VENUE CHANGE! Reminder: Mar 6 Hemingway HOT Havana

The Hamilton Friendship Association with Cuba Proudly Presents:

Brian Gordon Sinclair’s Hemingway on Stage:
Hemingway’s HOT Havana

- A Fundraiser for Haiti Medical Relief -

Sunday, March 6, 2:30pm

Performance: 2:30pm-3:30pm

Wine & Cheese: 3:45pm-4:45pm

With special guest Dr. Keith Ellis, chair of the Cuba for Haiti Campaign, presenting his new book

First poet of the Americas: José María Heredia and 'Niágara Falls'.

All proceeds from book sales go directly to Haitian Medical Relief.


PLEASE NOTE THE VENUE CHANGE:

Artword Artbar 15 Colbourne St (at James North just south of Barton)

General Admission $15.00 / Student/Senior: $10.00 / Children

under 12: $8.00 / Pay what you can, no one refused entry!

Tickets are available at the door, by contacting us directly at info@cubacanada.org or at

Bryan Prince Bookseller (1060 King St. W. / (905) 528-4508)

Don’t miss Hamilton’s only performance of Hemingway's HOT Havana. All funds raised from this exciting performance will go to the Cuba for Haiti Campaign, which supports the important work of the Cuban medical relief workers in Haiti.

Hemingway's HOT Havana is a thoroughly entertaining play, which offers rare insight into the life and times of Ernest Hemingway, his time spent in Cuba and why he so loved the old city. It is a bold, rousing adventure tale brought to life by actor, director and master story-teller Brian Gordon Sinclair. Hemingway’s HOT Havana is a superb one actor show that will make you believe Hemingway is standing right there in front of you!

Brian Gordon Sinclair, author of Hemingway On Stage, is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada and holds a Master of Arts degree in Theatre from the University of Denver. He has also studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, England and at the National Film Board of Canada. Mr. Sinclair is currently writing a six-play series, Hemingway On Stage: The Road to Freedom. The first five plays have premiered at the Hemingway Days Festival in Key West, Florida and the sixth play of the series is currently under way. A recipient of the Sir Tyrone Guthrie Award for acting at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Mr. Sinclair has performed in Cuba, Denmark, England, Holland, Norway, Poland, Spain and the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia. He is now Artistic Director of Ontario’s “Children of Erin” Theatre Company. Mr. Sinclair is a proud dual citizen of Canada and Ireland.

About Cuban Medical Relief in Haiti

At the time of the earthquake in Haiti, 402 Cuban internationalists, 302 of them medical personnel, were already on the ground in Haiti providing free medical services. These, together with many of the 500 Haitian doctors who had been trained in Cuba free of charge formed the essential early group of lifesavers, attending to 1,102 Haitian patients in the first 24 hours after the earthquake. They have continued their work, boosted by an additional medical brigade which arrived promptly from Cuba. The Cubans do this work in Haiti purely in the spirit of helping their fellow human beings, without condition or expectation. All monies raised for the Cuba for Haiti Campaign goes directly to the relief and training efforts in Haiti. We believe that this kind of unprecedented and invaluable help which Cuba has been giving Haiti for twelve years deserves to be supported as strongly as possible! Join us to make this important work a success!

Same club led by a different smile and a different gender, Communists say

The new leader of the BC Liberal Party, Christy Clark, may be the only person in BC who believes that Gordon Campbell left the province in better shape at the time of his departure than it was in at his debut. Sam Hammond, provincial leader of the Communist Party points out that, “This is more than naiveté. It is a declaration of more of the same old, same old.”

“Christy Clark claims to put ‘Family First’ but her vision of family values nicely skips over unemployment, homelessness, child poverty, education cuts and impacts of privatization., points out Hammond. “Her vision of family does not include the working people”.

Despite having portrayed herself during the leadership campaign, as an outsider, Christy Clark played a leading role in the first draconian term of the Gordon Campbell Liberals.

Her term as Education Minister was marked with unprecedented conflict and chaos. “Christy Clark made attacking the BCTF one of her main priorities, Hammond points out. “The imposition of collective agreement on teachers is the most glaring example of her hostility.” Clark made legislative changes, and changed the funding formula – the result increased class sizes and decreased supports for all students, but particularly those with special needs. She not only froze education funding, but also announced the government would not pay for the teacher salary increases (agreed to by the previous NDP government). School Boards were forced to cover the increases, resulting in unprecedented cuts. ($25.5 million in Vancouver- Even future Liberal Cabinet Minister, Mary Polak, then a Surrey School Board trustee, expressed anger at Clark’s actions.) She was famous for a flurry of policy announcements that the Board were expected to implement with little or no notice.

