Reflections by Comrade Fidel

NATO’s FASCIST WAR

You didn’t have to be clairvoyant to foresee what I wrote with great detail in three Reflection Articles I published on the Cuba Debate website between February 21 and March 3: “The NATO Plan Is to Occupy Libya,” “The Cynical Danse Macabre,” and “NATO’s Inevitable War.”  Not even the fascist leaders of Germany and Italy were so blatantly shameless regarding the Spanish Civil War unleashed in 1936, an event that maybe a lot of people have been recalling over these past days.  Almost 75 years to the day have passed since then, but nothing that has happened over the last 75 centuries, or even 75 millenniums of human life on our planet can compare.

Sometimes it seems that those of us who serenely voice our opinions on these issues are exaggerating. I dare say that we have actually been naive to assume that we all should be aware of the deception or colossal ignorance that humanity has been dragged into.

In 1936 there was an intense clash between two systems and ideologies of more or less equal military power.

The arms back then seemed more like toys compared with today’s weapons. Humanity’s survival was not threatened despite the destructive power and the locally lethal force deployed. Entire cities and even nations could have been virtually destroyed. But never was the human race, in its totality, at risk of being exterminated several times over for the stupid and suicidal power developed by modern science and technology.

With these current realities in mind, it is embarrassing to read the continuous news reports on the use of powerful laser-guided rockets with 100% accuracy, fighter-bombers that go twice the speed of light, potent explosives that blow apart uranium-hardened metals that have an everlasting effect on the inhabitants and their descendants. 

Cuba stated its position regarding the internal situation in Libya at the meeting in Geneva. Without hesitating, Cuba defended the idea of a political solution to the conflict in Libya and was categorically opposed to any foreign military intervention.

In a world where the alliance between the United States and the developed capitalist powers of Europe increasingly take hold of the people’s resources and fruits of their labor, any honest citizen, whatever their standpoint to the government, would be opposed to a foreign military intervention in their country.

But most absurd about the current situation is the fact that before the brutal war broke out in Northern Africa, in another region of the world, nearly 10 000 kilometers away, a nuclear accident had occurred in one of the most populated areas of the world following a tsunami caused by a 9.0 earthquake, which has already cost a hard-working nation like Japan nearly 30 000 lives. Such accident would have not occurred 75 years before.

In Haiti, a poor and underdeveloped country, a nearly 7.0 quake according to the Richter scale, caused over 300 000 deaths, countless people wounded and hundreds of thousands harmed.

However, what was terribly tragic in Japan was the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant, whose consequences are still to be assessed.

I will only recall some of the main stories published by the news agencies:

ANSA.- Fukushima 1 nuclear plant is releasing “extremely high and potentially lethal radiations,” said Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the US nuclear entity.

 EFE.- The nuclear threat stemming from the serious situation at a Japanese plant, following the earthquake, has triggered security revisions in atomic plants around the world and has made some countries paralyze their plans.

Reuters.- Japan's devastating earthquake and deepening nuclear crisis could result in losses of up to $200 billion for Japanese economy, but the global impact remains hard to gauge.

EFE.- The deterioration of one reactor after another at Japan's Fukushima nuclear center continued to feed fears of a pending nuclear disaster as desperate attempts to control a radioactive leak did nothing to provide even a glimmer of hope.

AFP.- Japan´s Emperor Akihito expressed concern about the unpredictable character of the nuclear crisis hitting Japan following the quake and tsunami that killed thousands of people and left 500 000 homeless. New quake reported in the Tokyo area.

There are reports talking about even more concerning issues.

Some refer to the presence of toxic radioactive iodine in Tokyo’s drinking water, which doubles the tolerable amount that can be consumed by the smallest children in the Japanese capital. One of these reports says that the stocks of bottled water are shrinking in Tokyo, a city located in a prefecture at more than 200 kilometers from Fukushima.

This series of circumstances poses a dramatic situation on our world.

I can express freely my views on the war in Libya.

I do not share political or religious views with the leader of that country. I am a Marxist-Leninist and a follower of Marti, as I have already said.

I see Libya as a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and a sovereign State of the nearly 200 members of the United Nations.

Never, a large or small country, in this case with only 5 million inhabitants, was the victim of such a brutal attack  by the air force of a militaristic organization with thousands of fighter-bombers, more than 100 submarines, nuclear aircraft carriers, and sufficient arsenal to destroy the planet many times over.  Our species had never encountered this situation and there had been nothing similar 75 years ago, when the Nazi bombers attacked targets in Spain.

Now, however, the criminal and discredited NATO will write a "beautiful" little story about its "humanitarian" bombing.

If Gaddafi honors the traditions of his people and decides to fight to the last breath, as he has promised, together with the Libyans who are facing the worst bombing a country has ever suffered, NATO and its criminal projects will sink into the mire of shame.

The people respect and believe in men who fulfill their duty.

More than 50 years ago, when the United States killed more than a hundred Cubans with the explosion of merchant ship "La Coubre" our people proclaimed "Patria o Muerte." (Homeland or Death). They have fulfilled this, and have always been determined to keep their word.

"Anyone who tries to seize Cuba," said the most glorious fighter in our history-"will only gather the dust of her soil soaked in blood."

I beg you to excuse the frankness with which I address the issue.

Fidel Castro Ruz

28 March 2011

8:14 p.m.