Granma editorial on attacks on Cuba
News from Cuba | Thursday, 8 April 2010
We will defend the truth with our ethics and our principles
THE empire and its allies have launched a new crusade in an attempt to demonize Cuba. Its powerful political and media machinery has set in motion a colossal operation of deception with the object of discrediting the revolutionary process, destabilizing the country and provoking the conditions for the destruction of our social system.
In this heated campaign they are using their mercenaries at their whim. In order to obtain shameful political dividends they are tossing them to their deaths without the most minimal concern for those human beings; just as they have never cared about the death of more than 3,000 Cubans as a result of acts of terrorism organized and financed from the United States, or the fate of the 2,000-plus compatriots mutilated by those abominable acts, or citizens who have perished in the Strait of Florida having launched themselves on ill-fated adventures after the siren calls of the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act.
They are cynically invoking the human rights that they themselves have disregarded and are still disregarding with impunity today in diverse parts of the world. They are hypocritically accusing the Revolution of being responsible for the death of one person, a common prisoner who, thanks to the anti-Cuba campaigns and the abundant resources and means dedicated to that end, they have dressed up as a political prisoner, to be sacrificed to serving as the launch pad for the denigration of the nation that has made the greatest effort in the world to save lives, by sending tens of thousands of its selfless heath workers to cooperate in more than 100 countries.
The Revolution that did not hesitate for one second to offer its doctors to come to the aid of U.S. citizens in New Orleans and other southern cities in the devastating wake of Hurricane Katrina; the Revolution that has given higher education to young people who were unable to graduate in their own nations, including a number from the United States; the Revolution that has placed at international disposition an innovative literacy method that has made it possible for millions of people in various countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and Oceania to have access to the sacred human right of education and knowledge.
The Cuban Revolution has consistently acted on the basis of ethical, political and moral principles, following the teachings of Fidel. Respect for human beings is the essence of our system and has been one of the keys of popular support for the process since the heroic days of the Sierra Maestra, when the lives of enemy prisoners were always respected.
Despite the empire’s unvarying policy of hostility and constant aggression, ranging from armed invasion, terrorist acts of sabotage and attempts on the lives of Fidel and our leaders, to the promotion of subversion and a genocidal economic, commercial and financial blockade that has been in place for 50 years, the Revolution has never murdered, tortured or disappeared even one of its enemies.
Can the governments of the United States and the European countries that are shouting their heads off criticizing Cuba and condemning it as if they were vestal virgins, say the same thing? What can they say about the million dead in Iraq and the tens of thousands of victims in Afghanistan as a consequence of the illegal wars executed there? How can they explain the secret prisons and the torture of alleged terrorists? What is the legal basis for the selective assassinations that the United States has perpetrated against its enemies in various parts of the world with a special force headed during this period by the very same general who is now commanding the troops in Afghanistan? How can they justify the death in the last five years of more than 100 immigrants who were in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement?
What human right sustains the brutal blows dealt to representatives of social movements protesting during the Climate Summit in Copenhagen or Californian students demanding a larger budget for and less money taken out of education? Who is supervising the humiliating treatment meted out to immigrants in hundreds of detention centers scattered throughout Europe? Have the U.S. Congress or the European Parliament and the right-wing parties of Europe, currently so concerned about Cuba, responded with alarm to, denounced or condemned these scandalous violations of human rights?
What is really making them concerned is the moral fortitude of the Revolution, its fidelity to principles, its growing prestige in our region, where it has become an important actor in promoting the integration process; its intelligent and serene response to confronting the harsh consequences of the international economic crisis and the blockade; and its clarity in terms of having to change what has to be changed in pursuit of attaining full justice for our people, as we have been asked by Fidel and Raúl.
It is for that reason that the empire and its European allies are drawing up plans, coordinating the work of their special services, sending their diplomats onto the streets to monitor the work of their paid agents on the island, and increasing funds for subversion in Cuba. The USAID alone has a budget of $20 million this year to supply counterrevolutionary group and finance the media attack on Cuba.
They are currently focusing their cynical campaign on another hunger striker - whose common crimes and counterrevolutionary acts were exposed in Granma last March 8 - and who is being offered all the qualified medical treatment he requires.
They are internationalizing his show while maintaining a cynical silence concerning his cruelty and criminal record, his aggression and death threats to a doctor, the director of the hospital where he worked, and his attack on a defenseless elderly man who had to undergo emergency surgery as a result of the injuries he received.
They are likewise kicking up a fuss around the self-denominated Damas de Blanco (Women in White), who are lending themselves to the enemy’s game while supporting themselves with dollars stained with Cuban blood, supplied among others by the terrorist Santiago Alvarez Fernández Magriá, who attempted to blow up the Tropicana Cabaret and is the Miami benefactor of Luis Posada Carriles. Thus it is not surprising that the mastermind behind the sabotage of a Cubana de Aviación passenger plane and other execrable acts should have come out a few days ago in Miami to show his support for these "damas," whose only sanction to date has been the overwhelming and energetic repudiation of our people in the streets.
Receiving money from a terrorist organization is a felony that is severely punishable in the United States. So is acting in the service of a foreign power. The crimes of the so-called "dissidents" have nothing to do with freedom of expression, but are related to paid collaboration with the enemy superpower in its conspiracies against our nation. It is proven that all of them were in direct or indirect receipt of funds from the U.S. government and more than a few European foundations collaborating with the policy of war on Cuba.
What would happen to these "dissidents" if they acted in the country of their master in the same way they are in Cuba? The U.S. Penal Code sets out a sentence of 20 years for those who advocate the defeat of the government or the established order; 10 years for persons who make false statements with the aim of threatening national interests in relation to another nation, and three years for those who maintain "correspondence or relations with a foreign government" with the intention of influencing its conduct in relation to a conflict or controversy with the United States."
The enemy is using all its weapons of pressure. It is using political coercion and ordering the media annihilation of those wishing to show their solidarity with Cuba. It is attempting to silence any voice that is in discrepancy with its dictate. It has even forgotten the much-trumpeted "freedom of expression" by obliging Google to close the digital blog of a Cuban intellectual who has exposed with irrefutable arguments the real political propositions of the campaign against our homeland.
Nothing surprises us. They are the same perverse methods as those put into practice 50 years ago when President Eisenhower passed the Covert Action Plan against Cuba.
As compañero Raúl stated in the closing session of the 9th UJC Congress:
"More than half a century of permanent combat has taught our people that vacillation is synonymous with defeat."
"We will never yield to coercion from any country or group of nations, no matter how powerful they might be, and regardless of the consequences. We have the right to defend ourselves. Let them know that if they try to corner us, we will take cover, first and foremost with truth and principles. Once again we will be firm, calm, and patient. Our history is rich with such examples!"
We will make battle with our ideas, in our streets and in all international scenarios.
This May Day will receive an overwhelming and unequivocal response of support for the Revolution from our nation and its workers!
We will defend the truth with our ethics and our principles!
Translated by Granma International