Clark’s short term at Ministry of Children and Families, was similarly marked by chaos.

It should also not be forgotten that Christy Clark was Deputy Premier for the scandal-ridden sale of BC Rail. “Clark championed the give-a-way of the publicly owned BC Rail to private ownership”, Hammond stated, despite having helped write the Liberal election platform that promised not to sell BC Rail.” Christy Clark has repeatedly stated her rejected calls for an inquiry into the BC Rail scandal.

“She is not an outsider. She actively participated at the Cabinet table in some of the worst attacks on working families in the history BC – including tearing up labour agreements, reducing welfare, to presiding over one of the greatest transfers of wealth from the public coffers to private hands. It is clear from her record that the family that really comes first for Christy Clark is the ‘Coalition of Corporate Interest’, Hammond says. “The Liberal Party in British Columbia has not changed leadership. It is the same club led by a different smile and a different gender.”

Christy Clark has promised to move the HST referendum up to June 24th. “It is imperative for Labour and its allies – for all progressive voters in BC to give the first signal of resistance to the new Premier”, Hammond states. “Defeat the HST!”

For more information contact Sam Hammond

cpinfo.bc@gmail.com

NATO’S INEVITABLE WAR

Reflections by Comrade Fidel

NATO’S INEVITABLE WAR

In contrast with what is happening in Egypt and Tunisia, Libya occupies the first spot on the Human Development Index for Africa and it has the highest life expectancy on the continent. Education and health receive special attention from the State. The cultural level of its population is without a doubt the highest. Its problems are of a different sort. The population wasn’t lacking food and essential social services. The country needed an abundant foreign labour force to carry out ambitious plans for production and social development.

For that reason, it provided jobs for hundreds of thousands of workers from Egypt, Tunisia, China and other countries. It had enormous incomes and reserves in convertible currencies deposited in the banks of the wealthy countries from which they acquired consumer goods and even sophisticated weapons that were supplied exactly by the same countries that today want to invade it in the name of human rights.

The colossal campaign of lies, unleashed by the mass media, resulted in great confusion in world public opinion. Some time will go by before we can reconstruct what has really happened in Libya, and we can separate the true facts from the false ones that have been spread.

Serious and prestigious broadcasting companies such as Telesur, saw themselves with the obligation to send reporters and cameramen to the activities of one group and those on the opposing side, so that they could inform about what was really happening.

Communications were blocked, honest diplomatic officials were risking their lives going through neighbourhoods and observing activities, day and night, in order to inform about what was going on. The empire and its main allies used the most sophisticated media to divulge information about the events, among which one had to deduce the shreds of the truth.

Without any doubt, the faces of the young people who were protesting in Benghazi, men, and women wearing the veil or without the veil, were expressing genuine indignation.

One is able to see the influence that the tribal component still exercises on that Arab country, despite the Muslim faith that 95% of its population sincerely shares.

Imperialism and NATO – seriously concerned by the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world, where a large part of the oil is generated that sustains the consumer economy of the developed and rich countries – could not help but take advantage of the internal conflict arising in Libya so that they could promote military intervention. The statements made by the United States administration right from the first instant were categorical in that sense.

The circumstances could not be more propitious. In the November elections, the Republican right-wing struck a resounding blow on President Obama, an expert in rhetoric.

The fascist “mission accomplished” group, now backed ideologically by the extremists of the Tea Party, reduced the possibilities of the current president to a merely decorative role in which even his health program and the dubious economic recovery were in danger as a result of the budget deficit and the uncontrollable growth of the public debt which were breaking all historical records.

In spite of the flood of lies and the confusion that was created, the US could not drag China and the Russian Federation to the approval by the Security Council for a military intervention in Libya, even though it managed to obtain however, in the Human Rights Council, approval of the objectives it was seeking at that moment. In regards to a military intervention, the Secretary of State stated in words that admit not the slightest doubt: “no option is being ruled out”.

The real fact is that Libya is now wrapped up in a civil war, as we had foreseen, and the United Nations could do nothing to avoid it, other than its own Secretary General sprinkling the fire with a goodly dose of fuel.

