they offered over many years in
acts of terrorism and aggression that have cost the Cuban people
dearly in blood, he added.
During another part of his speech, Fidel affirmed that the errors that
are leading Bush to his commitment to this mafia could be decisive –
in reverse – in the upcoming elections. "The U.S. people are already
fed up with the shameful influence that these groups exercise over the
foreign and domestic policies of such an important country. His
dependence on these groups will end up costing him a lot of votes, and
not just in Florida, but all over the country," he added.
By prohibiting people in the United States from visiting Cuba with
brutal threats of repression, Bush is violating the Constitutional
principle and right of those who have always felt proud of being
citizens of that country, Fidel stated.
Cuban-Americans are already thinking about promoting a protest vote,
he affirmed.
In addition, the worst of the ridiculous and blundering policy against
Cuba is that Bush and his advisors have brazenly declared their
intention of imposing by force what they qualify as transition policy
for Cuba, should his (Fidel's) death occur during the course of his
mandate. "A transition that –they do not hesitate to confess – they
will try to accelerate as much as possible," he said.
He said that perhaps the most shameful of all was to express that the
initial moments are decisive, given that the idea is to subsequently
prevent – at all costs – a new political and administrative leadership
from taking over the management of the country, "completely ignoring
the Cuban Constitution, the authority of the National Assembly and the
leadership of our Party, the functions of Constitutional law and all
the other institutions that the Cuban people have developed, as exist
everywhere else in the world."
Fidel emphasized that, given that the above could only be accomplished
by sending troops to occupy key parts of Cuba, an intention of
militarily intervening in the island is being proclaimed. He recalled
that on May 14, he had sent his salute to the role of Cesar as assumed
by Bush, taken from the gladiators who were forced to fight until the
death in the Roman circus, and reminded Bush that his march on Cuba
would not be at all easy.
"Our people will resist your economic measures, whatever they might
be," he affirmed. "The Cuban people today has the highest culture and
political awareness of any country in the world. It is not a fanatical
people, it is a people with ideas. It is not an illiterate or
semi-literate people. It is a people who are receiving higher
education at as mass level and are being universalized along with
their bravery and patriotism. We are millions of men and women with
the necessary weapons and more than 200,000 highly trained officers
and leaders who well know how to use them in conditions of modern
warfare, and an vast mass of combatants who equally know the strong
and weak points of those who threaten us."
Fidel warned that under Cuba's current conditions, in the event of an
invasion of Cuba, his own physical absence due to natural causes or
otherwise "would not harm in the slightest our capacity for struggle
and resistance."
In every political and military leader at every level, in every
individual soldier, there is a potential commander-in-chief who knows
what needs to be done, and in a given situation, each person could be
his or her own commander-in-chief.
"You could not count on one day, hour or minute, not even a second, to
prevent the political and military leadership of the country from
being immediately assumed. The orders for what should be done have
been given ahead of time. Every man and woman would be at their combat
post without losing a second."
Fidel reiterated what he had announced in his first message to Bush on
what he would do in circumstances like those mentioned, and proposed
that the U.S. president and his advisors should not invent any crazy
adventures like a surgical strike or wars of attrition using
sophisticated equipment, because events could slide out of control.
Undesirable things could occur, which would not be good for either the
Cuban or U.S. people. "They could destroy the migratory agreement,
they could provoke a mass exodus that we would be in no position to
stop, they could provoke total warfare between young U.S. soldiers and
the Cuban people, something that would be terribly sad. I can assure
you that you would never win such a war. You will not find a divided
people here, ethnic groups opposed to each other because of deep
religious differences, nor will you find traitor generals commanding
our troops," he affirmed.
"You will find a people that are solidly united, with a culture and
sentiment of solidarity, and with a social and human task that has no
historical precedent."
In concluding, Fidel affirmed that the Cuban people will never
renounce their independence, nor will they ever renounce their
political, social and economic ideals.
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/junio/lun21/26salvad.html
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