The problem that perhaps the actors were not imagining is that the very leaders of the rebellion were bursting into the complicated matter declaring that they were rejecting all foreign military intervention.

Various news agencies informed that Abdelhafiz Ghoga, spokesperson for the Committee of the Revolution stated on Monday the 28th that “‘The rest of Libya shall be liberated by the Libyan people’”.

“We are counting on the army to liberate Tripoli’ assured Ghoga during the announcement of the formation of a ‘National Council’ to represent the cities of the country in the hands of the insurrection.”

“‘What we want is intelligence information, but in no case that our sovereignty is affected in the air, on land or on the seas’, he added during an encounter with journalists in this city located 1000 kilometres to the east of Tripoli.”

“The intransigence of the people responsible for the opposition on national sovereignty was reflecting the opinion being spontaneously manifested by many Libyan citizens to the international press in Benghazi”, informed a dispatch of the AFP agency this past Monday.

That same day, a political sciences professor at the University of Benghazi, Abeir Imneina, stated:

“There is very strong national feeling in Libya.”

“‘Furthermore, the example of Iraq strikes fear in the Arab world as a whole’, she underlined, in reference to the American invasion of 2003 that was supposed to bring democracy to that country and then, by contagion, to the region as a whole, a hypothesis totally belied by the facts.”

The professor goes on:

“‘We know what happened in Iraq, it’s that it is fully unstable and we really don’t want to follow the same path. We don’t want the Americans to come to have to go crying to Gaddafi’, this expert continued.”

“But according to Abeir Imneina, ‘there also exists the feeling that this is our revolution, and that it is we who have to make it’.”

A few hours after this dispatch was printed, two of the main press bodies of the United States, The New York Times and The Washington Post, hastened to offer new versions on the subject; the DPA agency informs on this on the following day, March the first: “The Libyan opposition could request that the West bomb from the air strategic positions of the forces loyal to President Muamar al Gaddafi, the US press informed today.”

“The subject is being discussed inside the Libyan Revolutionary Council, ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The Washington Post’ specified in their online versions.”

“‘The New York Times’ notes that these discussions reveal the growing frustration of the rebel leaders in the face of the possibility that Gaddafi should retake power”.

“In the event that air actions are carried out within the United Nations framework, these would not imply international intervention, explained the council’s spokesperson, quoted by The New York Times”.

“The council is made up of lawyers, academics, judges and prominent members of Libyan society.”

The dispatch states:

“‘The Washington Post’ quoted rebels acknowledging that, without Western backing, combat with the forces loyal to Gaddafi could last a long time and cost many human lives.”

It is noteworthy that in that regard, not one single worker, peasant or builder is mentioned, not anyone related to material production or any young student or combatant among those who take part in the demonstrations. Why the effort to present the rebels as prominent members of society demanding bombing by the US and NATO in order to kill Libyans?

Some day we shall know the truth, through persons such as the political sciences professor from the University of Benghazi who, with such eloquence, tells of the terrible experience that killed, destroyed homes, left millions of persons in Iraq without jobs or forced them to emigrate.

Today on Wednesday, the second of March, the EFE Agency presents the well-known rebel spokesperson making statements that, in my opinion, affirm and at the same time contradict those made on Monday: “Benghazi (Libya), March 2. The rebel Libyan leadership today asked the UN Security Council to launch an air attack ‘against the mercenaries’ of the Muamar el Gaddafi regime.”

“‘Our Army cannot launch attacks against the mercenaries, due to their defensive role’, stated the spokesperson for the rebels, Abdelhafiz Ghoga, at a press conference in Benghazi.”

“‘A strategic air attack is different from a foreign intervention which we reject’, emphasized the spokesperson for the opposition forces which at all times have shown themselves to be against a foreign military intervention in the Libyan conflict”.

Which one of the many imperialist wars would this look like?

The one in Spain in 1936? Mussolini’s against Ethiopia in 1935? George W. Bush’s against Iraq in the year 2003 or any other of the dozens of wars promoted by the United States against the peoples of the Americas, from the invasion of Mexico in 1846 to the invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982?

Without excluding, of course, the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs, the dirty war and the blockade of our Homeland throughout 50 years, that will have another anniversary next April 16th.

In all those wars, like that of Vietnam which cost millions of lives, the most cynical justifications and measures prevailed.

For anyone harbouring any doubts, about the inevitable military intervention that shall occur in Libya, the AP news agency, which I consider to be well-informed, headlined a cable printed today which stated: “The NATO countries are drawing up a contingency plan taking as its model the flight exclusion zones established over the Balkans in the 1990s, in the event that the international community decides to impose an air embargo over Libya, diplomats said”.

Further on it concludes: “Officials, who were not able to give their names due to the delicate nature of the matter, indicated that the opinions being observed start with the flight exclusion zone that the western military alliance imposed over Bosnia in 1993 that had the mandate of the Security Council, and with the NATO bombing in Kosovo in 1999, THAT DID NOT HAVE IT”.

To be continued tomorrow.




Fidel Castro Ruz

March 2, 2011

8:19 p.m.

Cuba: no war on Libya

Statement by Cuba's Minister of Foreign Affairs to the UN Human Rights Council, Geneva, March 1, 2011

Mr. President:

Humanity’s conscience is repulsed by the deaths of innocent people under any circumstances, anyplace. Cuba fully shares the worldwide concern for the loss of civilian lives in Libya and hopes that its people are able to reach a peaceful and sovereign solution to the civil war occurring there, with no foreign interference, and can guarantee the integrity of that nation.

Most certainly the Libyan people oppose any foreign military intervention, which would delay an agreement even further and cause thousands of deaths, displacement and enormous injury to the population.

Cuba categorically rejects any attempt whatsoever to take advantage of the tragic situation created in order to occupy Libya and control its oil.

It is noteworthy that the voracity for oil, not peace or the protection of Libyan lives, is the motivation inciting the political forces, primarily conservative, which today, in the United States and some European countries, are calling for a NATO military intervention in Libyan territory. Nor does it appear that objectivity, accuracy or a commitment to the truth are prevailing in part of the press, reports being used by media giants to fan the flames.

Given the magnitude of what is taking place in Libya and the Arab world, in the context of a global economic crisis, responsibility and a long-term vision should prevail on the part of governments in the developed countries. Although the goodwill of some could be exploited, it is clear that a military intervention would lead to a war with serious consequences for human lives, especially the millions of poor who comprise four fifths of humanity.

Despite the paucity of some facts and information, the reality is that the origins of the situation in North Africa and the Middle East are to be found within the crisis of the rapacious policy imposed by the United States and its NATO allies in the region. The price of food has tripled, water is scarce, the desert is growing, poverty is on the rise and with it, repugnant social inequality and exclusion in the distribution of the opulent wealth garnered from oil in the region.

The fundamental human right is the right to life, which is not worth living without human dignity.

The way in which the right to life is being violated should arouse concern. According to various sources, more than 111 million people have perished in armed conflicts during modern wars. It cannot be forgotten in this room that, if in World War I civilian deaths amounted to 5% of total casualties, in the subsequent wars of conquest after 1990, basically in Iraq, with more than one million, and Afghanistan with more than 70,000, the deaths of innocents stand at 90%. The proportion of children in these figures is horrific and unprecedented.

The concept of "collateral damage," an offense to human nature, has been accepted in the military doctrine of NATO and the very powerful nations.

In the last decade, humanitarian international law has been trampled, as is occurring on the U.S. Guantánamo Naval Base, which usurps Cuban territory.

As a consequence of those wars, global refugee figures have increased by 34%, to more than 26 million people.

Military spending increased by 49% in the decade, to reach $1.5 trillion, more than half of that figure in the United States alone. The industrial-military complex continues producing wars.

Every year, 740,000 human beings die, not only on account of conflicts, but as victims of violent acts associated with organized crime.

In one European country, a woman dies every five days as a result of domestic violence. In the countries of the South, half a million mothers die in childbirth every year.

Every day, 29,000 children die of hunger and preventable diseases. In the minutes that I have been speaking, no less than 120 children have died. Four million perish in their first month of life. In total, 11 million children die every year.

There are 100,000 deaths a day from causes related to malnutrition, adding up to 35 million a year.

In Hurricane Katrina alone, in the most developed country in the world, 1,836 people died, almost all of them African Americans of few resources. In the last two years, 470,000 people died throughout the world as a result of natural disasters, 97% of them of low income.

In the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti alone, more than 250,000 people died, almost all of them resident in very poor homes. The same thing occurred with homes swept away by excessive rainfall in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in Brazil.

If the developing countries had infant and maternal mortality rates like those of Cuba, 8.4 million children and 500,000 mothers would be saved annually. In the cholera epidemic in Haiti, Cuban doctors are treating almost half of the patients, with a mortality rate five times lower than those being treated by physicians from other countries. Cuban international medical cooperation has made it possible to save more than 4.4 million lives in dozens of countries in four continents.

Human dignity is a human right. Today, 1.4 billion people are living in extreme poverty. There are 1.2 billion hungry people, and a further two billion are suffering from malnutrition. There are 759 million illiterate adults.

Mr. President:

The Council has demonstrated its capacity for approaching human rights situations in the world, including those of an urgent nature which require attention and action on the part of the international community. The usefulness of the Universal Periodic Review, as a means of sustaining international cooperation, of evaluating the undertakings of all countries without distinction in this context has been confirmed.

The spirit which animated our actions during the review process of this body was to preserve, improve and strengthen this Council in its function of effectively promoting and protecting all human rights for everyone.

The results of this exercise express a recognition of the Council's important achievements in its short existence. While it is true that the agreements reached are insufficient in the light of the demands of developing countries, the body has been preserved from those whose aim was to reform it to their convenience in order to satisfy hegemonic appetites and to resuscitate the past of confrontation, double standards, selectivity and imposition.

It is to be hoped from the debates of the last few days that this Human Rights Council will continue constructing and advancing its institutionalism toward the full exercise of its mandate.

It would be very negative if, on the pretext of reviewing the Council's institutional construction and in abuse of the dramatic juncture which is being discussed, it should be manipulated and pressured in an opportunist way in order to establish precedents and modify agreements.

If the essential human right is the right to life, will the Council be ready to suspend the membership of states that unleash a war?

Is the Council proposing to make some substantial contribution to eliminating the principal threat to the life of the human species which is the existence of enormous arsenals of nuclear weapons, an infinitesimal part of which, or the explosion of 100 warheads, would provoke a nuclear winter, according to irrefutable scientific evidence?

Will it establish a thematic procedure on the impact of climate change in the exercise of human rights and proclaim the right to a healthy atmosphere?

Will it suspend states which finance and supply military aid utilized by recipient states for mass, flagrant and systematic violations of human rights and for attacks on the civilian population, like those taking place in Palestine?

Will it apply that measure against powerful countries which are perpetrating extra-judicial executions in the territory of other states with the use of high technology, such as smart bombs and drone aircraft?

What will happen to states which accept secret illegal prisons in their territories, facilitate the transit of secret flights with kidnapped persons aboard, or participate in acts of torture?

Can the Council adopt a declaration on the right of peoples to peace?

Will it adopt an action program that includes concrete commitments guaranteeing the right to alimentation in a moment of food crisis, spiraling food prices and the utilization of cereal crops to produce biofuels?

Mr. President:

Distinguished Ministers and Delegates:

What measures will this Council adopt against a member state which is committing acts that are causing grave suffering and seriously endangering physical or mental integrity, such as the blockade of Cuba, typified as genocide in Article 2, Paragraphs B and C, of the 1948 Geneva Convention?

Thank you very much.

Translated by Granma International

WFDY News - February 2011

The bullettin of WFDY, WFDY NEWS, is back!

Following some months of a short stop, due to the huge tasks connected to the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students, the bullettin could not be published, but now its back!

This issue is dedicated to the Festival, with the publication for the first time of the veredict of the Anti-imperialist Court, a text dedicated to WFDY 18th Assembly and another to the 65th Anniversary of WFDY, and some elements on the situation in the Middle East and the struggles develloped by the youth in several countries.

Check it out, by clicking here!

CLC Statement on International Women's Day

The Canadian Labour Congress has released a statement on International Womenes Day available here.

On the situation in Libya

The World Federation of Democratic Youth has watched the recent developments in and about Libya with deep concern and alarm.It is terrible for WFDY that the answer to the Libyan people demands and street demonstrations has been repression and, in many cases, death of the protestors.
This deserves from us our full condemnation as it is unacceptable and represents a violation of the basic rights of expression and freedom of association, inherent to all peoples of the world.

At the same time, it is for WFDY alarming that, under these circumstances, the imperialist powers (USA and EU) gathered in NATO have launched, through the dominating media, a campaign to justify an external intervention in that country, under the pretext of “defending the protestors’ rights.”

In this moment, it is important to underline that never NATO or any of its members cared when in Yemen or Bahrain (allies of the imperialist powers) brutally represses the protesters in those countries. Furthermore, it is a total hypocrisy that those same countries (particularly in EU) with high level relation with the government of Libya are now pretending to be historical enemies of Khadafi ruling of the country.

In this situation, WFDY calls for a peaceful understanding between all parts inside Libya and totally rejects any sort any sort of exterior interference, particularly, any sort of military intervention, as we believe that only the Libyan people is able to solve its own problems and an intervention from NATO or any military block could only mean death and stealing of resources, as happened in Iraq or Afghanistan.

THE NATO PLAN IS TO OCCUPY LIBYA

Reflections by Comrade Fidel

THE NATO PLAN IS TO OCCUPY LIBYA

Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world. It was their main weapon when they decided to easily liquidate the Cuban Revolution as soon as the first just and sovereign laws were passed in our Homeland: depriving it of oil.

Upon this energy source today’s civilization was developed. Venezuela was the nation in this hemisphere that paid the highest price. The United States became the lord and master of the huge oil fields that Mother Nature had bestowed upon that sister country.

At the end of the last World War, it started to extract greater amounts of oil from the oil fields of Iran, as well as those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Arab countries located around them. These became the main suppliers. World consumption progressively increased to the fabulous figure of approximately 80 million barrels a day, including those being extracted on United States territory, to which later gas, hydro and nuclear energies were added. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, coal had been the basic source of energy that made industrial development possible, before billions of automobiles and engines consuming the liquid fuel were produced.

The squandering of oil and gas is associated with one of the greatest tragedies, not in the least resolved, which is suffered by humankind: climate change.

When our Revolution arose, Algeria, Libya and Egypt were not yet oil producers and a great part of the abundant reserves of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and the United Arab Emirates were still to be discovered.

In December of 1951, Libya becomes the first African country to attain its independence after WW II, during which its territory was the stage for important battles between the troops of Germany and the United Kingdom, conferring fame and glory on Generals Erwin Rommel and Bernard L. Montgomery.

Ninety-five percent of its territory is completely made up of desert. Technology permitted the discovery of vital oilfields of excellent quality light oil that today reach one million 800 thousand barrels a day along with abundant deposits of natural gas. Such riches allowed it to reach life expectancy that is almost at 75 years of age and the highest per capita income in Africa. Its harsh desert is located over an enormous lake of fossil waters, equivalent to more than three times the land area of Cuba; this has made it possible to construct a broad network of pipelines of fresh water that stretch from one end of the country to the other.

Libya, which had a million inhabitants when it attained independence, today has somewhat more than 6 million.

The Libyan Revolution took place in the month of September of the year 1969. Its main leader was Muammar al-Gaddafi, a soldier of Bedouin origin who, in his early years, was inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Without any doubt, many of his decisions are associated with the changes that were produced when, as in Egypt, a weak and corrupt monarchy was overthrown in Libya.

The inhabitants of that country have age-old warrior traditions. It is said that ancient Libyans were a part of Hannibal’s army when he was at the point of destroying Ancient Rome with the troops that crossed the Alps.

One can agree with Gaddafi or not. The world has been invaded with all kinds of news, especially using the mass media. One has to wait the necessary length of time in order to learn precisely what is the truth and what are lies, or a mixture of events of every kind that, in the midst of chaos, were produced in Libya. For me, what is absolutely clear is that the government of the United States is not in the least worried about peace in Libya and it will not hesitate in giving NATO the order to invade that rich country, perhaps in a matter of hours or a few short days.

Those who with perfidious intentions invented the lie that Gaddafi was headed for Venezuela, just as they did yesterday afternoon on Sunday the 20th of February, today received an fitting response from Foreign Affairs Minister Nicolás Maduro when he literally stated that he was “wishing that the Libyan people would find, in the exercise of their sovereignty, a peaceful solution to their difficulties, that would preserve the integrity of the Libyan people and nation, without the interference of imperialism...”

As for me, I cannot imagine that the Libyan leader would abandon his country; escaping the responsibilities he is charged with, whether or not they are partially or totally false.
An honest person shall always be against any injustice being committed against any people in the world, and the worst of all, at this moment, would be to remain silent in the face of the crime that NATO is getting ready to commit against the Libyan people.

The leadership of that war-mongering organization has to do it. We must condemn it!

Fidel Castro Ruz
February 21, 2011
10:14 p.m.

THE CYNICAL DANSE MACABRE

Reflections by Comrade Fidel

THE CYNICAL DANSE MACABRE

The policy of plundering imposed by the United States and their NATO allies in the Middle East has gone into a crisis. It has inevitably unravelled with the high cost of grains, the effects of which can be felt more forcefully in the Arab countries where, in spite of their huge resources of oil, the shortage of water, areas covered by desert and the generalized poverty of the people contrast with the enormous resources coming from the oil possessed by the privileged sectors.

While food prices triple, real estate fortunes and the treasures of the aristocratic minority reach millions of millions of dollars.

The Arab world, mainly Muslim in its culture and beliefs, has seen itself additionally humiliated by the imposition of blood and fire by a State that was not capable of fulfilling the basic obligations that were part of their origin, from the colonial order existing up to the end of WW II, by virtue of which the victorious powers created the United Nations Organization and imposed world trade and economy.

Thanks to the treason committed by Anwar El-Sadat at Camp David, the Palestinian State has not been able to exist, despite the UN treaties of November 1947, and Israel became a strong nuclear power, an ally of the United States and NATO.

The US Military Industrial Complex supplied Israel with tens of billions of dollars every year as well as to the very Arab States that were submitted and being humiliated by Israel.
The genie has escaped from the bottle and NATO doesn’t know how to control it.
They are going to attempt to wrest the most benefits from the regrettable events in Libya. Nobody can know at this moment what is happening over there. All the figures and versions, even the most implausible ones, have been spread by the empire via the mass media, sowing chaos and disinformation.

It is obvious that inside Libya a civil war is brewing. Why and how did this happen? Who will pay the consequences? Reuters Agency, echoing the opinion of the well-known Nomura Bank of Japan, stated that oil prices could go beyond any limits:

“‘If Libya and Algeria suspend oil production, prices could reach a maximum of more than 220 dollars a barrel and OPEC’s inactive capacity would be reduced to 2.1 million barrels per day, similar to levels seen during the Gulf War and when values touched 147 dollars a barrel in 2008’, the bank asserted in an article.”

Who could pay that price these days? What would be the consequences in the midst of the food crisis?

The main NATO leaders are all worked up. British Prime Minister David Cameron, ANSA informed, “…admitted in a speech in Kuwait that the western nations made a mistake in backing non-democratic governments in the Arab world.” One has to congratulate him on his frankness.
His French colleague Nicolas Sarkozy stated: “The extended brutal and bloody repression of the Libyan civilian population is disgusting”.

Italian Chancellor Franco Frattini stated as “‘believable’ the figure of one thousand dead in Tripoli […] ‘the tragic numbers shall be a bloodbath’.”

Hillary Clinton stated the following: “…the ‘bloodbath’ is ‘completely unacceptable’ and ‘it has to stop’…”

Ban Ki-moon spoke: “‘The use of violence in the country is absolutely unacceptable’.”
“…‘the Security Council will act according to whatever the international community decides’.”
“‘We are considering a series of options’.”

What Ban Ki-moon is really hoping is that Obama pronounces the last word.
The president of the United States spoke this Wednesday afternoon and stated that the Secretary of State would be leaving for Europe in order to agree with their NATO allies on the measures to be taken. On his face once could note the opportunity to spar with John McCain, the far-right-wing Republican senator, pro-Israel Senator Joseph Lieberman from Connecticut and the leaders of the Tea Party, in order to ensure the Democratic Party demands.

The empire’s mass media has prepared the terrain for action. There would be nothing strange about a military intervention in Libya; besides, with that, Europe would be guaranteed almost two million barrels of light oil per day, unless before that events would put an end to the leadership or the life of Gaddafi.

Anyway, Obama’s role is rather complicated. What will the reaction of the Arab and Muslim world be if blood should flow in abundance in that country as a result of that exploit? Would NATO intervention in Libya stem the revolutionary tidal wave surging in Egypt?

In Iraq, the innocent blood of more than a million Arab citizens was spilt when the country was invaded under false pretexts. Mission accomplished!: proclaimed George W. Bush.

Nobody in the world would ever agree with the deaths of defenceless civilians in Libya or anywhere else. And I wonder: will the US and NATO apply that principle on the defenceless civilians that the unmanned Yankee planes and the soldiers of that organization kill every day in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
It is a cynical danse macabre.


Fidel Castro Ruz
February 23, 2011.
7:42 p.m.